Publications
Publications
- September 2016 (Revised December 2017)
- HBS Case Collection
Zalora Philippines: From Growth to Profitability
By: Donald Ngwe and Thales Teixeira
Abstract
In May 2015 Paulo Campos, co-founder and CEO of Zalora Philippines, found himself at a crucial turning point in his young company’s development. In just three years, Zalora had come from entering the Philippine fashion retail industry as an unknown quantity to becoming a household name across the Southeast Asian archipelago. Campos and his team had achieved much in this time: launching one of the first online retailers in the country, building a logistics network from scratch, acquiring customers at an astonishing pace, and signing up major brands to offer on Zalora.com.ph. But now his investors were ready for him to shift gears and focus on turning a profit within the next two years. Zalora Philippines was part of Zalora Group, a Singapore-headquartered online fashion retailer that operated across Southeast Asia. Zalora Group, in turn, was part of a global entity called Global Fashion Group (GFG), which owned online fashion retailers and brands in emerging markets across the world. In addition to Zalora in Southeast Asia, GFG owned Dafiti in South America, Namshi in the Middle East, Jabong in South Asia, Lamoda in Eastern Europe, and The Iconic in Australia. GFG’s principal investors were Kinnevik, a Swedish investment company, and Rocket Internet.
Keywords
Online Technology; Business Subsidiaries; Business Growth and Maturation; Fashion Industry; Retail Industry; Sweden; Southeast Asia; Philippines
Citation
Ngwe, Donald, and Thales Teixeira. "Zalora Philippines: From Growth to Profitability." Harvard Business School Case 517-009, September 2016. (Revised December 2017.)