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OLTP systems provide source data to data warehouses, whereas OLAP systems help to analyze it. OLAP provides information that helps decision making.

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is a system where it monitors, collects, stores, modifies and retrieves data and is accessible to multiple users. includes OLTP --> online payments, real time transactions (visa, masters).
there are advantages like efficiency and disadvantages like customer's confidence in using this system

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TRANSACTION PROCESSING SYSTEM
Transactions involves basic business operations such as payroll checks, employee records, customers orders, purchase orders and reservations. On the other hand, Transaction Processing System (TPS) refers to a computerized system which performs and records daily transaction necessary to the conduct of business. Transaction Processing System (TPS) can be defined as follows :

A TPS must comforms few requirements to enable users to use the system effectively. The requirements are as follows :

Transaction processing applications must be accessible to multiple users at one time. When multiple users access the database at the same time, the database has to be protected from errors due to overlapping updates. Therefore, the database must have a high reliability. Next, the database offers a rapid response upon a large volume of requests and updates. Fast performance and interactive interface will contribute to a favorable access. A database has to feature a high availability and minimal down-time.

TPS processes the data in one of two basic ways which are known as batch processing and online transaction processing. With batch transaction processing, the system gathers transaction over a period of time and processes the all at once. Meanwhile, with real online transaction processing, transaction are processed online immediately as soon as they occur.

Batch processing transaction

A system whereby business transaction are accumulated over a period of time and prepared for processing as a single unit or batch.

Example: Manufacturing product , supply chain , salaries.

On-Line Transaction Processing (OLTP)

A system whereby each transaction is processed immediately, without the delay of accumulating transaction into a batch.

i) Mostly in online shopping

ii) Uses PCI cards (Payment Card Industry: Mastercard ,Visa , Maestro,

American Express, Discover )

iii) Paypal or WorldPay , WePay , eWay , ICEPAY.

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES

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TRANSACTION PROCESSING SYSTEM Transactions involves basic business operations such as payroll checks, employee records, customers orders, purchase orders and reservations. On the other hand, Transaction Processing System (TPS) refers to a computerized system which performs and records daily transaction necessary to the conduct of business.

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Allows businesses to track the history of a customer's phone calls, emails sent etc. This kind of information tracking allows the business to have the customer's relevant information at their fingertips so that they can provide the most appropriate and up to date service possible. Therefore with such an efficient customer data system, the business will be able to grasp every opportunity at growing customer accounts.

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includes several core services like Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, Amazon Simple Storage and Amazon Relational Database Service and many more. this system can provision virtual instances in minutes, which enables the business regularly add new features to its websites. This system is predicted to bring new products to market up to three times faster than their past systems.

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ZALORA managed to minimize its investment in technical personnel and resources with the help of AWS. Of its 1,500 employees, less than 150 are engineers. The ability to provision virtual instances in minutes helps enable the business to regularly add new features to its websites.

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This video shows how consumers can easily download the app and I realised that through the use of social media like YouTube Zalora can appeal to a much wider audience.

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Download the new ZALORA App: Asia's Best Shopping Companion

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Take ZALORA with you everywhere you go! Download the new ZALORA App on the Apple Store and Google Play - all your favourite brands and latest trends in one app!

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This tells us about how Zalora started out. I learned  how its possible for even e commerce to  eventually expand all over Asia, even without any physical stores and managed to be successful.
As e-commerce gets more popular nowadays since there is no need for physical stores and customers can shop from the comfort of their homes.From this, I learnt that it will become increasingly popular and expand even further once the public gains trust in this kind of shopping and gains more exposure over time.

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In late 2011, Rocket Internet launched Zalora in the Philippines to sell clothing, shoes and other apparel. In 2014, Zalora's net revenue was 117 million euros while its net losses were 68.1 million. At the same time its gross merchandise value increased 80%, transactions increased 90% and its customers doubled.

Today Zalora operates in Australia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Taiwan. I met up with Tito Costa, Zalora's Managing Director, to learn more about his projections on how the region will evolve.

