Amazon’s entry into Southeast Asia is just the beginning of a potentially tough e-commerce war


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The competition among e-commerce markets in Thailand is getting stiffer in Q3 2017 when Amazon announced to enter Southeast Asia. Singapore is the first market picked by Amazon to expand into. This entry made by Amazon could significantly alter the e-commerce market not only in Singapore but also in the whole region.

iPrice released the first interactive content, The Map of E-Commerce Thailand, comparing 38 e-commerce websites in Thailand. Users can filter e-commerce based on different parameters such as traffic (based on Similarweb), application downloads, and social media followers.

The data was gathered from April to June 2017. Let’s see how the e-commerce has progressed in the past quarter and how it will change over the next periods. Here are the 5 interesting findings from this interactive content.

1. The King of E-Commerce in Thailand (Traffic and Social Media)

The king of e-commerce in Thailand in terms of traffic and social media followers is Lazada. Although they are the winner in almost every parameter, Lazada needs to be prepared for the entry of Amazon in Southeast Asia.

  • The highest number of traffic in Thailand (41,680,000 visits)
  • The highest number of app installed (50,000,000 downloads)
  • The highest number of followers on LINE (18,894,000 followers)
  • The highest number of followers on Facebook (17,539,000 followers)
  • The highest number of employees on Linkedin (656 employees)
  • Placed 6th on Instagram followers, definitely not their forte but still can catch up with the front-runner, which is Carnival with 261,000 followers. Lazada Instagram follower is 84,800 as of now.

Lazada entered Southeast Asia in early 2012. With their aggressive expansion in 6 countries, Lazada earned a strong reputation and increased its customer base continually. With the advantage of operating in 6 countries, its social media contains numbers of people in all 6 countries.

Also read: Captain’s log, August 18: High-end co-working spaces in Thailand set to grow

2. Top 10 websites in Thailand are mostly tech and general type

Based on traffic, the top 10 websites in Thailand are general and tech websites. It obviously supports the fact that Thai people who shop for fashion products buy with individual brand on social media. Those brands on social media have produced far more stylish and trendy clothes than e-commerce websites.

Konvy is the only fashion website that is listed in the top 10 based on traffic. They offer cosmetics and skin care. Konvy is doing a great job in closing the gap in the Thai market, in which big cosmetics and skincare website is scarce.

3. Fierce Rivalry

The three biggest e-commerce websites in Thailand are Lazada, 11street and Shoppe. They are all international firms that have expanded to take opportunities in the kingdom. The fourth place is Chilindo, a Thai-based e-commerce that shows potential to beat international players with a one-of-a-kind service that allows customers to buy on auction.

The rise of 11street in Southeast Asia is something other e-commerce companies should watch out . SK Planet officially launched 11street in Thailand in February. With its competitive edge on Korean branding and product variation, 11street has been welcomed by Thai over the past period. Plus, 11street’s aggressive integrated marketing communication ie. outdoor advertisement in Siam BTS station, ads display on commute, Thai absorbed the brand quickly which leads to the company to get the second highest rank in traffic. Although the monthly traffic is 5 times less than that of Lazada, 11street CEO, Jeon Hong Cheol sees the big opportunity that his firm could become the leading Korean e-commerce firm in the market.

The second-runner up in terms of traffic goes to Shopee, which is a c2c business that allows customers to sell stuffs online. It just received a new round of funding to expand into b2c market. Shopee focuses on mobile application. With its intuitive interface, people can easily sell and buy once the application is processed. The app has more than 1 million downloads as of June 2017. Thus, the traffic on the website increased, garnering a 3rd place on the list.

4. Social Media Winner

Traffic, App Downloads, and Facebook

Chilindo has been operated in Thailand for 4 years and excelled in 3 parameters, comparing to local players. Its unique business model allows customers to buy products on auction that start from 1 Baht. Chilindo has the highest number of traffic compared to local competitors, with an average monthly visit of 3,056,000. They have 500,000 app downloads and 3,510,000 likes on Facebook. Chilindo is very active on Facebook since they post engaging content like video and gif, displaying the fun products they sell.

LINE King

LINE is one of the most popular platforms in Thailand. It shows that from the top 10 e-commerce companies, 8 of them are Thai merchants. There are Wemall, Karmarts, Powerbuy, Jaymart, Pomelo, Shop 24, Central Online,and Beauticool. Thailand is the only country in Southeast Asia where LINE dominates the messaging market.  Thus, international players like Lazada and Shopee must utilize the LINE application to communicate with Thai better.

Instagram Queen

Carnival started as a small street fashion store in Siam Square. It rapidly grew and entered into online market with various street brands. Carnival has 261,000 followers on Instagram which beats Lazada on this parameter.

Carnival invests time into creating beautiful visuals for their products. This is because they want to illustrate their product in a visually appealing way. Plus, detailed information of the product such as size, color, price, discount and contact channels are explicitly provided for convenience.

Also read: The long road ahead for the Thailand startup ecosystem

5. Offline Stores go Online

J.I.B is a good example of how a physical store ventured online business. Somyos opened his first computer store at Zear Rangsit. The business has expanded to more than 140 stores.

Somyos, the founder of J.I.B learned from Pawoot, tarad.com to place a call-to-action button on his website. After customers were able to order online the outcome was surprising. Within one month, he received 800,000 Baht from online channel. Thus, he started to focus on e-commerce business from then on. J.I.B is 6th by traffic. The monthly visit is 245,000 visits.

Followed by the most famous department store in the country, Central. It joined e-commerce market under “Central Online”. It ranked 7th by monthly traffic with 2,039,500 visits. With the mission statement of bringing the department store to you in just one click, Central Online will be able to utilize their fame and long history in department store business to go up against big guys in e-commerce space.

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Above are the 5 interesting findings from our analysis. To learn more about the interactive content, please go to The Map of E-Commerce Thailand

The post We mapped out the fierce e-commerce competition in Thailand and found some interesting trends appeared first on e27.