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Lazada kills free shipping and cuts rebates for LiveUp subscribers

By Raymond Lau - on 22 Jun 2019, 10:00am

Lazada kills free shipping and cuts rebates for LiveUp subscribers

Note: This article was first published on 8 June 2019.

An emailer distributed by Lazada earlier this week confirmed what we’ve all been dreading: the benefits of being a LiveUp subscriber have been deeply cut.

Launched in 2017, the LiveUp membership program originally assembled a group of companies offering various benefits for an annual subscription fee. These benefits included discounts off Uber rides, free shipping on RedMart and Lazada, and a couple of free months of Netflix.

Despite setbacks like Uber’s exit from Southeast Asia, the membership program managed to rally other partners on board, such as Grab and FoodPanda.

From 1st July this year, however, Lazada will expect you to pay more for your membership while enjoying noticeably less benefits. What gives?

Here’s a handy table illustrating the key changes:

  Current From 1st July
Subscription
Fee
  • S$49.90/year
  • S$59.90/year or S$5.99/month
Delivery
(Lazada & Lazada’s Taobao Collection)
  • Free
  • Delivery fees will be charged, depending on orders.
Delivery
(Redmart)
  • Free on orders above $40
  • Free on orders above $40
Rebates
  • 5% rebate on all orders
  • Additional 3% rebate for Citibank credit card users
  • 4% rebate on all LazMall and Redmart orders
  • No more additional  rebate for Citibank credit card users
Rebate Cap
  • S$30
  • S$50

Now, while the increase in rebate cap may sound like a good thing, astute observers have pointed out that the cap was S$50 to begin with, and only reduced to S$30 a few months ago. So Lazada is basically bumping it back up to its original cap.

We're well aware that many signed up for LiveUp programme for the free deliveries and the rebates were extra icing. While Redmart's minimum $$40 purchase for free orders still stands, orders on Lazada will be impacted from 1st July. To clarify, you might still get free shipping, depending on the product type, order size and shipping duration, but it's no longer a free delivery for everything on Lazada's and Lazada's Taobao collection.

On a side note, Lazada has also lowered the barrier for free delivery for non-LiveUp members ordering from RedMart - from S$100, it's now a minimum order of S$60.

All in, LiveUp still provides decent value for its price, especially if you use any of the other partner brands regularly. One HardwareZone member even shared a tip that a subscriber could choose to share the account to improve the value of the LiveUp membership, just like how some people share a Netflix account.

But competition in this space is heating up and there are plenty of options for disgruntled customers, such as Amazon Prime Now, which costs just S$2.99 a month and includes Prime Video and Twitch Prime.

Source: AsiaOne, Reddit.

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