What are the major factors driving the region's appeal for you?
Asia contains 60% of the world's population and Southeast Asia alone has an audience of 600 million, making it a huge market to tap into. Furthermore, the region is poised to be one of the world's fastest growing markets for e-commerce, with online spending to hit USD 35 billion (SGD 46.3 billion) by 2020. Despite the market landscape being very fragmented and still in its infancy, we cannot ignore the opportunity to convert these traditional shoppers, who buy goods from brick-and-mortar stores, into e-consumers. Furthermore, the economy is constantly growing and markets like Singapore and Hong Kong have proven to be strong economic performers.

Would you be able to share any figures to illustrate how rapidly your e-commerce business in Asia has grown?
When Zalora started, we only had 20 employees and today, we have over 2,000 employees with a presence in nine different markets, making us Asia Pacific's leading group of online fashion destinations. Our digital presence has grown exponentially as well, having tripled our fan base on Facebook from 2 million in 2013 to almost 6 million last year. In 2014, our mobile application was downloaded close to 5 million times. Last December, we organised "12.12 Online Fever", Southeast Asia's biggest cyber sale event, involving 144 partners from 28 industries, and shipped over half a million products to our customers. We're doing it again this year with old and new partners and it will be bigger than last year's run.

What would you identify as the major trends right now that are shaping the future of Asia's eCommerce industry?
One of the biggest trends would be mobility. Consumers are starting to demand a more seamless shopping experience across different channels and devices. These transumers are always on their mobile and are making purchasing decisions while commuting from place to place. In order to remain relevant and competitive in this ever-changing landscape, retailers need to be present in all the different touch points, to capture the transumers' attention.

As an online fashion retailer, we achieve this by partnering with messaging apps like LINE, Viber and WEChat, or by enabling interactive shopping via QR codes displayed in train stations.

But that is not enough. Just as how shoppers are demanding for a seamless shopping experience, they are also becoming more sophisticated with their expectations of an online retailer. Hence, impeccable customer service, characterized by efficiency and ease of use, is also necessary for online businesses to survive.

In our digitised society, the rate at which we consume media is also peaking. Online retailers need to communicate their fashion proposition and establish their authority in curating styles. e-commerce sites are now becoming shoppable magazines with content and visuals that can rival online fashion magazines. And on the other end of the spectrum, print magazines are also going online to stay relevant and monetize their content through partnerships with e-commerce sites.

What are the industry's biggest challenges in Asia going forward, and what steps are you taking to overcome them?
One of the biggest challenges e-commerce businesses face in Asia, compared to the US or Europe, is a lack of logistics and payment infrastructure. We have expanded our in-house fleet to ensure a world-class customer experience - from the first click to when the customer receives the package.

On the payment front, we offer cash on delivery - to allow people who don't have a credit card or don't feel yet comfortable paying online.

Secondly, the Asian markets are extremely fragmented, with vastly different tastes, cultures, trends in each country. For Zalora, we believe that if we want to have a significant presence in a market, we had to invest time and effort to better understand local situations and context. And we addressed this by having on-the-ground marketing, warehouse and production teams in each local market, so that we can reach out to as many potential customers as possible.

E-commerce firms are fast becoming Asia's next retail titans. How do you think the current competitive landscape will play out, do you see eventually a few big firms gaining and maintaining dominance in the Asian market? Or what is the most likely scenario you envision?
E-commerce in the region is still in its infancy stage, with so much untapped potential. As the market grows, more capital from local and international investors will flow into the region to capture those opportunities, as we have recently witnessed in a few markets, most notably Indonesia.

We would expect these capital flows to ignite further market growth, wider consumer education around shopping online and faster e-commerce adoption. In our view we are still a few years away from a consolidation wave that will probably be triggered by slower growth rates down the road.

Eventually, internet businesses show strong winner-takes-all dynamics that will favour concentration of most value in few category leaders (one marketplace player, one fashion player, one classifieds player, etc). For now, it appears that regional players have gained a significant first-mover advantage in their respective vertical and underdeveloped logistics infrastructure, low electronic payment adoption and market fragmentation represent meaningful barriers to entry.

