In our overview of leading marketplaces in different regions of the world, we already looked at top marketplaces in North America and top marketplaces in Europe.
Time for part three: Asia.
The e-commerce market in Asia Pacific is projected to continue expanding, with a value estimated at $2.0 billion in 2024.
Source: https://www.euromonitor.com/article/2024-consumer-trends-in-asia-and-the-impact-on-e-commerce
China remains a leader in the global e-commerce sector. In March 2024 alone, China’s total retail sales of consumer goods reached $568 billion. It’s a 3.1% increase from the same month last year. This is definitely a part of a broader trend where digital transformation drives the shift from offline to online shopping.
Going further, Southeast Asia’s e-commerce revenue is expected to reach $116.50 billion in 2024. Here, the compound annual growth rate 2024 – 2028 is projected to show 10.42%.
Thanks to digital transformation, e-commerce in other Asian countries such as India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, or Vietnam is also growing exponentially.
For international sellers, Asia-based marketplaces are the first gateway to this region of the world, so we have collected 16 platforms that were the core of Asian e-commerce in 2024.
Let’s check them.
Alibaba
Alibaba is the giant of Chinese e-commerce and the World’s Largest B2B e-commerce marketplace. It also operates other huge and highly successful e-commerce sites such as AliExpress, TMall, and Taobao.
The company reported an annual revenue of $130.72 billion for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2024, which marks a growth of +3.38% compared to the previous year. Alibaba International Digital Commerce Group (AIDC) also saw a notable increase, with revenue growing 45% year-over-year in Q4, to $3.80 billion.
On the other hand, Alibaba’s Cloud Intelligence Group revenue increased 3% year-over-year to $3.55 billion. This growth reflects the company’s strategic emphasis on enhancing its AI capabilities and infrastructure to support a diverse range of industries and applications.
AliExpress
AliExpress is an Alibaba-owned marketplace that targets buyers outside China. It is Alibaba’s B2C international site offering international shoppers goods at factory prices without a minimum order size.
As of 2024, AliExpress continues to be a major player in the global e-commerce landscape, particularly noted for its extensive product offerings and strategic market positioning. It boasts over 150 million customers across all countries. This variety caters to the diverse needs of international consumers, affirming its status as a comprehensive global marketplace.
Between July 2023 and December 2023, the website garnered approximately 2.9 billion visitors. The platform consistently maintained a high level of monthly visits, never dropping below 431 million.
AliExpress has achieved notable dominance in several key markets. In European countries such as France and Spain, it holds substantial market shares of 90.6% and 94.7% respectively. This is indicative of its strong positioning against competitors like eBay in these regions.
JD.com
JD.com is a prominent Chinese B2C e-commerce platform that continued to show strong performance and user engagement. The categories the store offers include consumer electronics, home appliances, furniture and household goods, cosmetics, general merchandise products comprising food, beverage and fresh produce, baby and maternity products, jewelry, etc.
The platform reported an impressive annual revenue of $153.02 billion for the twelve months ending March 31, 2024.
JD.com also remains a dominant player in the global e-commerce landscape, not just within China. Its comprehensive logistics system and broad product offerings continue to attract a vast customer base, contributing to its status as a leading e-commerce platform. These factors contribute to JD.com’s status as a leading e-commerce platform and reflect its ability to attract a large customer base and offer a wide range of products.
Taobao
Taobao is a Chinese marketplace owned by Alibaba. Founded in 2003, Taobao Marketplace facilitates consumer-to-consumer (C2C) retail by providing a platform for small businesses and individual entrepreneurs to open online stores that sell to consumers in Chinese-speaking regions and abroad.
Taobao also remains a dominant force in Asia’s e-commerce landscape. In 2023, it boasted 892 million monthly active users. 60% of them were under 30 years old. The largest web traffic comes from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the United States.
This platform continues to attract a broad audience with its extensive range of products and user-focused features. The top categories in this marketplace are Programming and Developer Software, Video Games Consoles and Accessories, as well as News & Media Publishers.
Tmall
Tmall is a Chinese B2C marketplace, also owned by Alibaba. Just like Taobao, it is one of the largest e-commerce marketplaces in the world.
Tmall sells branded goods to customers in China and nearby countries through special warehouses provided by the platform. It provides a complete shopping solution, while merchants only have to supply the product.
Tmall reported that in 2023, 402 brands each achieved sales exceeding 100 million yuan ($19 million.) This showcases Tmall’s enduring appeal to global brands and underscores its dominant position in the e-commerce market, helping it attract a wide array of merchants and consumers.
