REVIEW: Lazada's LazMall Guaranteed Delivery Service is an EPIC FAIL (My Worst Lazada Experience)

LAZADA recently launched their newest service called Guaranteed Delivery which, according to their website, is a fast delivery service provided to LazMall customers for selected items. As a long-time Lazada customer, it's a good news to hear... until I found out that it's FAKE. In other words, a big, epic FAIL. Let me share with you my review of Lazada's newest service, or should I say gimmick, based from my personal experience. 

Epic fail experience with Lazada's Guaranteed Delivery service

As mentioned, I've been a customer of Lazada and have had good and bad experiences with them. I've had deliveries that got delayed but, most of the time, my experience has been positive. However, this recent one is what I consider the worst experience with Lazada so far.

To give you a bit of background, I never knew about the Guaranteed Delivery service until I recently purchased a Xiaomi mobile phone on LazMall. If you're not familiar, LazMall is a section on Lazada with "curated selection of leading international and local brands, top-rated online brands and authorized brand distributors."

Sounds awesome, right? NOT! (Image source: businessmirror.com.ph)

The specific mobile phone that I was looking for is a limited edition (not available in physical stores anymore) which is being sold on Lazada under the LazMall section. Actually, I was able to find other online stores that sell the same mobile phone but I decided to order one from Lazada because the item is supported by their "Guaranteed Delivery" service, specifically by the "24 Hour Guaranteed Delivery", which I later realized was a big mistake.

Basically, there are two types of this service. The first one is Standard Guaranteed Delivery which means fast delivery guaranteed by a certain date which varies with sellers, and the other one is 24 Hour Guaranteed Delivery which means delivery is guaranteed same day or within the next day. They are indicated by a specific icon found on the product display page and this feature is visible only in the Lazada mobile app.

Two types of guaranteed delivery service indicated by these icons

(Image source: Lazada Facebook page)

Since I urgently needed the item and a GUARANTEED delivery date of next day was being promised, I placed an order right away on January 27. I was happy and excited plus I got to enjoy free shipping due to the shipping discount that came with my purchase. My initial thought was: how awesome! I've never encountered a "same day" or, at least, "next day" delivery in my experience with Lazada so this new feature is a great addition or upgrade “for better customer experience”. I did a Google search about this service and it appears to have been rolled out only in December 2019 as written on various media websites and tech blogs. According to a news website, Lazada is the first-ever eCommerce platform in Southeast Asia to offer certainty delivery.

But here's the surprising yet infuriating part: as of this writing, January 31, three days BEYOND the GUARANTEED delivery date of January 28, my order is still stuck in one of their logistics facility hubs. Based on the tracker from the app, my order arrived there at 8:57 PM of January 28 and has NEVER moved since then. My first experience of Lazada's newest Guaranteed Delivery service is an outright FAIL. I was deceived by Lazada's misleading promo/offer.

 Current status of my order as of January 31

And to make my feelings about this "guaranteed" service even worse, another item (OTG card reader) that I ordered on January 28 was delivered to me on January 30, only two days after the purchase date and a day BEFORE the given delivery time frame (January 31-February 1). As compared to my earlier order from LazMall, this item is not even covered by the "Guaranteed Delivery" feature yet it arrived before the promised delivery dates. How ironic? I was impressed by the seller and gave this particular transaction a 5-star rating.

Another order I made (without the "guaranteed delivery" gimmick) later already arrived!

Meanwhile, going back to my order in question, on January 29, I contacted a customer service agent in the Lazada app to follow up on my order. I was told the SAME information that's also in the tracker in the mobile app. Geez. I was then told that they will create a follow up to their couriers team about my concern.

January 30 came and still no update about my issue. Once again, I contacted an agent via the app in the evening. I was told that their logistics team set a new delivery time frame which is between January 29 and February 3, 2020 -- which further confirms that this service is totally an EPIC FAIL. Expectation-vs-reality type of fail. PAASA. Furthermore, no reason was provided to me about their failure to deliver on the "guaranteed" date. And worst is, I was NEVER notified about these updates until I reached out to them. Twice.