In general, what is your outlook for e-commerce in Asia over the next 5-10 years, and what factors are underlying your prediction?
The uniqueness of the Asian landscape is e-commerce's opportunity to leapfrog traditional retail, especially in second and third tier cities where offline retail infrastructure is less developed, and represent a much larger share of the total retail market than in western markets. Secular demographics and income growth trends will strengthen the shift, as many young shoppers will experience retail first online, probably on their mobile phones.

A second trend that we see is that the experimentation of traditional retailers with online shopping and vice-versa online players are testing pop-up stores and digital showroom concepts, may lead to a convergence towards a new omnichannel digital-first retail, putting together the best of the two worlds for an optimal customer experience. In our view, the lack of pre-existing retail infrastructure in many Asian geographies will make this convergence process faster than it was in Europe or the US.

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In late 2011, Rocket Internet launched Zalora in the Philippines to sell clothing, shoes and other apparel. In 2014, Zalora's net revenue was 117 million euros while its net losses were 68.1 million. At the same time its gross merchandise value increased 80%, transactions increased 90% and its customers doubled.

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Take ZALORA with you everywhere you go! Download the new ZALORA App on the Apple Store and Google Play - all your favourite brands and latest trends in one app!

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This tells us about how the stocks and what goes on inside the warehouse when an item is being ordered online. From this, we will be able to get better insight as to how Zalora does their business and how the inventory is managed.
I also learned that this type of information system is especially helpful for businesses  It gives them information on how to better cater to their customers even though this may unimportant but behind the scenes work is also important

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Company Profile ZALORA Indonesia was the largest online fashion shopping centre in Indonesia that can answer the needs of men's fashion, women's fashion, and child fashion by offering brands leading, both locally and internationally. ZALORA provides products that always follow the latest fashion trend that gives many options to improve customer's appearance.

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Zalora is a fashion based ecommerce website that provides users with a wide variety of options of clothings and accessories from different brands such as ALDO, FOSSIL etc. Equipped with services that make shopping simple such as membership, fast deliver and exchange policy.

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Zalora, founded in 2012, is leading the internet fashion industry webs in Southeast Asia. It is Asia's fastest growing fashion based e-commerce website. Zalora is Singapore's ASOS (Britain online retailer) operating in 8 countries including Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines and Brunei. It offers a wide collection of more than 500 national and international designers and brands. Customers can market from hundreds and thousands of goods across women's and men's fashion apparel, accessories, shoes, bags and beauty products online. ViSenze visual technology allows Zalora to ensure customer satisfaction that they have an equal or even better shopping experience to that of offline users in terms of product colour, size, shape, style and other attributes. Patrick Steinbrenner Regional Director at Zalora South East Asia says: "ViSenze truly espouses a blend of innovation and smart technology. The ViSearch product is simple to understand, easy to use and delivers the results we need."

Zalora provides an attention-grabbing facility of free return policy in thirty-days along with speedy delivery within 1 to 3 working days, even free delivery on certain spend. For customer easiness, it introduces multiple payment methods like PayPal, MasterCard, VISA, CIMB Clicks and Cash on delivery. At Zalora, shopping is easy and affordable; a team of professional consultants is available 24 hours per day for customer support. According to the company's report it has experienced "stellar sales records."
History
Zalora, being a part of Zalora Group, was established in late 2011 or early 2012 by Rocket Internet GmbH; it is Asia Pacific's top group of online fashion retailers with The Iconic in New Zealand and Australia. Zalora's managing director Michele Ferrario says: "Our company is one of the fastest growing e-commerce companies in Southeast Asia and has bright prospects. "It is an honor for us that investors of such great repute have invested into an e-commerce company as young as Zalora."

