Thailand E-commerce Landscape (The latest update in 2020)

The living and shopping are currently quicker and easier, if consumers are interested in whatever, they are able to access the internet via mobile phones, tablets, or computers to find more information and compare prices via online channels then order and receive that product within a few hours easily. It allows you to do shopping without traveling to any store at all.

The value of e-commerce market in 2020

With the convenience of online shopping and the spread of COVID-19 in Thailand, it has become a driving force for consumers to shop online at a higher volume. As a result, the e-commerce business tends to grow up continually every year. We expect the value of the e-commerce market in 2020 to be as high as 220,000 million baht or 35% growth from the previous year.

Old and new players are still overheated on the e-commerce battlefield.

As a result of the increasing competition in the e-commerce business group every year, Priceza has gathered all the old and new players in this industry for you to study. But first, let’s understand the Thailand E-commerce Landscape in 2020.

Thailand E-commerce Landscape can be divided into 4 parts as follows:

1. Marketing Tools

Before a brand has become well-known and the successful experience does not take just a few days to be famous as fireworks. But a brand must have marketing plans such as advertising, thinking, promotion, good customer management, plan the way to promote or publicize a brand to be well-known. These are all important elements that make your brand successful. Therefore, the selection of various marketing tools is very important for a manufacturer so much.

2. E-commerce Channel

When a brand has already chosen the tools for marketing. We can come to the sales channel through the e-commerce platform straight away.

In other words, E-commerce is one of the channels that manufacturers should be able to compete in this channel. Currently, the technology and the advancement of the internet have no gap between traders and buyers anymore. Shopping can be done easily at home in just a few minutes.

As a result, sales through e-commerce platforms become another inevitably important choice. However, brands can sell through 3 channels as follows:

• E-marketplace: Selling products on the online market website that combines multiple stores in one place which we can open our stores such as Lazada, Shopee etc.
• Social Commerce: Selling online via social media such as Facebook, Instagram, or Line @, etc. Nowadays, many social media add functions for selling products, making it easier to put up for sale.
• E-tailer/Brand.com: It is making your own online store without going through the Marketplace at all. Therefore, there is no commission deduction when we sell, which can open online stores through various Webstore Platforms such as Tarad, LnwShop, or open an online store by yourself, create your own website, sell your products by yourself like Powerbuy.com and Beauticool.com.

3. Payment

Of course, the e-commerce business grows up every year. One thing that must grow together with it is the payment system. As technology becomes more advanced, Thailand is stepping into a cashless society. As you can see, people are using less cash in daily life and turning to use electronic payment services instead. Whether payment for purchases or service fees. It makes the payment system competition more intense both from bank players and private companies.

4. Logistic

Due to the changing consumer buying behavior in the digital age and the consistent growth of the e-commerce business, the value of Thai shipping companies is rapidly rising.

According to SCB’s analysis: Economic Intelligence Center, calculated from about 22 major Thai shipping companies during the past 3 years 2017-2019, it revealed that the market value of Thai shipping companies has an average growth rate of 40 percent per year. As a result, the competition of the shipping company business is more intense every year. It can be seen from the lower prices to attract entrepreneurs to use their services which can be further divided into shipping systems to meet the diverse needs of entrepreneurs and consumers.

 Let get deep inside each part!

Marketing

Let’s get started with marketing tools. For being well-known and memorized brand, every brand must use marketing platforms below definitely.

• Search engine

The websites that help to search for information on the internet that is popular in worldwide such as Google / Bing / Baidu / yahoo

• Shopping Search Engine

Website for searching product prices such as Google Shopping, Priceza who are search engine providers and the number one price comparison services in Thailand.

• Social Media AD Platform

Advertising on various social media platforms that are popular around the world.

Facebook and Instagram can manage ads through Business Manager which is the tool that helps manage online advertising and plan marketing efficiently. It is capable of managing ad accounts and targeting in-depth groups. There are a lot of platforms such as Tiktok ad / twitter ad manager /YouTube Ad / LINE Ads Platform. A new way to advertise on LINE, which must be purchased through the Agency. Currently, there are many agencies in Thailand.

• Email Marketing (EDM) is also known as Electronic Direct Mail. Marketing via email by sending information about various services or promotions to customers in order to boost sales and increase repeat opportunities. Currently, there are many services to choose from such as Mailchimp / Active Campanign / Sendgrid. There are most popular services in the world, easy to use, database is manageable, send bulk emails at the same time and measure precisely which is suitable for business communication

Nipamail, Nipa Technology Company Limited was founded on 27 June 1996 by Dr. Apisak Jullaya. It is a Thai company which has provided E-mail Marketing services from 2013 under NipaMail brand. It is suitable for those who would like to do E-mail Marketing related to send news or advertising to all members by the technology developed for Email Marketing particularly.