Chat with customer service agents and the email updates after I followed up

As of this date (January 31), my only option is to wait for this new delivery time frame to end, which means another 3 freaking days of waiting and hoping, uncertain if they will fulfill to their new promise or not. Have I known this would happen, I should have went with another online store that’s offering an estimated (not promised) delivery time frame of 3-5 days. It's very likely that the item would have been with me right now.

According to Lazada, they will compensate customers for these deliveries if they do not meet their maximum delivery promised date. Yeah, they will compensate you with P50 in your wallet regardless if your order is late by one day or who-knows-number of weeks or months! That's how much the frustrations, headache and stress that they caused you cost to them.

I will continue to update this real-time review as soon as I receive one. For the meantime, please be wary about trusting new features and services like the Guaranteed Delivery to better manage your expectations. For the meantime, if you also had a bad experience about this service, feel free to share in the comments section below. I would like to hear them.

Update as of February 3

After making me wait for another 6 days BEYOND their guaranteed delivery date and endless promises of resolution about my issue, today I received an update from Lazada telling me that they decided to CANCEL my order. This came a day after I warned them about filing a complaint to DTI if my order won't be delivered by their promised time frame. Lazada be like: "Oh, let's just cancel his order and mark it LOST and save ourselves from headache and trouble and avoid paying him any compensation."

After the all inconveniences and stress, they offered nothing but more inconveniences and stress. In another email, they also said that my "order was beyond the delivery date" and the "item was cancelled due to failed delivery." So Lazada either lose or didn't want to deliver my item, made me wait for almost a week for nothing and cancelled my order at their whims. They not only failed to provide the expected service but they also passed the burden of their failures to their customers and won't deal with you anymore. What kind of customer service is this? Unbelievable.

Update as of February 4

I contacted Xiaomi Philippines / Mi Store Philippines to report and have them investigate Lazada and know if they're aware about how Lazada tarnish their reputation to potential customers by providing very poor and bad service online. Below is the response I received from the official Mi Store Philippines Facebook page:

"Unfortunately, we cannot investigate matters regarding Lazada since we do not hold our account in the platform. They manage everything and we have no say or have any hand or knowledge in their systems and operation. We are sorry for the unpleasant experience. We hope you are able to resolve the issue with them."

I feel sad for Xiaomi about this but I was right that Lazada has control over everything such as the inventories, deliveries, etc. Given that I believe them that my order was really "lost", instead of sending me another item (which every business with customers in mind should be doing), Lazada decided to cancel my order. This way, they can avoid compensating their customers for delayed deliveries as they promise on their "Guaranteed Delivery" offer. What an anti-customer practice!

This is the WORST online shopping experience I've ever had, thanks to Lazada's terrible, worthless and disgusting customer service!

Update as of February 13

On February 11, I received an invitation for a mediation conference scheduled on February 13 after I filed a complaint to DTI.

Before the day of mediation, someone from Lazada reached out to me trying to get some information about the incident AGAIN making me believe that they are doing an "internal" investigation which can't be shared with me. Aside from that, they were offering me a P400 voucher -- perhaps persuading me not to pursue the case.

On February 13, I went to DTI's Mediation Division under Fair Trade Enforcement Bureau in Makati City to attend the mediation hearing. The mediation officer had to call Lazada because there was no representative from the respondent at the start of the hearing. Their representative arrived late. And based on what the mediation officer said, Lazada appears to be in their office frequently, giving me an impression that DTI receives and deals with a number of complains against Lazada from their customers. No wonder.

My priority at the time was to make sure Lazada would reverse the payment for their failed delivery of my item. My bank had told me that there is no reversal from the merchant which is why I pursued the case. In the end, Lazada was asked by DTI to send a proof of payment reversal within that DAY but they negotiated and asked for 48 hours to do that.


How to file a complaint to DTI against Lazada Philippines

For those who want to know how I filed a complaint against Lazada to DTI, I sent an email to ConsumerCare@dti.gov.ph with all the details (including screenshots) regarding my complaint. It took about 8 days for DTI to get back to me via email.

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