Founded in 2007, Rocket Internet GmbH is a leading online incubator for the development of innovative internet companies. Its mission is to become world's best internet platform outside USA and China. Its ventures include Zalora, FoodPanda, PricePanda, Wimdu, Lazada, Lamudi and many more.
Founders
The company's Managing Directors Chris Feng, Steven Kim, Luca Barberis, Tito Costa, Michele Ferrario, and Tan Wee are renowned figures behind Zalora Southeast Asia. Ahmad Sarjono is a product manager. Magnus Grimeland is a ZALORA Managing Director and a Co-Founder of Global Fashion Group Marketplace.
Mission
Zalora's mission is to provide passionate customers a dynamic, ever-evolving and passionate business environment. Here are some services that Zalora offers:

It is an easy to use and fine laid out online shopping store. During customers' first visit to Zalora, they are guided step by step to complete purchase without being hectic.

Once the selected items are in personal cart, customers are requested to choose from safe payment options. Payment can simply be made via invoice, prepayment, direct debit or credit card. After the completion of an order successfully, customer service team informs customers the current status for their order. Each order requires an online tracking number through which buyers can follow their orders till delivery.

Shopping at Zalora is often called flash shipping because orders are usually shipped out the same day of their confirmation.

Customers can avail free delivery package when the minimum target size of bucket RM75 is achieved. Free return within 30 days of purchase is accepted especially in the case of shoes because they might not fit in.

An extensive range of speedy, personal and professional services are available to help buyers. Zalora has an engineering team and a technology soul. Consumers can enjoy customer service hotline or live chat under the heading "footwear and fashion" to address their queries to experts.

Zalora hoards big brand names such as Adidas, American Apparel, Ray Ban, Rip Curl, Nike, River Island, New Look and many more so customers do not have to exhaust themselves of searching other places for their desired items.

For making purchase via Zalora, buyers have to create their personal account by submitting a simple membership which includes information regarding name, contact number, gender and email address through which they can receive Zalora's exclusive offers and updates about new arrivals and discounts. Customers can get $15 voucher when they subscribe to the company's newsletter.
Revenue
In 2014, Zalora's revenue was €117 million ($140.4 million) almost 70% increment from 2013 level. Its net losses included €61.7 million (in 2013) to €68.1 million (in 2014). Its GMV grew 80% in last year. Now, Zalora has completed US$238 million in four funding rounds to profitably flourish in Asia starting from $2 million annualized income. It is an honour and miracle as well. In funding round 3, Zalora receives $112 million per private equity round and $100 million per series C round. Zalora's first investment was secured by a German company Internet Rocket which owned Zalora, another lead investor is Access Industries . JP Morgan, Investment AB Kinnevik, Scopia Capital, Summit Partners and Tengelmann Ventures are also Zalora's funding sources. Zalora has sucked up US$238,000,000 in funding to date, and claims more than 17 million monthly visits across ASEAN at the end of the year. Next year the South Asian fashion market will be worth around US$77.1 billion ( € 70 billion). 25 % of its revenues come from mobile commerce. The company says its app is a chief lifestyle and most popular iOS app in countries it serves. The company has achieved the status of world's best million order deliveries.
Competitors
Zalora's competing e-commerce fashion websites are Ava which aims to be Philippines' "online retail therapy, done right", Berrybenka Indonesia, the site sells over 1000 brands and Smooch The Label Singapore is online fashion website for women. Vietnam clocked 80,000 visits whereas Zalora still got the lead of desktop visits in 2015 . What differentiates Zalora from its competitos is its customer-centric-policy. It has 8,000 sq. ft. local warehouses in 8 countries to speed up deliveries so that buyers get their orders in time. Bangladesh and China have become the world's biggest garment manufacturer but here is an advantage which places Zalora above other fashion retailers which is its ideal location in Asia.

Zalora has partnered with top fashion designers of the world like Rizalman, Melinda Looi and Jovian Mandagie who work with Zalora by designing their collections exclusively for it. The company has entered in online retail partnership with Topshop Topman, Globe Telecom and Sephora. Drina Chee, Regional Marketing Director at Sephora Asia Pte Ltd commented, "Given Zalora's massive reach and expertise when it comes to fashion and beauty e-commerce, we felt they were the right partner to introduce Sephora to online shoppers in Southeast Asia. With so many people connected to the internet in this part of the world, it makes sense to bring Sephora online here." Mr Tito Costa, Zalora's regional managing director says: "Tengelmann is one of the largest German retailers with thousands of stores. It has expertise such as inventory management, which can help us become the largest e-commerce company in the region."

