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author | liu yu

editor's note:

since this year, southeast asian e-commerce has shown certain phased changes. in the first half of the year, southeast asian e-commerce as a whole was in a state of accumulating strength; in the second half of the year, southeast asian e-commerce began to receive good news. not only did major e-commerce platforms begin and will soon enter the stage of profitability in individual markets, intensive promotion activities also made southeast asian e-commerce shows the fiery side. in particular, live streaming e-commerce has become the most obvious growing part of e-commerce in southeast asia.

to this end, xiaguang news has created the "southeast asia cross-border wind vane" column to observe, record and analyze new changes in cross-border and e-commerce in southeast asia, and explore new opportunities for overseas expansion.

“e-commerce in southeast asia is entering a new era.” an e-commerce practitioner began to feel this way.

on the one hand, as several major e-commerce platforms have successively achieved profitability, the market has begun to move towards a healthier state, and various platforms and logistics, payment and other companies have begun to focus on improving the e-commerce service experience and infrastructure in southeast asia; on the other hand, vietnam has begun to move towards a healthier state. more and more young people in southeast asia have begun to accept the new species of live broadcasting and become experts one after another. in some southeast asian e-commerce companies, many college students have even become part-time experts and anchors. "it is very similar to the early self-media era in china, except that they are on tiktok.”

over the past two decades, the development of e-commerce in china has attracted worldwide attention. from 2003 to 2023, the size of china's e-commerce market has grown from 1.16 billion yuan to 50.57 trillion yuan, an increase of more than 400,000 times. several development nodes that have boosted china's e-commerce are: in 2009, private express delivery received national policy opening and encouragement; in 2013, online payment entered an explosive period; in 2016, the rise of live streaming e-commerce opened up e-commerce second growth curve.

looking back at southeast asia, several key factors such as logistics, online payment, and live e-commerce have been continuously improving in recent years. coupled with the fact that this young market has now entered the stage of the explosion of "self-media experts", live broadcast e-commerce represented by tiktok shop is driving southeast asia's e-commerce to a new development cycle and driving the development of cross-border e-commerce in southeast asia to present a new trend. opportunities and potential.

flights to southeast asia are crowded with chinese people

in mid-september this year, before china's traditional mid-autumn festival was over, a group of delegations from jiangxi and jiangsu boarded flights to southeast asia.

an important arrangement during their trip is to discuss cooperation opportunities in the southeast asian market with local companies. one of the focuses falls on the development prospects of cross-border e-commerce in southeast asia.

in 2024, as overseas expansion shows a further explosive trend, the southeast asian market will also become more favored by chinese overseas enterprises.

a chinese entrepreneur in southeast asia lamented that last year, one of his very important tasks was to receive visiting businessmen from china; and this year, he received more visiting businessmen than last year.

in southeast asia, malaysia is one of the markets favored by chinese businessmen. yu hui (pseudonym), a cross-border entrepreneur in shenzhen, said that there is a saying in the overseas travel circle that the number of chinese going to malaysia this year has exceeded 1 million, and "the flights from china to kuala lumpur are often full."

this statement was confirmed by malaysian minister of tourism, arts and culture zhang qingxin - he said in the first half of this year that as of may this year,number of chinese visitors to malaysia reaches 1.18 million, an increase of 194% compared with the same period last year. even malaysia's airasia (ak) began operating four flights per week from penang to shenzhen starting from october 28 this year.

what kind of magic does southeast asia have that attracts the attention of chinese tourists, businessmen, and entrepreneurs?

on the one hand, southeast asia is geographically close to china, has strong industrial demand, and is experiencing rapid economic growth, attracting many chinese companies to invest here.

on the other hand, the digital economy in southeast asia is also growing rapidly. according to the "2023 southeast asia digital economy report" released by google, temasek and bain & company, the total volume of merchandise transactions in southeast asia's digital economy is expected to reach us$218 billion in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 11%. asean secretary-general gao jin once said that the scale of the digital economy in the asean region is expected to increase to us$2 trillion by 2030.

a rapidly growing economy naturally requires and attracts more business participants.

