Indonesia’s B2C E-Commerce to experience the fastest growth in Southeast Asia

Source : www.ystats.com

B2C E-Commerce in Indonesia is growing at high double-digits rates which exceed those in the neighboring Southeast Asian nations. According to projections cited in the report by yStats.com, Indonesia is expected to be the top country in Southeast Asia by online retail sales in 2021 and also rank among the key emerging retail E-Commerce markets globally by 2025. The country’s growing middle class amidst the 260-million population and rising Internet penetration rates contribute to this robust growth.

M-Commerce is the key online retail trend in Indonesia, with mobile accounting for almost three-quarters of overall Internet traffic, as of early 2018. Most unique visitors to the country’s leading online shopping sites such as Lazada, Blibli and Tokopedia come from mobile devices, although the conversion rates on mobile are still lower than on desktop. Another important characteristic of Indonesia’s B2C E-Commerce market highlighted in the yStats.com report is the importance of social media, such as Facebook and Instagram, as a source of inspiration for digital purchases and also as a platform to place orders with online sellers. Clothes and footwear rank as the top product categories transacted through social networks.

At the same time, several major challenges to future E-Commerce growth exist. Indonesia’s archipelago geography complicates the delivery process, while low bank account penetration rates and preference for cash necessitate the acceptance of alternative payment methods by online merchants. Furthermore, Internet penetration in Indonesia is still low, according to statistics cited in yStats.com’s publication, and only about one in three Internet users make purchases online. Nevertheless, the growth expectations are high, attracting large investments into Indonesia’s E-Commerce sector.

Though continue to increase, smartphone's e-commerce conversion rate still tiny

Taken from emarketer.com 's article
Ecommerce Site Traffic from Smartphones Up Worldwide

CONVERSIONS REMAIN TINY

Smartphones are continuing to make up an increasingly important ecommerce access device around the world, according to data from multichannel retail solutions provider Monetate.

image: http://www.emarketer.com/images/chart_gifs/198001-199000/198660.gif

In the US smartphones accounted for 22.9% of ecommerce site traffic on Monetate’s network in Q2 2015, up from 16.6% a year earlier. It also represented a quarterly gain of 2 percentage points in share.

Annual gains were even larger in Great Britain, where 30.5% of ecommerce site traffic came from smartphones in Q2 2015. That was up 12.2 percentage points since the prior year, though ti was down slightly since Q1 2015.

The worldwide share of smartphone traffic followed a pattern similar to that in the US.

Smartphones are not, however, as successful when it comes to closing the deal. The devices had just a 1.5% conversion rate in Great Britain, 1.2% in the US and 1.2% worldwide.

Indonesia e-commerce is the riskiest ? Good news or Bad News ?

Taken from internetretailer.com article

A global e-commerce fraud report ranks Indonesia as the riskiest for U.S. e-retailers

May 20, 2015, 3:04 PM
BY TRACY MAPLE Managing Editor, Digital Content

35% of transactions from Indonesia are fraudulent, and fraud rates exceed 10% in the five riskiest nations.

No country will clamor to claim such distinction, but five nations stand out as the most likely in percentage terms to produce fraudulent online transactions: Indonesia, Venezuela, South Africa, Brazil and Romania. That’s according to a new report that analyzed more than a million online transactions in 2014 to determine the rankings for countries other than the United States. The aim of the report was to advise U.S. e-retailers on which foreign countries pose the highest risk for attempted fraud.

In Indonesia, about 35% of e-commerce transactions are fraudulent; for Venezuela it’s 33%; South Africa’s rate is 25%; Brazil’s rate is 11%; and Romania’s is 10%, according to fraud prevention technology provider Forter, which compiled the report. On the flip side, the report ranks Denmark, New Zealand, Finland, Norway and Switzerland as the least-fraudulent countries.

In the U.S., the average e-commerce fraud rate is less than 1%, according to CyberSource Corp.

Forter analyzed online transactions over the course of 2014, including the sale of consumer goods, sales on online marketplaces, travel and other purchases, but excluding adult entertainment, says Noam Inbar, Forter’s vice president of business development.

“U.S. retailers have a perception that everything outside the U.S. is very fraudulent, and they will automatically blacklist most countries outside the U.S. and want to focus on domestic sales,” she says. The report aims to give retailers in the United States a “true picture of what’s going on outside the U.S.”  While it’s useful to understand which countries produce the fewest fraudulent transactions, she encourages e-retailers not dismiss consumers from nations with higher fraud rates. “Even though there are problems in those markets, there are ways to deal with them,” Inbar says.