For those who want to be a part of Zalora can visit http://www.zalora.sg/careers/ to apply online for the job in any country where it works. Job type can be standard, experienced or internship.

Zalora's official website is http://worldwide.zalora.com where customers can find their relevant product at one site by selecting country first or they can connect with Zalora at Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, WeChat, Google+ and Youtube. Customer service hours are 9am to 6 pm daily. For any issues regarding order shipment, payment, return policy, voucher application and more, buyers can email at customer@my.zalora.com or they can call at customer service number 03-2035 6622 ( Malaysia ), +62 21 29490100 (Indonesia), +65 3157 5555 (Singapore), +852 3999 4200 (Hong Kong), +84 1900 1008 (Vietnam), +66 1639 (Thailand), +63 2 858 0702 (Philippines) and +03 2035 6622 (Brunei). Zalora provides same services in every country, it offers 8% commission for existing customers and 30% for new customers on first purchase.

To sum up, I like to add that those who join Asia's leading online fashion retailer company Zalora can get

Modern fashion trends at fingertips

First dib on latest arrivals

Special access to sale and discount, and

Customised subscription tailored to interests.

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Zalora - Fashion Based Ecommerce - Demystify Asia

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Zalora, founded in 2012, is leading the internet fashion industry webs in Southeast Asia. It is Asia's fastest growing fashion based e-commerce website. Zalora is Singapore's ASOS (Britain online retailer) operating in 8 countries including Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines and Brunei.

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Transaction processing system : the basic business system that serves the operational level (analysts) in an organization.

Online transaction processing (OLTP) : the capturing of transaction and event information using technology to process the information according to defined business rules, store the information and update existing information to reflect the new information.

Online analytical processing (OLAP) : the manipulation of information to create business intelligence in support of strategic decision making.

Decision Support Systems

Decision support system is models information to support managers and business professionals during the decision making process. It is used by manager level and they get it from TPS.

Three quantitative models used by DSSs include:

1.    Sensitivity analysis – the study of the impact that changes in one (or more) parts of the model have on other parts of the model. Eg: price of petrol change every months. We can predict future make assumptions.

2.    What-if analysis – checks the impact of a change in an assumption on the proposed solution. Eg: Repeatedly changing revenue in small increments to determine it effects on other variables.

3.    Goal-seeking analysis – finds the inputs necessary to achieve a goal such as a desired level of output. Eg: Determine how many customers must purchase a new product to increase gross profits to $5 million.

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Zalora is a fashion based Ecommerce website.What is Ecommerce?

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Zalora is a fashion based Ecommerce website.What is Ecommerce?

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Ecommerce also known as electronic commerce is the selling and purchasing of goods via the internet to safe the hassle of going to a physical store. Introduced around the midst to the late 1800 the ecommerce industry have grown and may shops are now entering the industry in order to stretch out their services to all parts of the world.

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This article talks about how Zalora focuses mainly on using e-commerce as their main channel for goods. I learned that they can use strategies like pop up shops to give assurance to customers who are still sceptical about shopping online or reach out to customers who do not have a credit card.

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this article mainly talks about how Zalora climbed to the top as an e commerce company. Customer service, cash on delivery, free returns etc.

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The first thing I noticed was the cute guys. In fashion, you always expect to see chic women everywhere, in stylish heels and fabulous outfits, but there I was, in the regional office of one of the biggest fashion e-commerce sites in the world, and it was a group of guys showing me around. Of course, the women were still around, but I couldn't get past the small bevy of good-looking, clean-cut, boys-who-grew-up-next-door-and-are-now-men, clad in crisp, blue button-down shirts, great slacks and jeans. They looked like they worked in the sales department of a multinational company, peddling detergent or shampoo with their well-prepared sales kits, eloquent pitches and all-star smiles.