southeast asia, a unique market with great potential

in southeast asia’s digital economy, e-commerce has become the fastest-growing digital service in southeast asia. according to the "2023 southeast asia digital economy report", southeast asia's e-commerce gmv will reach us$139 billion in 2023 and is expected to reach us$186 billion in 2025, an increase of 16%. this is a high growth level globally.

in the gmv of china's e-commerce market, the growth rate of more than 16% will return to that before 2018.

in fact, since the domestic e-commerce market entered the fast lane of development in 2003, the transaction scale of china's e-commerce market has also experienced a period of high growth for more than ten years. from 2004 to 2017, china's e-commerce market transaction scale has maintained a growth rate of more than 20%, and even in some of the first years, the growth rate exceeded 40%.

therefore, the sales channel of e-commerce has created a number of well-known merchants and brands and became a "wealth-making machine" at that time. many brands have taken advantage of the development momentum of e-commerce to achieve leapfrog development and become the leaders in this field.

the rise of live streaming e-commerce in 2016 opened up another segmented track for e-commerce development. since then, live streaming e-commerce has become more and more popular among young consumers. according to the "dian shu bao" e-commerce database of the internet economic society, the national online retail sales in 2023 will be 15.4 trillion yuan, and the scale of live broadcast e-commerce transactions has reached 4.9 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 40.48%.

looking back at today's live streaming e-commerce in southeast asia, it is just like the early domestic live streaming e-commerce exploded around 2018.

at the beginning of 2021, tiktok shop was the first to go online in indonesia. in the first half of 2022, tiktok shop has successively entered thailand, vietnam, the philippines, malaysia, and singapore. subsequently, live streaming e-commerce began to rise in southeast asia.

a southeast asian girl broadcasts live in front of the camera

public reports show that tiktok shop’s total e-commerce transactions in southeast asia have reached approximately us$16.3 billion in 2023, which is nearly four times the us$4.4 billion in 2022. however, at present, the overall penetration rate of e-commerce in southeast asia is still less than 6%. compared with china’s e-commerce penetration rate of 45.9%,there is still huge room for growth。

but at the same time, when many companies first enter the southeast asian market, they will feel that they are different from those at home.

in fact, there are many ethnic groups in the southeast asian market. not only do they have huge differences in customs and preferences, but their income and consumption levels are also quite different from those in china. this means that it may be difficult to fully impress local consumers by relying solely on domestically proven product selection and sales strategies to develop the southeast asian market. therefore, if merchants want to advance, they need to consider revising products according to local consumer preferences, localizing product selections, and forming their own unique southeast asian strategy.

take pet consumption, which is relatively hot this year, as an example. thai consumers pay special attention to refined and high-quality pet food products; while malaysian consumers not only pay attention to pet food, but also have a greater demand for pet travel and toys. therefore, merchants need to prepare corresponding products according to different market needs.

on this basis, we will further improve the quality of e-commerce services and improve infrastructure construction such as logistics and payment to further satisfy consumers' shopping experience.

southeast asia’s cross-border, live streaming e-commerce opens up new opportunities

in august this year, as some southeast asian e-commerce platforms entered a single market profit state, the e-commerce profit model was further verified in southeast asia. southeast asian e-commerce has also begun to enter a new stage of development - while optimizing platform services, it pays more attention to logistics. , payment and other e-commerce infrastructure construction.

an entrepreneur who has been engaged in e-commerce services in southeast asia for a long time told xiaguang news that although e-commerce in southeast asia was growing rapidly in the past, due to imperfect local logistics, payment and other infrastructure, the experience of e-commerce consumers was not good, such as delivery. it takes a long time, online payment is cumbersome, etc. however, in the past two years, the improvement of logistics and payment experience in southeast asia has been clearly felt.

