Top ASEAN eCommerce sites

I often receive questions about the most common and popular eCommerce sites in Southeast Asia. Each day, this question becomes more complex as it is one of the most digitally dynamic regions in Asia and the world. Nevertheless, I will attempt to provide a summary of some of the most relevant platforms in case you are interested in partnering with them, selling your products, or simply want to explore popular articles in a region that is experiencing rapid economic eCommerce grow expectations in the world according to the IMF.

Based on B2C (business-to-consumer) and C2C (consumer-to-consumer) platforms, excluding B2B (such as Shopify), the following are some of the most popular eCommerce sites in the largest markets of Southeast Asia: Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, and Vietnam. Please note that these platforms are present in multiple markets, providing a good overview.

Indonesia

With a population over 280 million, ranking fourth globally, Indonesia’s eCommerce market is projected to reach a revenue of US$62.59 billion in 2022 according to statista. Despite this, it is often as an overlooked as a market. Some of the most popular eCommerce sites in Indonesia are.

Indonesia

With a 278.3 million population, the fourth largest globally, Indonesia eCommerce market revenue is expected to reach US$62.59bn in and is often seeing

Some of the most popular eCommerce sites:

Tokopedia – www.tokopedia.com – perhaps the largest and free C2C business platform for merchants and buyerse in Indonesia. To sell on Tokopedia, you need to set up a local company (almost all of them need anyway), which is not the easiest task on hand, some steps on this link. Don’t forget that Tokopedia is still in an early stage. As mentioned, it brings many similarities to what the popular Chinese Taobao was a few years back. Perhaps the easier place to find super cheap products and local providers for Mobile, Electronics and Fashion, which account for almost half of their transactions.
JD https://jd.id/ The Chinese giant has also experienced a huge growth in the last years. In some statistics is placed over Tokopedia. Probably more diversified than the other peers, offers offers not only a lot of electronnics but also flights, hotels vacation packages and data services
Shopee – https://shopee.co.id/ – in some research appear over Tokopedia as the most popular site but still lags behind Tokopedia in visits. Present across the whole region, is a listed company in Nasdaq – NYSE: SE – they have their own product stock but has traditionally positioned themselves as a ‘merchants’ market place where small and medium companies and individuals can sell their own products – B2C shopping platform – since they posses a wide range of consumer goods from Southeast Asia and South America.

Shopee, like any e-commerce platform, intemediates between sellers and buyers of goods. The company’s revenue comes from charging its seller’s transaction-based fees, advertising services, and value-added services.
Bukalapak https://www.bukalapak.com

Probably with more traffic but lower revenues than Shopee, visit this link to learn how to sell in Bukalapak. More similar to Tokopedia, Electronics and low cost fashion are also the most popular categories.

Bukalapak

Other sites: Orami, Ralali, Kaskus and Blibli are also popular options.

Vietnam

Market size estimated in $151bn in 2022 according to statista – it should be much bigger since Facebook and the local Zalo WeChat are also heavily utilized – and the fastest growing market of the region.

The graphic below is from 2020 but it gives a good overview of apps and platform in terms of traffic.

Shopee – https://shopee.com/ – and its competitor Lazada are the traditional leaders, with very similar offers to their neighbor countries, the main categories stand as fashion, toys, Hobby & DIY plus the always present electronic components.

Tiki – perhaps the largest 100% local Vietnamese platform, Tiki (“Tìm kiếm & Tiết kiệm”, which stands for “Search & Save”) claims to be the Vietnam’s fastest and most trusted B2C e-commerce platform.

Tiki.vn is expected to become a key competitor for Shopee and Lazada since they recently published how it managed to raise $258 million and is expecting to go IPO in the US shortly (Bloomberg) , supported by AIA, leading insurance provider in Asia that also closed an exclusive partnership to distribute insurance on their platform.

Similarly to Amazon, Tiki become popular by leading literature, children, economics books and manga comics before they expanded into other services and included blogs, articles, polls, forums, wiki pages, file galleries and trackers. This guide can help to learn how to sell in this platform

Thegioididong https://www.thegioididong.com/ – stands for ‘the mobile phone world’ is probably the leading eCommerce and offline(counts with a extended network of physical shops) across the market, however they are mainly resellers and do not offer a direct marketplace as Shopee or Tiki.

Cho Tot. http://www.Chotot.com which stands for ‘the good market’, was one of the first listing companies and was considered the Vietnamese Craiglist. Founded in 2012 as an online classified marketplace for connecting buyers with sellers and was purchased by ‘Carousel’ , Singaporean leading classified with presence in in Australia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Taiwan, raised $80 million USD funding recently.

Other local platforms like Adayroi (I found it) and Sendo are also important platforms to keep in mind.

Philippines

With a total market over $20billion, the Philippines is another fast growing market, perhaps more stable than the other Asean markets, with three key players that have been leading the industry for several years Lazada, Shopee, and ZALORA.

ZALORA – https://www.zalora.com.ph/ Providing services in Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan, Hong-Kong, Thailand, and Vietnam, ZALORA used to dominate across the region however it has lost popularity in almost every market with the exception of Philippines they are mainly focused on shopping for fashion, carrying an ever-expanding line-up of top local and international brands tailored for consumers. To learn how to sell, follow this link

Metrodeal https://www.metrodeal.com/ is perhaps the unique large local platform. Headquarter in Metro Manilla, Metrodeal is specialized in coupons and deals gathering promotions for restaurants, leisure, shopping, travel and recently moved into process payments directly placing them on this e-commerce ca

Globe https://shop.globe.com.ph/ is perhaps the second largest local player, however most of its market share probably come because of its position as one of the country’s top conglomerates which is trying to break into the country’s burgeoning eCommerce market. Online shopping at Globe is mostly focused on electronic devices, gadgets, apparel, post-paid network plans and other services. Steps to open your shop on the following link

Other platforms are the omnipresent Shopee, Lazada and eBay, which still keeps a decent market share compared to other markets in which has almost disappeared.

Thailand

As usual, different sources offer different estimates of the total value of the eCommerce value of Thailand, but most of them agree that the growth rate is not ramping up as quickly as Indonesia, Vietnam or Philippines.

Using statista as a benchmark, Thailand has a $20bn market

Revenue in the eCommerce market is projected to reach US$22.20bn in 2022, a particularity of this market is that a significant amount of these revenues are generated in China by Chinese resellers that live and sell products to mainland china

In terms of categories, the market behaves similarly to its peers in terms electronics, but with a higher volume of beauty, household and personal care products which are very popular across the whole Asia

Shopee and Lazada stand as market leaders, similarly to Philippines, however the are two local market players that worth to mention:

Kaidee https://www.kaidee.com/ | แพลตฟอร์มซื้อ-ขายของออนไลน์ชั้นนำของประเทศไทย

This Thai eCommerce marketplace allows you to buy almost everything, from houses (perhaps the best listing of the country) to new or second hand cars, mobile phones, fashion, toys, and much more.