1. Introduction [00:00] minutes : Digital retail sales in _____ are growing faster than any other region.
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2. Asia-Pacific also _____ the rest of the world...
3. ...in terms of the share of its total _____ market,...
5. This phenomenal growth has significant impact on _____ vendors...
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6. ...and traditional _____,...
7. ...as they adjust their strategies in _____ to stake their claim...
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8. ...in the evolving _____.
9. Lim Yun Fong is an associate professor of operations _____ at the SMU Lee Kong Chien School of Business. His research centers on workforce management,...
10. ...as well as omnichannel _____ and distribution, e-commerce, warehousing and fulfillment,...
11. ..._____ management...
12. ...and _____ urban logistics.
13. In this podcast, Associate Professor Lim discusses the _____ developments...
14. ...and trends in the retail _____...
15. ...and shares his insights into the _____ and opportunities faced by retailers today.
16. First question [01:14] minutes: Professor, retail e-commerce sales in Asia-Pacific are at an all-time high, with 2015 sales hitting $_____ billion dollars.
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17. For the first time, the region is also experiencing the world's largest digital retail market share. What has _____ this tremendous growth?
18. Well, I think this is largely due to the _____ in populations in this area of the world.
19. You know, you have a lot of young people in China and India itself, you know, they claim to be the _____ country,
20. ... you know, that has a young _____...
21. ...between 20 to about 35 years old in their _____.
22. And because of these new generations of people, and they are tech-savvy, they know how to use, you know, a hand phone, they know how to shop _____.
23. And as a result, you know, it basically _____ the sales in e-market place.
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24. And also partly due to the, you know, the _____ use of internet...
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25. ...as well as mobile apps _____ this region.
26. Second question [02:13] : How is this phenomenon changing the competitive retail _____ in Asia and elsewhere?
27. And how are companies adjusting their _____ in response?
28. Well, there are primarily _____ groups of companies.
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29. So one group is basically the so-called _____ e-commerce company...
30. ...like Amazon and Tsingdong in _____.
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31. So what happened is this e-commerce company, they (have) grown significantly _____ time.
32. And they realized that because of this new demand from young generations, they are _____ quite well in this area.
34. ...the traditional brick-and-mortar store, a lot of brick-and-mortar retailer, they see the threat from _____ out in the market.
35. And they try to _____ themselves or try to fight against these pure e-commerce companies in the sense that...
36. ...they provide more _____ for consumers to shop.
37. For example, they may _____ a website for you to order it online...
38. ...and you can also pick up from the _____.
39. They can also _____ it to your home.
40. They also _____ all different kinds of apps...
41. ...that you can use on a mobile phone while you're traveling on a _____, while you're waiting for a bus and so on.
42. So through these multiple channels to _____ more sales and more demand,...
43. ...they can actually sort of _____ the sales...
44. ...and then also try to _____ the e-market place.
45. So as a result, a lot of these retail companies, they will need to sort of integrate better different types of _____ through the mobile apps together with your traditional brick-and-mortar channels.
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46. So that's the transformation that the retailers are _____ now.
47. Third question [03:50] : Is the impact the same for all _____ of retailers?
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48. I think nowadays people still want to buy things online only for those _____ stuff.
49. Not many people want to buy very expensive _____ online.
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50. So I think the _____-tier and...
51. ...and the mid-level retailers are the first cohort to adopt...
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52. ...this kind of multi-channels, omni-channels strategies.
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53. Fourth question [04:11] : In your research, you discussed the _____ of omni-channel retailing,...
54. ...which has also led to challenges in last _____ delivery.
55. What is last mile _____? Can you elaborate?
56. If you buy things online, as a customer, you don't typically _____ about how the goods get delivered to your home,...
57. ...but as an e-commerce company, they will need to first pick up the items from the _____...
58. ...and then _____ the items.
59. (And) before they send it to you, they have to go _____ a very complicated routing process...
60. ...a very complicated _____ process...
61. So this last _____ of delivery, we call it "last mile delivery" from the warehouse to your home. It is actually very complicated, a very challenging process for the e-commerce company.
62. Imagine at Amazon, they are delivering these thousands of _____ to the region every day.
63. So how do they do this last mile delivery _____?
64. It is an interesting and _____ question.
65. And also, if they don't do well, this will be a very _____ part of their operations.
66. So _____ of the e-commerce companies, they don't do well in the sense that...
67. ...they don't actually make a lot of money because of the high costs that are _____ in the last mile delivery.
