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cailianshe news, september 18 (reporter luo yichen)"i plan to conquer the southeast asian market on my own in 8 to 10 years, and then i can retire." lv yixiong, chairman of shangmei co., ltd. (02145.hk), announced at a recent industry conference that he would personally lead the expansion into southeast asia.

at present, as the domestic beauty and cosmetics market is becoming saturated, it has become an industry trend to layout the next potential market. as the most promising region in the global e-commerce market, the six southeast asian countries consisting of indonesia, thailand, malaysia, singapore, the philippines and vietnam have become the first stop for chinese beauty and cosmetics to seek gold overseas due to their similar culture, large number of young people and developed e-commerce.

in this wave of going overseas, leading enterprises are the absolute main force. including shangmei co., ltd., beitanni (300957.sz), proya (603605.sh), chando and other leading enterprises with relatively stable market share have successively established special teams to expand the southeast asian market.

in contrast, mid-tier beauty companies are still focusing on the domestic market. when asked about their overseas expansion plans, many brand representatives mentioned that "the company does not understand the overseas market", "the management is unsure", and "the staffing cannot keep up", indicating that it may take 2-3 years before they can make any arrangements.

in terms of specific market selection, the markets of southeast asian countries are obviously different, resulting in different layout strategies of beauty companies. some people point out that southeast asia can be simply divided into two camps according to the degree of development. the current situation of markets represented by indonesia and vietnam is similar to that of chinese counties around 2000, with low per capita consumption levels, few brand choices, and opportunities everywhere. markets represented by thailand and malaysia have relatively mature consumption formats, but there are still many opportunities in e-commerce channels.

at present, the layout of leading domestic brands on platforms such as lazada and tiktok has taken shape, but when talking about the scale of business in southeast asia, all brands emphasized that the scale is small and have not disclosed specific data.

source: produced by cailianshe reporter

taking lazada as an example, comprehensive data shows that leading domestic brands have made rapid progress in relatively developed markets such as thailand and malaysia, but overall, market development is still in its infancy, and the gap in relevant data is not large. the store with the highest number of fans is only over 10,000, and the sales of popular items are mostly around a few hundred pieces. in addition to traditional e-commerce platforms, chando and proya also opened stores on tiktok in malaysia to sell goods, but data from the fastmoss platform shows that the stores' historical sales are only a few hundred thousand.

it can be said that the scale of the leading domestic flagship stores on the lazada platform is comparable to that of some stores operated by agents. the latter are generally operated through a cross-border e-commerce model, and the number of fans of a single store can reach tens of thousands. according to a person related to the cosmetics brand wei zi, the e-commerce business of the company's agents in vietnam has already reached a considerable scale. influenced by this, the company's management is also very optimistic about the southeast asian market, but due to insufficient staffing, it may take 2-3 years for the official start.

it should be noted that relying on agents to expand overseas markets may also cause trouble. cailianshe reporter learned from a brand person that an agent once approached the company to purchase goods in the name of exporting to southeast asia, but since the market expansion was not as expected, the batch of goods eventually returned to china, disrupting the brand's offline channels. in view of this, the brand is currently quite cautious about going overseas.