"this year, overseas warehouses are particularly popular. for example, tiktok shop, southeast asia's cross-border merchants, have fully opened their overseas warehouses. the biggest benefit of overseas warehouses is to move goods originally shipped from china to the local market, which greatly shortens the logistics and transportation time. . the logistics time that originally took one week may be shortened to 2-3 days,” the entrepreneur said.

online payments are also becoming more and more convenient. in thailand, when walking in the streets of many cities, you will see more and more shops hanging qr code pictures. this is the digital payment system "quick pay" developed and promoted by the thai government. according to the target set by the thai government, 42% of payment transactions in thailand will be digital by the end of 2024. in cambodia, the national bank is also frequently cooperating with online payment institutions to promote qr code payment.

looking back at the development path of china's e-commerce, after 2013, the growth rate of e-commerce reached a new peak, with the highest annual growth rate reaching 36.56%. a very important reason is that online payment has developed rapidly since 2013, the popularity of electronic receipts has greatly improved logistics efficiency, and the improvement of e-commerce infrastructure has boosted the growth of e-commerce transaction scale to a new level.

now southeast asia has also entered a state of rapid development in e-commerce infrastructure.this means that e-commerce still has great growth potential in the future. different from china, the current development stage of e-commerce in southeast asia has also encountered the sudden rise of live broadcast e-commerce represented by tiktok shop. this allows more and more entrepreneurs to see opportunities.

in fact, most southeast asian countries have felt the enthusiasm of chinese businessmen this year. in addition to malaysia mentioned earlier, li tong (pseudonym), an entrepreneur in vietnam, also observed this year that a very large number of chinese businessmen went to vietnam to investigate e-commerce.tiktok shop becomes the preferred platform for chinese cross-border merchants to go global。

"the reason why live streaming e-commerce is particularly popular in southeast asia is inseparable from some characteristics here." li tong said.

according to the latest statistics, the population of southeast asia reaches 678 million, of which more than 50% are under the age of 30, and 74% are under the age of 45. the characteristics of young netizens are that they are keen on socializing and are willing to accept new things, and live streaming, a style that integrates e-commerce and social interaction, is very easy to be accepted by internet users in the region.

mr. lin, the person in charge of a southeast asian live streaming e-commerce service organization, told xiaguang news that from his own perspective, the most important group is the 25-34 year old group, followed by the 35-44 year old group, and the 45-year-old and above group. relatively few.

influenced by social networks, these young people have a higher acceptance of live streaming e-commerce. "in our company, there are many college students who work part-time as experts. once a brand enters the market, the experts will proactively contact the brand to help them promote content." mr. lin said.

from logistics to online payment to reaching groups of people, the gradually improving ecology has become fertile ground for the development of live streaming e-commerce in southeast asia.

from shelves to live streaming, reshaping the future of e-commerce

more and more people are beginning to realize that live streaming e-commerce is becoming a new species under the transformation of the new retail scene.

this means that there are some fundamental differences between shelf e-commerce and live broadcast e-commerce. traditional shelf e-commerce is based on consumers actively searching and making order decisions based on graphic and textual descriptions of products; while live streaming e-commerce is based on merchants seeing content they like and seeing experts experience it in the live broadcast. make an order decision based on the product.

therefore, the shift from “people looking for goods” has become “goods looking for people”. the difference in order reflects that live broadcast e-commerce will fully explore the use value and emotional value of products, match consumers' needs from more dimensions, shorten the consumer's decision-making process, and complete transactions faster.

in addition, the sales process between shelf e-commerce and live broadcast e-commerce is also different. it takes about a week for a new piece of clothing to arrive, take photos, write introduction content, and then put it on the shelves for sale; with live broadcast, sales can begin as soon as the goods are received.

for hot-selling products and seasonal and time-sensitive products, time is sales. this is also the factor that businesses value most.

through long-term observation of live streaming e-commerce in southeast asia, mr. lin summed up some rules: “generally speaking, some new products are more likely to be sold on the tiktok shop platform. for example,when a beauty brand launches a new product, its sales explosion must be on tiktok shop.because this platform has greater traffic and reaches more user groups, it will also help increase brand awareness. "

various advantages make live streaming e-commerce the focus of the current southeast asian e-commerce market.

it is foreseeable that as the e-commerce ecosystem improves and the specialization of live broadcasts is improved, live broadcast e-commerce will accelerate the reshaping of the future of e-commerce in southeast asia and even reshape the new retail model in southeast asia.