Lazada aims to create 20 million e-commerce jobs and serve 300 million customers by 2030 by encouraging 8 million people to become e-commerce entrepreneurs.
The company plans to use LazMall, its online mall with a wide range of products, to attract online merchants and young brands.
The mall gains sales commission fees as revenue.
Lazada also blends shopping and entertainment to lure customers when browsing on the app, offering live streams of entertainment.
After operating for seven years in Southeast Asia, the move is an attempt by Lazada to differentiate itself from rivals and social commerce, in particular appealing to younger merchants and shoppers.
"Lazada will accelerate progress in Southeast Asia's digital economy by enabling brands and entrepreneurs to digitise their business to be more nimble, offering greater efficiency and a better experience for customers through its technology, logistics and payment system," said Lazada Group chief executive Pierre Poignant, speaking at the Brand Future Forum in Singapore.
To achieve the goal of encouraging some 8 million people to become online entrepreneurs, Mr Poignant said Lazada will increase the number of sellers and consumers and bridge the online to offline (O2O) experience by leveraging tech in artificial intelligence, logistics and payment from Alibaba with its existing massive logistics infrastructure, which is capable of handling 80% of its own parcel flow, with the rest handled by third-party logistics.
Lazada Group president Jing Yin said e-commerce in the region is in its early stage, with huge untapped opportunities because merchants still lack the ability to transform into e-businesses by brand building, using digital marketing and increasing online sales.
Southeast Asia's e-commerce space is expected to reach US$240 billion by 2025, according to a study of Google and Temasek.
The company plans to increase the number of sellers in its LazMall section by introducing e-business solutions, a series of tools to help brands control and tailor their online storefronts such as brand visibility, increasing sales and marketing using data analytics and personalisation.
Lazada has 1,500 brands in LazMall regionally, with 450 from Thailand. It aims to increase brands in LazMall by five-fold this year.
"Out of six markets in the region, Thailand is one of the most important for Lazada, similar to Indonesia in that it has the potential to increase its share of online retail contribution from single digits of the total retail market to double digits in the foreseeable future," Mr Yin said.