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68. So there are companies and there are _____ in the world.
69. For example, Tokyo...
71. ...they actually set up the so-called _____ Consolidation Center.
72. They set up a _____ somewhere near the urban area and they actually allow a lot of e-commerce companies to send their goods to this Consolidation Center...
73. ...they actually allow a lot of e-commerce companies to send their _____ to this Consolidation Center...
74. ...so that they can _____ the goods, the small parcels together before,...
75. ...(then) they send fewer _____ to the city center to do the last mile delivery.
76. So by doing that, you can reduce _____ in the city center...
77. ...and also you can _____ the goods...
78. ...in a more consolidated and _____ way.
79. Fifth question [05:56] : Are _____ other challenges that e-commerce companies and retailers face?
80. I foresee that there are three main challenges for e-commerce as well as _____...
81. ...that adopt _____ strategies.
82. The first challenge is the so-called logistics and _____ management.
83. So imagine, _____ you are a traditional brick-and-mortar store...
84. ...and in the past, you just needed to do _____...
85. ...for your maybe 10 retail _____ from a warehouse.
86. But now you set up a _____ and you also provide apps to a consumer that can order directly from you and deliver to them directly.
87. Then how do you do the fulfillment from a facility, from a _____?
88. So many of the companies, they actually _____ that.
89. They have a warehouse that fulfills the traditional ______ store.
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90. And they also set up a new warehouse that _____...
91. ..the e-commerce _____.
92. And apparently this is not an _____ way to do the operations.
93. So how do you integrate the sales for different channels and do the fulfillment in an integrated _____ way? It's actually very challenging for the companies that adopt multi-channel sales.
94. [06:57] The second challenge that I foresee is the _____ issues.
95. Qualities of the product and services that you buy online. For example, nowadays when you order food online in China, in _____,...
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96. ...and it turns out that the food delivery is actually not done by the restaurant _____.
97. It's actually done by a third _____.
98. It can be done by any student or _____ because they actually uberise the last mile delivery...
99. ...in the sense that anybody can _____ up the jobs from a restaurant and then deliver it to you.
100. So because of that, it creates some quality _____...
101. ...and safety _____ of the product and services.
102. [07:32] And finally, the _____ challenge is so-called...
...the trade compliance and custom regulations.
So what happens is, you know, imagine an e-commerce company, when you send the goods to the customers, you may send thousands of...
...different parcels daily,...
...and then all these parcels might need to cross a border, it actually goes through a very complicated custom procedure.
So how do you streamline this procedure and make it more efficient?
It's a big challenge for many e-commerce companies...
...and it turns out that, you know, especially for those online customers, they don't want to wait for too long.
They want, when they order it online, they want the goods to be delivered quickly.
So if the goods are stuck in the customs...
...for a long time, that may become a killing factor for many of these e-commerce companies.
So I foresee these are...
...the three main challenges.
103. Sixth question - 8mn 19sec
It seems that and technology have become the enablers for e-retail. Looking ahead, do you anticipate other key trends to for the sector in the next five to ten years?
Certainly! Logistics and technology are the main of operations for e-commerce companies to succeed, because for many of these e-commerce companies, besides setting-up websites and a few that receive customer orders and sales, the rest of the operations is doing fulfillment. After customers order the good, they (the e-commerce companies) need to do fulfillment to satisfy customer . So they (the e-commerce companies) need to have a strong logistic to the business.
Besides the logistics and technology, I foresee two major that can impact this industry.
One is the so-called of the last mile delivery. As I said, when you buy things online, the mile delivery cost is actually very for those e-commerce companies. Many of them (they) do a lot of money (profit), because of this cost. One solution to this challenge, is to uberise the last mile delivery. An e-commerce company could send all its parcels to a point. And then it would let or or others pick up the parcel from the consolidation point, and then the student or the retiree would do the last mile delivery for a . That way, we can, sort of, the of the last mile delivery for e-commerce companies. So this is one trend.
The other trend is the so-called . Nowadays, if you wear for example, the Google , you realize they can provide extra information about certain objects. For example, when you walk into a shop and you look at any particular item, the Google can actually you with some . For example: which has used this product, the history of the or of the product, and also customer may on the Google . So this to some , will revolutionize the retail industry in the future.
