Southeast Asia Cross-border E-commerce Market - Segmented by Business Type, Product Type, and Geography - Growth, Trends, and Forecast (2018 - 2023)

Cross-border e-commerce is expected to witness high growth than the overall e-commerce market, at a global level. Southeast Asia’s cross-border e-commerce accounts for more than 40% of the total e-commerce market in the region. Southeast Asia is the emerging hub of the e-commerce market, due to the already high and yet growing population, rising disposable income, increasing access to the internet, smartphone penetration, and developing transport infrastructure leading to efficient logistics services with faster and last mile delivery options. The e-commerce market in Southeast Asia is made up of several players and has been an area of significant and great interest for the behemoth Chinese online marketplaces and e-commerce enterprises.Reasons, such as the unavailability of products domestically, affordable costs, consumer-focused targeting by market players, and higher quality of goods, are leading to an increase in the demand for cross-border e-commerce market. Moreover, cross-border e-commerce offers a lot of advantages for SMEs to expand their businesses and become multinational, and it also presents an opportunity for OEMs to sell their products directly to consumers, relieving them from the complex supply chain.Apart from the advantages that it offers, cross-border e-commerce also faces some challenges, such as high delivery cost and tight delivery deadline requirements, currency conversions, and language. Moreover, the absence of a bank account in some villages is also a factor that hinders the online payment in case of online transactions.

Southeast Asia’s Cross-border E-commerce to grow by Leaps and Bounds

Singapore and Malaysia are the two important countries for cross-border e-commerce among the Southeast Asian nations, accounting for over 50% of the total cross-border e-commerce market. Singapore is the major player among the ASEAN countries, in cross-border e-commerce, with almost 55% of the online transactions that take place corresponding to cross-border transactions. The fact that GST is absent in Singapore for importing goods that are less than SGD 400, is also an important factor that drives cross-border sales.

Thailand is the other biggest market in Southeast Asia, witnessing high growth in the e-commerce market, which is expected to register a CAGR of 14.5% and reach USD 5.8 billion by 2022. Moreover, the government’s Thailand 4.0 policy, which enhances internet connectivity in every village in the country, is expected to energize the market further. Additionally, the markets in Vietnam and the Philippines possess huge potential for cross-border e-commerce.

With the presence of famous holiday spots, such as Singapore and Bangkok, hotel bookings and booking of air tickets play a major role in cross-border transactions. According to a survey, apparel and footwear are some of the highly purchased goods in Southeast Asian nations, in foreign sites, followed by cosmetics and games. Moreover, various bilateral and free trade agreements, which facilitate trade between nations, boost the cross-border e-commerce market.

Multichannel and Blockchain to become prominent

Multichannel selling provides a number of platforms, such as social media, online marketplace, and other mediums, for sellers to reach customers, and it is significant in attracting international customers. Moreover, the blockchain technology plays an important role in cross-border payments, by reducing cost remittance and also increasing transparency.

Key Developments in the Market

• April 2018- Lazada launched a cross-border service between Malaysia and Singapore. Its pilot service enables sellers in Malaysia to market their products in Singapore. The Digital Free Trade Zone (DFTZ) and exemption of GST provides hassle-free trade.


• March 2018- The E-commerce platform Tmall adopted blockchain technology in its cross-border supply chain by partnering with the logistics company Cainiao.

Major Players: Alibaba Group (AliExpress, Tmall, Alibaba.com, Lazada, Taobao), Amazon,eBay, JD.com (JingDong), ASOS, ezbuy, Vcanbuy, Etsy

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