SINGAPORE - Media OutReach - 23 September 2023 - Carousell Group, the leading multi-category platform for secondhand in Greater Southeast Asia, celebrates the onset of its second decade with a homecoming to LaunchPad @ one-north, the site of its inaugural office. The Group announced today the official opening of its new regional headquarters, Carousell Campus, dedicated to advancing recommerce capabilities as part of its goal to make buying and selling secondhand items more trusted and convenient. During the launch event of Carousell Campus today, Carousell Group CEO and Co-founder, Mr Quek Siu Rui expressed his enthusiasm for the journey ahead, sharing, “This space marks a coming-of-age for Carousell as a Group. Recommerce means bringing the best things that we know and like from e-commerce and availing it for secondhand products. We have been building up our recommerce business in recent years, and have grown to be the leading recommerce Group in Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and Taiwan, with tens of millions of monthly active users and 80 million new listings annually. As we take the lead in advocating for recommerce and a circular economy in the region and beyond, we believe in contributing back to the local startup community and cementing Singapore as the region’s prominent startup hub.” Driving the future of secondhand by advancing recommerce with trust and convenience capabilities Carousell Campus also houses the Group’s first Capabilities Centre, which brings the Group’s brands and subsidiaries into one single location to streamline operations, integrate capabilities for authentication and inspection, as well as allow for more efficient collaboration. (Please refer to Annex A)The Group has been focused on building stronger recommerce foundations and setting new standards in trust and convenience for secondhand transactions in the region. For instance, Carousell Group launched the 'Certified' programme this year that uses shared expertise and technology from the various entities to authenticate and inspect secondhand items in the programme sold by Carousell Official Stores. Mobile phones are inspected using our proprietary AI-first diagnostic technology to remove human error in assessment. Luxury bags are authenticated by a team led by our Lead Authenticator, who was previously from fashion luxury houses, such as Louis Vuitton, Hermes and Chanel. Vehicle inspections are carried out by veteran automotive inspection and repair companies. (Please refer to Annex B for the full list of recommerce programmes across Carousell Group.) To make peer-to-peer marketplace transactions even safer, the Group has also rolled out enhancements to the secure on-platform payment features in its Singapore and Vietnam marketplaces, with plans to continue in more markets starting with Malaysia by end of September. For instance, when Carousell users make transactions using the ‘Buy’ button, they are able to pay securely via a one-click checkout on the platform, and also enjoy additional Buyer Protection policies and integrated door-to-door (D2D) delivery options. This is on top of continuous platform enhancements across a multi-layered strategy to increase trust and safety across the Group’s platforms. To increase convenience for everyday Singaporeans selling items they have decluttered, Carousell Singapore will be the first C2C marketplace in Singapore to offer a paperless D2D shipping option to casual sellers. By the end of September, users will only need to write down their tracking number on the parcel, have access to competitive paperless D2D shipping rates, and also skip the hassle of printing out the shipping label for the courier. “Centralising our Singapore-based entities at Carousell Campus has allowed us to strengthen our operations excellence. Our strategic focus on key growth product categories has streamlined our efforts to offer more compelling user value propositions and facilitate more collaboration opportunities to innovate on ways to increase circular economy adoption. This has allowed us to roll out a variety of recommerce programmes and features across multiple platforms and markets this year, providing an e-commerce-like experience. We will continue to invest in growth and technology across our platforms to make buying and selling secondhand items as trusted and convenient as buying brand new items,” said Mr Quek. Nurturing the talent behind the Group’s recommerce success Carousell Campus strengthens the Group’s commitment towards innovation and building a diverse, skilled team by serving as a central nexus for its eight regional offices to converge for strategic planning. A key component of developing the talent into a world-class team is focusing on regional collaborative sharing of best practices and capabilities as a Group. CEOs and senior...