1. The Rise of Social Media and Digital Penetration
With China’s influence (SEA’s stocks are mainly from China), social media apps like TikTok or Douyin are rising. Everyone is learning how to monetize their physical products with these digital platforms by linking them to their offers. From a simple video introduction to complex unboxing videos, everyone has creative ways to get the people’s eyeballs to generate the traffic to their page. It is very common for any person who owns a smartphone to buy products in bulk from Lazada or Alibaba and resell them on their personal or business Facebook / TikTok / Instagram profile making a profit on each order.2. “Live” Selling has been A THING for a few years already…
Many “live” selling Influencers or Sellers are selling like crazy in China for the last 5 years and this has led to Lazada, Shopee and many platforms to integrate this method of live selling on their platforms as well. From selling of Clothes, Watches to Food, everyone is jumping in this bandwagon enthusiastically. It is also very common to perform a live selling on Facebook or Instagram. Western platforms like Amazon have just started their Live Apps (for Apple devices only) and are gaining slow traction but is growing.3. Grey Areas and Less Restrictions
In general, South East Asian online retail platforms are less stringent in the what can be sold as long as it is not illegal. For example, we have seen a strong uptrend in users selling supplements which are not even approved by the local health authorities or even products that could be about as much as 90% similar to a branded product. Another example might be using names and images that are protected by copyright / trademark without encountering any legal action by the original owners.4. Very High Smartphone Penetration