This growth is part of Tmall’s ongoing strategy to triple the scale of resources dedicated to new products and enhance its offerings across various categories.
Xiaohongshu
Xiaohongshu, also known as Little Red Book or RED, is a prominent social commerce platform in China. It has successfully integrated community-driven content with e-commerce, making it particularly popular among younger Chinese audiences.
Xiaohongshu.com recorded 162.1 million total visits in May 2024, which represents how popular is this platform. Moreover, in 2023, it achieved a net profit of $500 million and revenues totaling $3.7 billion.
The top countries generating the highest web traffic are China, Hong Kong, and the United States.
Kaola
Kaola, owned by Alibaba, is also a big player in China’s cross-border e-commerce market. Through the platform, sellers can showcase their products across a variety of online forums, portals, and marketing channels. With Kaola, international brands can easily sell their products to Chinese consumers. In turn, consumers can conveniently access safe, high-quality international items. This flexibility, combined with strategic support for international brands, underpins Kaola’s appeal in the competitive e-commerce space.
The total of all visits on desktops and mobile devices in May 2024 reached 69,000. Although this is a drop of almost 17% from the previous month, the platform still enjoys strong interest – most from China, the United States, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
Interestingly, almost 70% of visitors to the kaola.com website are male, and the remaining 30% are female. Most visitors are between the ages of 25 and 34.
Pinduoduo
Pinduoduo was founded in 2015 and offers a wide variety of products, ranging from the everyday groceries you need for your family to the appliances for home.
For the first quarter of 2023, Pinduoduo generated revenues of CNY 89,917.8 million. With 353.6 million web visitors in September 2023, Pinduoduo reached a significant milestone, growing by 27% from August 2023.
The shopping function on Pinduoduo’s website has been removed. As a result, users could only browse and purchase items via its mobile app or a WeChat mini-program. This decision appears reasonable since over 86 percent of Chinese e-commerce purchases are made on mobile devices.
eWorldTrade
eWorldTrade, a notable player in the B2B marketplace, facilitates global trade by connecting buyers and sellers from various industries. It operates on a large scale and has a diverse range of categories that include everything from industrial machinery and healthcare products to food and beverages.
The platform is particularly known for its commitment to providing a reliable trading environment.
eWorldTrade enjoys as many as 364.1k total visits monthly and is most popular in India, the United States, and Russia. Moreover, the age group that most frequently uses this platform is the 55-64 range (it’s 20.82% of total users.)
Lazada
Lazada is a marketplace that remains a significant player in the Southeast Asian e-commerce market. For example, in February 2024, the total sales revenue of Lazada and Shopee amounted to approximately $762 million in Thailand. It offers products in various categories ranging from consumer electronics to household goods and fashion. It is also a really popular online platform on social media giants Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
As of September 2023, the number of sales of Lazada Thailand’s home and lifestyle products was estimated at around 24.7 million. Health and beauty was next, with about 16.7 million products sold.
Moreover, in May 2024, Lazada received 16.98 million visits. This is a 17.75% increase over April traffic.
Shopee
Shopee demonstrates strong performance in the Southeast Asian e-commerce market. The platform, known for its hybrid model of consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales, has seen a significant increase in revenue, reaching $9 billion in 2023, which represents a 20.6% increase from the previous year.
This growth is reflected in its Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV), which reached $78.5 billion in the same period.
Shopee’s user base remains robust, with 295 million users in 2023. Indonesia is its largest market and contributes greatly to its user count and GMV. The platform’s app popularity is also notable, with 144 million downloads in 2023, underscoring its widespread appeal.
Amazon
As of May 2023, Amazon was the largest online marketplace in India, it attracted more than 295 million visitors. This significantly outnumbered its closest competitor, Flipkart (more than 167 visitors in the same month).
Amazon’s popularity in Asia can be attributed to several factors, for example wide product range, convenience, technological Innovation, brand trust, local adaptation, and competitive pricing.
Also, Amazon’s strategy in Asia includes a diverse range of services and infrastructure development, particularly through its AWS (Amazon Web Services) segment. This includes expanding AWS’s infrastructure footprint, introducing new cloud regions in Asia, and investing more than 190 billion baht ($5 billion) into this purpose by 2037.
Rakuten
Rakuten is a Japanese marketplace, founded in 1997. It has expanded globally by acquiring well-known names such as Play.com in the UK, PriceMinister in France, Buy.com in the US, and many others.
