Coronavirus: e-commerce in Southeast Asia rides high on pandemic boom

The sector was already tracking massive growth, increasing in value from US$5.5 billion in 2015 to US$38 billion last year – a trend that’s now accelerating

And it’s not just big, established platforms such as Shopee and Lazada, there’s Vietnam’s Sendo, and Tokopedia and Bukalapak in Indonesia as well

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Published: 12:00pm, 1 Aug 2020Updated: 4:05pm, 4 Aug 2020

When the coronavirus pandemic hit and shops around the world had to close their doors, consumers in Southeast Asia and elsewhere were forced to turn online for their retail therapy – sending sales receipts for e-commerce platforms skyrocketing, even as bricks-and-mortar businesses suffered.

Singapore-based Shopee saw its sales in Indonesia increase by more than 120 per cent in the first three months of 2020, compared to the same period last year, according to Chief Commercial Officer Zhou Junjie, with upwards of 185 million orders placed through the platform in the country.

Although Zhou declined to share how the company had fared in other markets, he said he believed the move towards e-commerce across the region was “broad, deep and irreversible”, adding that Shopee was the top-ranked app by monthly active users in Taiwan, Indonesia, Vietnam and Malaysia.

The region’s e-commerce sector was already tracking massive growth before the pandemic, increasing almost 600 per cent in just four years, from US$5.5 billion in 2015 to US$38 billion last year, according to a report from Google, Temasek, and Bain and Company last year, which forecast the sector would exceed US$150 billion in value by 2025.

An employee shows off the Shopee app at the company’s Singapore headquarters in this 2016 photo. Photo: Bloomberg

The coronavirus only accelerated that trend, with Shopee and other online retailers like it expecting consumers tochange their shopping behaviours for good. Amid the pandemic and its associated lockdowns, many across Southeast Asia have found their selling and buying options “essentially limited to e-commerce”, according to Richard Wong, vice-president and head of ICT for the Asia-Pacific at research consultancy Frost & Sullivan.

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