At the end of May, CEO of Lazada Indonesia and co-founder of Lazada, Alessandro Piscini, exited his company. it turns out he was preparing for Crea, a digital marketing startup offering a social commerce platform.
Piscini partners up with Aimone Ripa di Meana again. Meana is also another co-founder of the Thailand based e-commerce, formerly COO of Lazada Group Singapore.
On the other hand, the new Crea aims to sell products to younger generations. It combines both e-commerce platform and social network platform, making it more persuasive for the youngsters.
Social commerce is not a new thing in the e-commerce industry. Previously, Chinese companies such as Beidian and Xiaohongshu have proven that this is even better than the usual e-commerce.
Such social commerce platform allows customers to compare one brand to the others. They can directly sees which one’s better and what makes it better. Reviews from other users, both public figures and friends are also more trustworthy than ads.
How Crea works as a social commerce
Crea uses data analytics for brands. Through the data, they can predict which item would sell well, in which platform. They can also compare the products with rival brands. This will cut off many inefficient marketing spend for the brands.
For the time being, the company is focusing in Thailand’s beauty and personal care market. The market values at $5.5 billion. And it is expected to grow up to $43 billion by 2025.
The country has the biggest spend for beauty and personal care products. It counts up to 1.24% of the GDP. The number is way above the neighboring countries such as Indonesia, Vietnam and Malaysia. Each counts only 0.6%, 0.17%, and 0.17%. While South Korea, the Mecca of beauty products, only spends 0.62% GDP on it.
With two veterans behind Crea, the company receives sturdy backups from global investors. The investors include Angle Capital Management, Picus Capital and Founder Fund Pathfinder.
