Battle lines drawn as e-commerce surges
The e-commerce battlefield will intensify as five key platforms — search engine, social media, chat messaging, payment and pure e-commerce provider — jump on the bandwagon, driving further cross-border business in Thailand.
In 2019, Google Shopping, Facebook Marketplace, Line and Facebook Messenger will further integrate with e-payment. Kasikornbank (KBank) will also expand with K-Market, said Thanawat Malabuppha, chief executive and co-founder of Priceza, a Thai-based shopping search engine.
Meanwhile, e-commerce platforms such as Lazada, Shopee and JD Central will incorporate newsfeed and chat in their social media to reduce marketing costs and create better customer engagement.
“All five platforms will move to e-commerce,” Mr Thanawat said.
Merchants will enjoy more opportunities to sell products and services via e-marketplaces. An estimated 75 million items are available on Lazada, Shopee and JD Central combined.
Some 80% of those products are crossborder goods, and 20% are local products. The top overseas categories are sports/ outdoors, pet supplies and watches/sunglasses/jewellery. The top local categories are groceries and health/beauty.
“Local products need to create their own uniqueness and sell to every existing channel to reach their customers, while local importers need to be aware and make adjustments,” Mr Thanawat said.
E-payment platforms will develop their own wallet features to reduce cash costs. According to the Bank of Thailand, the cost of cash is 1.26 baht per transaction, compared with 0.10-0.40 baht per transaction via e-payment.
Adoption of e-payment is growing as at least six platforms focus on e-wallet: Lazada, Shopee, JD.com, Line, KBank and Siam Commercial Bank.
The trend could help reduce cash on delivery (COD) as transactions shift to e-wallet on delivery (EOD). In Malaysia, Grab provides delivery service and shoppers pay using e-wallet when the goods are delivered.
“Omnichannel is the key to understanding user behaviour via search, commerce, chat, social media and payment,” Mr Thanawat said.
He said the value of Thailand’s online retail commerce (including business-toconsumer and consumer-to-consumer) is an estimated 150 billion baht in 2018, making it the second-largest such market in Southeast Asia. Online accounts for 1-2% of total retail in Thailand.
By segment, social media accounts for 40%, e-marketplaces for 35% and websites by goods owners for 25% of online retail.
Local e-commerce will continue to grow 20-30% a year as the number of mobile internet users increases to 58 million by 2020 alongside logistics improvements that will stimulate e-payment, Mr Thanawat said.
Priceza plans to kick off its new service with a media partner and launch a shopping platform called Priceza Shopping Partner Network in the first quarter of 2019.