Record year for Takas.lk, 100% growth in December
View(s):Takas.lk finished December with a record 2017 year in terms of both revenue and volume. This is highly significant considering the overall consumption in the economy has seen a downward trend, or at best has been flat, the e-commerce portal said in a media statement.
Takas said it attributes the record year to improved efficiencies in marketing and operations due to internal innovation and overall consumer sentiment changing towards the value proposition of e-commerce.
The company has been in the forefront of technological innovation among the e-commerce players in Sri Lanka.
Co-founder/CEO of Takas Lahiru Pathmalal said, “We have been able to stay ahead of the game in e-commerce due to our technical innovation and how we have used it to better the customer experience. We have been able to give a better consumer experience by making sure that from the moment a customer orders a product he/she will be made aware of the order status, and that order can be tracked till it reaches them. Our main strength is that we own our Intellectual Property, so we can modify and adapt our systems to continually make things better”.
Takas have been able to bring the unit costs of order processing down by 30 per cent year on year due to these developments along with decreasing order processing times. Adding on to this, Takas CTO Kalinga Athulathmudali, said “ We have an internal tech team that works very closely with the operations team to make sure that the solution we build is there to help the end consumer have an amazing consumer experience. We are a consumer centric technology team.”
The focus on digital marketing has helped Takas.lk reach a much wider audience. Consumers spend most of their time online. Identifying the step of the purchase cycle they are in and optimising offerings to suit that step helps to convert browsers to buyers, the release said.
Co-founder/COO of Takas, Murtaza Moosajee added, “We have been bringing down the fulfillment costs at Takas by nearly 60 per cent year on year and while doing this we have been able to meet our KPIs. Also the data that we collect is making the consumer experience so much better”.
Mr. Pathmalal noted that consumers, just like elsewhere in the world, are learning that e-commerce is the way to go, its most likely cheaper and “you don’t have to put up with crappy service or spend your valuable time driving around town to get what you want”.
He said the main reason for the uptrend is consumers being smarter about how they buy. “E-commerce is a no brainer and will continue to grow due this simple logic.
Also more than 5 per cent of our total revenue comes from Monaragala District and 10 per cent comes from Gampaha. Goes to show no matter where you are in the island e-commerce is playing a role.”
The company is planning to launch a new mobile website which should make the consumer experience a lot better.