• Retarketing Platform

Many people may have had the experience of entering one website and then going out to use the second website but the advertisement for the first website is still following you. That’s because you have been stored as Lead Generation already. It is called Retarketing. There are many service providers like Google / Facebook / criteo / Adroll now.

• AD network

Advertising agency who takes good care of advertisement on various websites. The ads will appear on the web from all over the world that have partnered with Google, which will focus on advertisements that use banners, images. Regardless of which website users click on your ad such as Google Display Ad Network (GDN) / Facebook Audience Network / Taboola / bumq.

• Affiliate Marketing

Nowadays, online stores are increasingly using this marketing model. For example, allowing users to share the links of various products via social media, sharing is like helping to advertise the products of the store and the sharers will get rewards. If trading is happened via the shared link.

Currently, there is a prominent and well-known affiliate marketing platform known as the JD Central’s Lazada Affiliate Program / Joy Pay. Simply share the product on the homepage or any campaign page of JD CENTRAL on social media, and then have friends order products through your link within 30 days. That’s it, you will receive a commission without having to invest in a single stock of products.

• Content Marketing

It is very popular when social media has influenced many people’s buying decisions, making Content Marketing via Facebook Fanpage or a website is super renowned.

Start with Pantip, a community source for Thai people. If you don’t know what product information, just type the product name and ending with the “Pantip” word, you will appear as a forum for discussion, exchange of experiences, and many opinions. It is a website that has been with Thai people for over 20 years and is still popular onwards.

Let’s continue with the first promotion fan page in Thailand which is well-known for various brands, restaurants, to use the service to promote your brand to be known. In addition, there are also many other fan pages such as ShobShop / SALE HERE.

• Cash back

Shopback / dealcha / rebatemango / Cashback World Thailand / mycashback Online shopping platform that has promotions, discount codes. It’s like a general shopping website but the extra is that you will get your money back as well.

Supporting

E-commerce Enabler

The service providers and marketing assistants to help create a website to sell products online including the strategy of overseeing the e-commerce business from start to finish such as acommerce / N-Squared / JetCommerce / silken

Training

Providing knowledge and training services on various topics of interest which will help personnel to work more efficiently as well as develop knowledge to be up to date such as the training course for SMEs that is organized by the bank such as AEC Business Leader of Bangkok Bank which is an in-depth training workshop. It is suitable for Thai businessmen and entrepreneurs who would like to prepare and successfully start a business in ASEAN. / SCB SME / Krungthai MMS / Krungsri Business Talk for SME customers to provide information and perspectives on using technology in running the business in the digital age as well as sharing the experience of driving business with the innovation.

Finance for Online Sellers

We have come to the bank that is suitable for SMEs, Online merchants like Kbank who has partnered with LAZADA to revolutionize the online loan industry to support the growth of e-commerce by encouraging loan to Lazada’s seller. To be more reachable of loan by just clicking one button and waiting for the approval within 1 minute. Also, there is SCB that has partnered with LAZADA as well to make loans online immediately, no need to ask for documents by targeting online merchants.

E-commerce Channel

When brands have chosen to use marketing tools. Another popular online selling channel in Thailand is Priceza which can be divided into 3 channels as follows:

1. Marketplace

C2C provides trading services between minor merchants and consumers.

• • Major market leaders like Lazada and Shopee. There is also a Marketplace C2C platform that collects Thai farmers’ products such as Thailandpostmart Which is the largest distribution channel for agricultural products, community products, and OTOP products in Thailand. We are ready to deliver to consumers within a period of 1-2 business days. Consumers can check the details of the product and order and pay online immediately.

B2C provides trading services between businesses and distributors directly to consumers.

• • Such as LazMall / Shopee Mall / JD Central / WeMall / NocNoc

B2B provides trading services between business units in each other.

• • Such as OfficeMate / pantavanij / thaitrade

Cross-boarder

• • The giant Chinese trading platform like Alibaba and other platforms such as ebay / jd.com / amazon / Taobao.

2. Social Commerce

95% of Thai online businesses sell products through Social Commerce which is the highest average in the world (Source: Paypal Asia Social commerce report 2018). Of course, the most inevitable platforms are Facebook / Twitter / IG.

