Record Year : Revenue and Order Volume

Takas.lk finished December with a record 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. Takas attributes the record year to improved efficiencies in marketing & operations due to internal innovation and overall consumer sentiment changing towards the value proposition of e-commerce.

Technological Innovation

Takas.lk has been on the forefront of technological innovation among the eCommerce players in Sri Lanka. Speaking to the co-founder/CEO of Takas Lahiru Pathmalal, “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 an product he/she will be made aware of the order status, and that order is can be tracked till itreaches them. Our main strength is that we own our Intellectual Property, so we can modify and adapt our systemsto continually make things better.” Takas have been able to bring the unit costs of order processing down by 30% year on year due to these developments along with decreasing order processing times. Adding on to this the CTO of Takas 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 a amazing consumer experience, we are a consumer centric technology team.”

Smarter Marketing & Optimizing Operations

The focus on digital marketing has helped Takas.lk reacha much wider audience. Consumers spend most of their time online. Identifying the step of the purchase cycle they are in and optimizing offerings to suit that step helps to convert browsers to buyers.

Co-founder/COO of Takas Murtaza Moosajee said, “We have been bringing down the fulfillment costs at Takas by nearly 60% year on year, 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.”

Sri Lankan Consumer Evolution

In times where consumersare feeling the pinch in their wallets, more and more consumers are switching to buying online. Lahiru said, “ Consumers, just like else where 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. 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% of our total revenue comes from Monaragala District & 10% comes from Gampaha. Goes on to show no matter where you are in the island e-commerce is playing a role.”

What to Expect in the Future

Takas.lk will shortly launch a new mobile website which should make the consumer experience a lot better. CTO Kalinga said, “More than 40% of our traffic now comes from mobile devices, so we are launching a new updated mobile web experience. We are literally setting the standard for others to follow”.  E-commerce will continue to push and make a positive impact for consumers in 2018.