Instead of laundry, they were talking to me about Zalora, Asia's premiere fashion website. And despite the excellent fit of their shirts, they weren't talking to me about just clothes, but the operations behind their regional hub in Malaysia. Their eyes lit up as they talked to me about Excel sheets, monitoring systems, warehouse inventory management.

If you think that operations management has nothing to do with fashion or shopping online, you're dead wrong.

"You see a website, you probably see that there are tech guys behind it," chuckles Alessandro Duri, regional director of operations at Zalora (A.K.A. Cute Guy No. 1). But as you're deciding whether to put that white dress in the Shopping Cart or not, there's actually a huge team in Zalora, from different backgrounds and countries, making sure you're happy about the entire experience - from viewing the items online to the moment you open your package at home. (And the fact that a lot of them are good-looking is just a bonus, really.)

Perhaps that's the secret on how Zalora has built an empire of online shopping for Southeast Asia in three short years. Just a few years ago, online shopping seemed like a dubious affair. People were naturally suspicious; they didn't want to buy items they hadn't seen or tried on, give their credit card details (if they even had a credit card), or wait a week before getting their orders. The sites, on the other hand, had ironclad rules like "no return, no exchange" and weeks-long lead times and cut-off periods for payment.

Zalora changed all that by creating a unique shopping experience that put the customer first. After their first year of service all over Asia, they started to study how their customers - and even their non-customers - thought about e-commerce. "Part of our day-to-day is analyzing the structure and our limitations, trying to see what the barriers are," says Ale. "We go around, pick the brains, look at their ideas, structure them so that we can use them to solve bigger issues." Over the past three years, they've overcome some amazing hurdles to get people to start buying online, and they've achieved an incredible success. In 2014, the site had a total of 200 million visits and their application has had 5.8 million downloads, and they've opened the door to online shopping for a lot of people.

How did they do that? "We always need to offer amazing customer service experience," replied Ale. "That's how we educate the market. Our customer service experience is aimed at wowing our customers. The difficulty is not surprising them one time, but delivering that consistent 'wow.' It might surprise you to know how demanding the customers are in these areas, but it's actually our pleasure to try and meet their desires."

It's one thing to smile and say "How can I help you?" but making sure you deliver a consistent experience, especially in a region where there are more than 440 million people living in remote areas, with less than 10 percent of them owning a credit card, is quite a challenge.

First, Zalora wanted to make the whole experience easy for customers, starting with payment. Zalora was the first to make Cash on Delivery an option. Instead of having to give your credit card details or deposit your payment in advance, you can hand over the payment when the item is delivered if you like. "E-commerce needs to overcome all these barriers and all the skepticism that comes around payment," says Ale. "Three years ago, there was no service provider in the region offering cash on delivery. As of now, we work with 20 more delivery providers and each one offers cash on delivery options to our customers. We educated them, we pushed them beyond their boundaries," he explains.

Another way is to allow people to make returns, and make it convenient. One of the most common hesitations that people have with buying online is they can't see the product or try it on, and are afraid to get stuck with something they don't want or can't fit into. Zalora has a 30-day return policy so that if something doesn't fit or isn't exactly the color you imagined, you can send it right back, no questions asked. You can drop it off at any LBC, 2Go, Air21 branch, or schedule a pick-up (if you live in Metro Manila, Cebu, Davao, or Metro Zamboanga). In other countries, when people receive the product, they try it on and give it back to the waiting delivery guy if they're not happy. In Thailand, they just launched drop-off and pick-up points in 7-Elevens, so they can pick up their items and return their items there. "We constantly are trying to provide more delivery and return options," says Ale.

And of course, delivering information and the products at hyper-speed to customers (it's a website, after all, and people want everything done and delivered as soon as they click buttons), but ensuring quality every step of the way. That's where Ale and the other guys in Operations come in, and Rostin Javadi, managing director at Zalora Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong (A.K.A. Cute Guy No. 2) personally took us around the production studios and their warehouse in Malaysia just to see firsthand all the systems and structures they've created to do just that.