Also, there is also a new service such as Facebook Marketplace. It is a service that allows members to search and post products and services to buy or sell between people in the same area by using messaging through Messenger to contact and make an appointment at various locations that will be used in the exchange of products or services.

Moreover, the platform for Chatbot services that responds to messages and facilitates merchants is also available such as Chatpify/ Chatfuel and the Thai company like botio as well as Order Management to manage stocks such as xCommerce / Zort / Page365.

3. e-Tailer

Selling products and services directly to consumers which mean not going through a central platform. It can be divided into 3 types as follows:

1. Webstore Platform/Software: The service platform to create online stores for merchants such as LnwShop / BentoWeb / Tarad
2. B2C Multi-Category: The website collects various categories for shopping, such as Central / Shopat24 / Robinson / TVdirect
3. B2C Vertical: Websites that stand out in specific categories such as

Electronics: Electrical appliances such as Powerbuy / Jib With free delivery within 3 hours / Advice

Home & Living: Combines furniture and home décor just in one place such as Homepro / Koncept furniture SB Design Square

Fashion & Apparel: Fasionable clothes like Pomelo / Zara / Uniqlo / H&M

Beauty: Beauty products like Watson / Konvy / Beauticool

Book & Entertainment: Various books like Kinokuniya / B2S / Se-ed

Grocery: Consumer goods like Makroclick / Tops / Tescolotus / BigC / CP Freshmart และ Grocer lock

Insurance: Online insurances like Priceza Money / Tip insure / Frank

Payments

Here we are at the payment methods. Nowadays, e-commerce business is popular. Therefore, the payment system is becoming more competitive, both from banks and private companies. We would like to divide into 2 major categories which are Payment Gateway and E-Wallet.     

Payment Gateway: The player like Omise is a payment and payment management system that can control everything from the sale on the store’s website, no pop-ups or sending shoppers to a new window / 2C2P online payment service is the same. It is very popular. You can see that most large companies required online payment systems often use this service.

E-Wallet

• Bank

Mobile Banking of each bank. Let’s get started with Mae Manee from SCBeasy. SCBeasy has been trusted from merchants until they have to launch the prosperity. That’s is the origin of Mae Manee that every store has to have Mae Manee in front of their stores until it has become the character of SCBeasy. There are a lot of banks such as KPlus / Krungthai NEXT / KMA (กรุงศรี) / Thanachart Connect / TMB Touch / UOB Mighty Thailand / Bualuang mBanking

• Pure Wallet

A convenient online wallet, no need to carry cash, pay bills, credit cards by true money wallet/rabbit line pay as well as easy to buy stickers, various themes, and top-up for public transport like BTS.

• E-commerce wallet

E-wallet for the e-commerce application like LAZADA Wallet that can top up and make a payment for products in the app.

Logistics & Fulfilment

Competition in the shipping business is also savage! Priceza has divided the group into 6 groups as follows:

1. 3PL or Third Party Logistics provides companies that specialize in shipping to perform some or all of duties, such as shipping systems to increase efficiency such as Thailand Post / Kerry / Flash express.
2. 3PL Export that specializes in international transportation such as DHL / smeshipping
3. Fulfillment services facilitates online merchants. There are both product stock management systems, product packaging and delivery to customers such as siam outlet / meowlogis / shipyours.
4. Shipping Aggregator is an intermediary of freight forwarding company that integrates various shipping services into the system such as shippop / easyparcel / Smartship.
5. On Demand an on-demand delivery service platform such as Grab / Lineman / Lalamove.
6. Parcel Locker is the locker system which is the new way to deliver products. It’s like a postbox that combines technology that creates more convenience for users such as Kerry / Lockbox / box24

Finally, for the organization and the government agency that supports large and small entrepreneurs in conducting business like  ThaiEcommerce Or Thai E-Commerce Association to encourage Thai entrepreneurs to use electronic commerce as a tool to increase business efficiency and  promote the Thai economy to develop and distribute income thoroughly. There are still many organizations that are ready to support all entrepreneurs, such as (DBD) Department of Business Development / (ETDA) Electronic Transactions Development Agency / Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME) / (DITP Department of International Trade Promotion / (DAAT) Digital Advertising Association

All of these are players that operate in the e-commerce industry prepared for everyone to see the growth of both old and new players which are increasing every year. The spread of Covid19 has pushed consumers to buy products online. We expect that it will certainly make the e-commerce market continue to grow more savagely.