With huge potential, will social e-commerce in Southeast Asia become mainstream in the future?

Market intelligence company Cube Asia recently released a report on the development of social e-commerce in Southeast Asia , which stated that by the end of 2022, social e-commerce will affect nearly US$42 billion in e-commerce sales in Southeast Asia.

In recent years, under the influence of the epidemic, Southeast Asian users have significantly increased the time they spend on social platforms , which has brought many opportunities for the development of the e-commerce industry .

At present, social media platforms in Southeast Asia have gradually matured and are no longer simply directing traffic to e-commerce platforms through advertising, but are hoping to play a greater role in the e-commerce field . For example, nearly 15% of e-commerce transactions in Singapore are completed on social media platforms .

At the same time, e-commerce platforms are also working hard to introduce social features such as live shopping to make their platforms more attractive. This form may become mainstream in the future .

Social platforms are expected to directly contribute more than $34 billion to Southeast Asia 's e-commerce industry in 2022. Currently, TikTok is a leader in the field of social e-commerce in Southeast Asia because it can provide many unique e-commerce features and solutions to many small and medium-sized sellers.

Of the more than 800 Indonesian beauty brands surveyed by Cube Asia , 44% have opened TikTok stores. Nearly 30% of Singaporean netizens recently surveyed by Cube Asia said they had shopped on TikTok stores this year .

Data also shows that live shopping sales in Southeast Asia increased more than tenfold to US$13 billion in 2022. 44% of Internet users in the region have participated in live shopping in the past 12 months, with consumers in Vietnam and Thailand being the most active, with 60% of respondents having experience with live shopping .

According to respondents, live shopping is attractive because it offers great discounts and can create a sense of urgency for users to buy.

In addition, community group buying in Southeast Asia has also shown signs of development. Inspired by China's Pinduoduo and India's Meesho, many Southeast Asian retail startups have begun to try to drive their sales growth through community group buying.

It is understood that community group buying models can be roughly divided into two types. The first is a price-driven model, in which people spontaneously gather together to get lower prices; the second is an agent-driven model, in which dealers provide services to group members.

Regardless of the form, it can be seen that social e-commerce still has great development potential in Southeast Asia. Cross-border sellers can try to make layouts in this direction in combination with their own businesses.

Southeast Asia

Social e-commerce