Rakuten revenue for the twelve months ending September 30, 2023, was $15.000 billion – a 0.49% year-on-year increase. As of the second quarter of FY2023, Rakuten Group reported that the average number of monthly active users across its platforms in Japan reached 40.5 million. This reflects an 8.2% year-over-year increase, indicating a steady expansion of Rakuten’s customer base.
Moreover, in Q1 FY2024, the Rakuten Group achieved YoY revenue growth across segments: Internet Services, FinTech, and Mobile. Total revenue reached 513.6 billion yen – a top result for this quarter and up 8.0% YoY increase.
Snapdeal
Snapdeal is an India-based marketplace. It started in 2010 and has grown through strategic acquisitions by eBay. It promises to offer the best-priced deals on branded products from categories such as electronics, fashion and apparel.
India is Snapdeal.com’s largest market, followed by the US and Canada. In March 2024, this marketplace generated more than 15 million visits in India alone.
Snapdeal.com, visitors drive 5.88% from desktops, while 94.12% come from mobile devices.
Flipkart
Flipkart is a leading e-commerce company in India, founded in 2007 by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal. Known for its extensive range of products, Flipkart has become a household name in Indian online retail, offering everything from electronics and fashion to home essentials and groceries.
Just like Amazon, Flipkart first sold books, but it quickly started offering products in many different categories. Its success also stems from the fact that Flipkart was one of the first adopters of cash-on-delivery payments which proved successful in getting more customers to use the service. It has also invested in its own logistics service and own infrastructure to support the growing e-commerce industry in India.
In May 2024, Flipkart.com received 251.34 million visits, showcasing its significant online presence. The vast majority of Flipkart’s traffic comes from India, accounting for 94.14% of total visits. Other notable sources of traffic include the United States, United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates, and Nepal.
Coupang
Coupang is a popular e-commerce site and marketplace in South Korea. Starting as a daily deals site in 2010, Coupang has become then the fastest-growing e-commerce company in the world. It has succeeded in the Asian market through innovations that meet the needs of local consumers. This includes such things as same-day delivery.
In the first quarter of 2024, Coupang reported substantial revenue growth, reaching $7.1 billion. This represents a 23% increase year-over-year, surpassing the estimated $6.925 billion. Moreover, in April 2024, Coupang’s user base on its online marketplace was around 150 million, a decrease of about 9.5 million users from the previous month.
Coupang’s business model centers on providing a seamless shopping experience through a vast product selection and a customer-centric approach.
Top insights about e-commerce evolution in Asia and the Pacific
These insights are derived from the Asian Development Bank’s report, “E-commerce Evolution in Asia and the Pacific: Opportunities and Challenges. November 2023.” The report offers an in-depth analysis of the e-commerce landscape in this region. Let’s check its top insights.
- Asia and the Pacific have solidified their position as the largest market for e-commerce globally. In 2020, the region accounted for more than half of the world’s retail e-commerce sales, a share expected to grow to 61% by 2025. This growth is driven by the widespread use of smartphones, the convenience of online shopping, and advancements in digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and augmented reality.
Source: E-commerce Evolution in Asia and the Pacific: Opportunities and Challenges. November 2023 report.
- The region’s e-commerce revenue is projected to reach $2.5 trillion by 2024, with a user base expected to grow from 2.15 billion in 2020 to 3.13 billion by 2025.
- In 2022, the fastest-growing retail economies in the world were Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, and India. 5 of the 10 fastest-growing economies in e-commerce retail are in Southeast Asia. Moreover, Singapore and Indonesia are among the countries where online sales have increased by more than 30%.
Source: E-commerce Evolution in Asia and the Pacific: Opportunities and Challenges. November 2023 report.
- The COVID-19 pandemic significantly accelerated the adoption of e-commerce in Asia and the Pacific. Lockdowns and social distancing measures forced consumers and businesses to pivot to online platforms. This shift resulted in a surge in online retail sales, which have remained high even as restrictions eased. For instance, in China, online sales of physical goods accounted for 25% of total retail sales in 2020, up from 19% in 2019. The potential for further expansion of e-commerce in the East Asia market is shown by, among others, a high internet penetration rate.
Source: E-commerce Evolution in Asia and the Pacific: Opportunities and Challenges. November 2023 report.
- Technological advancements are pivotal in driving e-commerce growth. Innovations in blockchain, AI, and 5G are enhancing consumer experiences and operational efficiencies. For example, the widespread use of mobile devices in China has made mobile commerce a significant part of the e-commerce ecosystem, with 80% of e-commerce spending coming from mobile transactions.
- Despite the robust growth, several challenges hinder the full potential of e-commerce in the region. Key barriers include:
- Lack of internet access. In January 2022, almost 5.3 billion people were active internet users. This was still only 66% of the world’s population.