We started by taking a peek into their regional production studios. They have nine studios with a full team of over 70 people, where they shoot 500 products a day, resulting in roughly 2,500 pieces of content, and upload it all within the same day. It's an incredibly organized and efficient process of receiving, shooting, retouching, checking for quality, and uploading everything you see on the site. But of course, if you've ever visited the site, you know that their products are not just product shots. Stylists (trained from different fashion schools around the world) put together trend mood boards of the season, cast models with the "Zalora face," create styling inventories that match the current trends in demand to the items in the warehouse to make sure that visitors don't just see products when they visit the website, but fashion.

They also try to put as much information as they can about the products to make it easier for you to choose - actual measurements of different sizes, a size chart to compare different sizing systems, a Fit Visualizer to compare the item with a garment you already own, shots of several angles for a single product (they've started to shoot the soles of sneakers because male customers would ask for it), extensive fabric descriptions, even moving videos of the item so you can see how the fabric flows and moves. Zalora has quality teams to physically check the items and compare it to what's written about it so everything, from the measurements to the descriptions, is accurate for the consumers.

They have also developed an incredibly intricate Warehouse Management System that they pioneered in Portugal. Their Malaysia warehouse is over 10,000 square meters, and it can be daunting to receive 20,000 to 30,000 items a day and figure out exactly where to put everything. But they also have an incredibly detailed inventory system (which I kind of liken to concert seating arrangement on steroids), so they can track any item at any time - whether it's at their production studio to be shot, whether it's at quality checkpoint, whether it's sitting on the shelf, or being delivered. As soon as you order an item from the comfort of your home, it takes about 30 seconds for the warehouse to receive the request and in less than 10 minutes, someone will already have located the item in the warehouse, have it wrapped up and ready to be delivered. I can attest to this, as I tried it myself. (Their stacking system is impeccable!)

Consistency is very important to the whole company, which is why they make sure that Zalora shares and replicates best practices in all markets. What I saw in Malaysia is the same here in the Philippines. In fact, the company is already moving from its current warehouse in Paranaque to a bigger warehouse in Carmona, a 10,000-square-meter area with storage capacity of two million products. They are also opening more delivery service hubs in Iloilo, Cagayan de Oro, Bacolod and Pampanga, from its current ones in Metro Manila, Cebu, Davao, and Zambaonga.

Rostin also described how they constantly track service levels by monitoring things such as reachability when it comes to customer service, and try to keep tabs on all customer engagements by sending an SMS to a buyer within one or two days, and then another email after a couple of weeks. Zalora customers can always get through via different channels: email, call, live chat (they're on Viber!), social networks, and their mobile app. "You can always reach us, and service is personalized and differentiated - we'll greet you by name, use no templates and scripts," he elaborates. Agents even train with the stylists so that they can give fashion-oriented advice when needed. For Zalora, everyone goes the extra mile. Ale tells us about how one customer called, begging for his order to be expedited. When his customer service agent found out that he lived near him, he picked up the item himself from the warehouse and dropped it off on the way home!

"Customer is the center of Zalora," emphasizes Rostin, and it's something ingrained in everyone - a mindset, says Ale. "It's in our minds, and it's in our heart," says Ale. "The same passion that I have, the one that Rostin has, is the same one in our photographers, our warehouse guys." There may not be an actual person greeting us when we go to Zalora's website to shop, but with each easy, convenient, efficient, and on-trend each step of the way, you still feel the great service of everyone in Zalora.

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Zalora will change the way you shop online

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The first thing I noticed was the cute guys. In fashion, you always expect to see chic women everywhere, in stylish heels and fabulous outfits, but there I was, in the regional office of one of the biggest fashion e-commerce sites in the world, and it was a group of guys showing me around.

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See how Zalora's 24-hour online ad campaign boosts Singapore's music scene

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See how Zalora's 24-hour online ad campaign boosts Singapore's music scene