WHAT HAPPENED
On September 29, 2026, Singapore hosted LazMall Brand Gala 2026 — Lazada's annual ceremony where the platform honors its brand partners. According to VnExpress, the event brought together representatives of LazMall's largest sellers from six Southeast Asian countries, including Vietnam, and served as the venue for announcing winners across ten categories.
The top honor, Brand of the Year, went to Abbott, Estée Lauder Companies, and Samsung — as reported by PR Newswire via Yahoo Finance. In individual categories, Nike and LG Electronics (Best Use of Marketing Solutions), Coty (Category Innovation), lululemon (Trend Impact), Ralph Lauren, and TUMI (Rising Star) were recognized — the list is published by platform partners, including Synagie and the Vietnamese outlet Cong Thuong.
Formally, it's an award. In practice, it's a public report from the platform to brands about who grew, who leveraged promotional tools, and who is ready to scale further. Lazada calls its brand ecosystem the largest in the region: according to Lazada's press release on PR Newswire, LazMall features 170,000 brands, and the number of sellers surpassing the $1 million GMV threshold continues to grow — the Gala 2026 materials explicitly state that "more brands exceeded the US$1 million mark."
WHAT IT MEANS
Let's break down the mechanics, not the facade. An award is a tool for managing sellers through status. A marketplace can't force a brand to invest in listing quality, shipping speed, and returns handling. But it can ensure these things convert into public recognition, access to a key account manager, participation in joint campaigns, and priority in recommendation algorithms. The award here isn't a trophy — it's entry into a closed club with different terms of engagement.
The second layer is numbers as leverage. Lazada publicly links awards to GMV growth: in the Gala 2025 materials, the platform noted that the number of brands with million-dollar GMV grew by 53% after the 9.9 sale. This message is addressed not to the buyer but to the seller: look at what happens to those who invest in the platform. Lazada hasn't yet disclosed fresh 2026 data — exact percentages for the current season haven't been published — but the direction of travel has been consistent for two years running.
The third layer is consumer-facing. A Lazada study conducted alongside the Gala surveyed 6,000 shoppers across six Southeast Asian countries; 90% of them said they consciously engage with the Mall environment — that is, with verified brands rather than random sellers. This explains why the platform is willing to invest in ceremonies: trust in the "store within the marketplace" is its core product.
For Russian e-commerce, this is a familiar but undervalued logic. Wildberries runs its "Golden Standard" and seller ratings, Ozon has its "Seller of the Year" award and Premium program, and Yandex Market has its own industry awards. The mechanics are the same: the platform exchanges public recognition for seller loyalty and investment. The difference is that Asian platforms package this into a measurable GMV growth story and back it with consumer research, not just a ceremony.
VIETSMART EXPERT COMMENTARY
I regularly attend operations meetings in Ho Chi Minh City and see how Vietnamese brands prepare for such events well in advance: a quarter before the Gala, teams compile metrics — shipping speed, return rate, campaign participation, store follower growth — and submit an application with numbers. Our partners who do this gain not only status but concrete benefits: priority placement in recommendations and access to a manager who resolves issues in hours, not weeks.
The most common mistake Russian sellers make is treating platform awards as a formality and not preparing data for them. The second most common is failing to track the effect of participation: if you made the shortlist but didn't measure how impressions and conversion changed, you can't use that argument in future negotiations with the platform.
TAKEAWAYS AND WHAT TO DO
- Build your own "award" dashboard. Create a spreadsheet with four metrics: cancellation and return rate, average shipping time, share of orders through the platform's promo mechanics, and store follower growth. Update it monthly. Without these numbers, any application for an industry award or conversation about priority is a shot in the dark.
- Learn your platform's award regulations in advance. For Wildberries it's the "Golden Standard," for Ozon it's the Premium program and industry awards, for Yandex Market it's seller ratings. Ask your manager for selection criteria and submission deadlines a quarter before the cutoff: preparation takes time, and applications with errors aren't reconsidered.
- Use your status in negotiations. After receiving an award or making the shortlist, go to your category manager with a specific request: participation in the next major campaign, a test of a new promotion mechanic, reduced commission during the promo period. The framing "we're in the top tier for service quality, we want to test X" works better than "give us a discount."
- Build your brand, not just your store. The LazMall case shows: the platform is ready to promote those whom customers search for by name. Register your trademark, invest in recognizable packaging, work on repeat purchases. A brand with a loyal audience negotiates with the platform as an equal; a nameless seller does not.
- Measure the effect of participation. Record metrics for two weeks before and after the award or a mention in the platform's recommendations. If there's no growth, change not the award but your product mix and listing content. Status without product doesn't sell.
Russian sellers don't need to wait for their own Brand Gala. Lazada's logic can be applied right now: measure service quality, participate in platform loyalty programs, and turn status into concrete terms of engagement. Platforms invest in awarding brands precisely because it's cheaper than raising seller quality administratively. Sellers just need to learn how to use this lever.
Source: Vietnam.vn, October 1, 2026