- An evident disparity in Asian e-payment platforms. Some economies have pioneered nationwide e-payment services (like Singapore and China), but some still struggle to adopt them. Some of the barriers include largely unbanked consumers.
- Logistics and last-mile delivery. Efficient logistics and delivery systems are critical for e-commerce success. Geographic remoteness and poor infrastructure connectivity are major bottlenecks, particularly in rural areas. Innovative solutions like drone deliveries and automated systems can be explored to address these challenges.
- Regulatory environment. Effective e-commerce legislation is crucial for fostering a secure and inclusive digital marketplace. While many countries have laws on electronic transactions and cybercrime, comprehensive consumer protection and data privacy regulations are still needed.
- In Southeast Asia, the e-commerce market was worth $131 billion in 2022, compared to $43 billion in 2019. By 2025, this is expected to reach $211 billion.
Source: E-commerce Evolution in Asia and the Pacific: Opportunities and Challenges. November 2023 report.
- Oceania, Australia, and New Zealand have highly developed e-commerce markets and internet penetration rates. There is a 96% internet penetration rate in Australia and New Zealand. Also, there is a 126% mobile penetration rate in Australia.
Source: E-commerce Evolution in Asia and the Pacific: Opportunities and Challenges. November 2023 report.
FAQ
What is an online marketplace and how does it differ from traditional e-commerce platforms?
An online marketplace serves as a digital platform where multiple third-party sellers can offer their products or services, unlike traditional e-commerce platforms which typically represent a single brand or business. This model provides direct access to a diverse range of goods, from consumer goods to fresh food, catering to various consumer needs.
Why are online marketplaces becoming increasingly popular in Southeast Asia?
Southeast Asia’s rapidly growing internet penetration and the rise in digital payments have made online marketplaces more accessible. The region’s diverse logistics infrastructure also supports efficient cross-border e-commerce, which allows local sellers to easily connect with Chinese consumers and other international markets.
What are some of the largest online marketplaces in Southeast Asia and how do they impact the e-commerce space?
Some of the largest online marketplaces in Southeast Asia include Lazada and Shopee. They contribute to the region’s e-commerce market by offering a platform for both local and international businesses. This enhances the gross merchandise volume and expands the reach of Southeast Asian countries in the global market.
How do cross-border e-commerce platforms benefit sellers in Southeast Asia?
Cross-border e-commerce platforms provide Southeast Asian sellers with the opportunity to expand their market reach beyond local consumers to international audiences, including the lucrative Chinese market. This expansion helps them leverage the first-mover advantage in emerging product categories and target a broader audience.
What role does logistics infrastructure play in the success of online marketplaces in Southeast Asia?
A robust logistics infrastructure is a must for the success of online marketplaces in Southeast Asia. It ensures efficient handling of orders, from same-day delivery to international shipping, thereby enhancing customer satisfaction and facilitating the growth of the e-commerce market in the region.
How do online marketplaces cater to the needs of Chinese consumers?
Online marketplaces cater to Chinese consumers by offering a wide range of product categories, including popular consumer goods and fresh food items. They also provide multiple payment methods, including digital payments and escrow services, ensuring a seamless shopping experience for Chinese buyers.
What advantages do online sellers have in using popular e-commerce platforms in Southeast Asia?
Online sellers benefit from the established storefronts of popular e-commerce platforms. They gain direct access to a large base of monthly visitors and a diverse target audience. This gives sellers a competitive edge in the rapidly evolving internet economy of Southeast Asia.
In what ways do international businesses leverage the e-commerce market in Southeast Asia?
International businesses leverage the e-commerce market in Southeast Asia by partnering with top online marketplaces to gain exposure in the region. This allows them to tap into the growing consumer base in this region and benefit from increasing cross-border e-commerce activities.
How does the business model of third-party marketplaces differ from traditional e-commerce platforms?
Third-party marketplaces operate on a business model that allows multiple sellers, including global brands and local businesses, to list their products on a single platform. This contrasts with traditional e-commerce platforms where a business sells its own products through an established storefront.
What future trends are expected in the e-commerce space in Asia Pacific, particularly in South Korea and other countries?
Future trends in the e-commerce space in Asia Pacific, including South Korea and other countries, are likely to focus on enhancing the customer experience through advanced digital payments, expanding product categories, and improving logistics for faster delivery. Additionally, there’s an increasing emphasis on integrating AI and machine learning for personalized shopping experiences, as well as a growing interest in sustainable and ethical business practices within the e-commerce sector.
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