“Things are changing so fast,” she adds. “New fraudsters are entering the scene these days, and we want retailers to take this information and combine it with their tools to make better decisions to balance their business goals and fraud management.”

The study also examined mobile transactions and discovered that fraud rates are twice as high for transactions made with Android devices than the iPhones and iPads that use Apple Inc.’s iOS. Criminals using mobile devices tend to attack via Android because the systems are more open and therefore easier to manipulate, according to Forter.

Other findings include continent fraud trends:

Europe’s fraud rate is slightly lower than the global average.
Asia’s fraud rate is similar to the global average.
Africa’s fraud rate is as much as 10 times higher than the global average.
South America has a fraud rate three times higher than the world average.

Forter says it does not include the actual average rate because the average is calculated and compared on a per-industry basis, and the average fraud rate varies significantly between different industries.

Rakuten .. again

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Rakuten acquires online shopping service Slice

August 12, 2014, by Allison Enright 

The Japanese e-commerce company previously invested in the Silicon Valley startup.

Rakuten Inc. has acquired Slice, a shopping application that helps consumers keep track of their online shopping.

Terms of the buy were not disclosed. Rakuten, a Japanese company that operates online marketplace sites around the globe and has made numerous e-commerce investments in recent years, first invested in Slice last year, leading a $23 million funding round.

Slice’s shopping app, launched in 2011, organizes the order confirmations and shipping notifications that e-retailers e-mail to consumers after they purchase. Consumers let the Slice application access their webmail accounts.

“We couldn’t have found a better partner as we grow our business and product portfolio,” writes Slice founder and CEO Scott Brady in a blog post announcing the purchase. “Joining forces with Rakuten now enables us to exponentially increase our ability to develop the technology and products to bring that transformative vision to life more quickly and at a scale beyond what we could achieve independently.” Brady goes on to say Slice will operate as a stand-alone business and retain current management.

Rakuten had no immediate comment on why it purchased Slice or what it intends to do with it.

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Japanese e-commerce powerhouse Rakuten launches a $100 million startup fund

June 30, 2014 by Don Davis

The company plans to invest in early-stage companies based in Asia, the United States and Israel.

Like many successful Japanese companies, Rakuten Inc. has taken profits from its operations in Japan to expand globally. That continued today with the Tokyo-based company announcing plans to create a $100 million fund to invest in young technology companies that have a focus on improving user experience.

Rakuten Ventures, the investment are of Rakuten Inc., said today the new fund will focus on investing in technology start-ups in Israel, the Asia-Pacific region and the United States. It will be based in Singapore and run by Saemin Ahn, managing partner of Rakuten Ventures. Rakuten Ventures set up a similar fund last year to invest in companies in Southeast Asia.

Rakuten, whose Rakuten Ichiba marketplace is the leading e-commerce site in Japan, has invested billions in recent years in e-commerce and online marketing companies in North and South America, Asia and Europe. The company’s global e-retail sites and shopping portals accounted for $18 billion in sales in 2013, while the company reported revenue grew 29.5% to $4.9 billion and net income more than doubled to $412.6 million.

In a statement announcing the new fund, Saemin Ahn, pointed to two companies with roots in Israel as examples of the kind of start-ups that have rapidly won consumer loyalty: Waze, a mobile travel app developer that Google Inc. acquired last year, and messaging service provider Viber Media Inc., which Rakuten acquired in February for $900 million.

“More Asia-based VCs are venturing out into different regions to look at investment as long-term growth vehicles,” he said. “Since 2013, Rakuten Ventures has been one of such VCs to aggressively invest larger amounts into younger companies, to enable them to focus on product and service development.”

Rakuten chairman and CEO Hiroshi Mikitani has made clear his global ambitions: He said last year aims to operate marketplaces in 27 countries and process $125 billion in transactions by 2020. By contrast, eBay Inc. reported the total value of transactions on its shopping portals in 2013 was $77 billion, and Internet Retailer estimates Amazon.com Inc.’s sales on its worldwide sites last year amounted to $100 billion.

To achieve that growth, Rakuten has been on a buying spree in recent years.

The company in 2010 acquired U.S. e-retailer Buy.com for $250 million, renaming it Rakuten Shopping and turning it into a marketplace that hosts other merchant’s products but does not sell on its own behalf. Other investments include purchasing a stake in image-based social network Pinterest in 2012, buying e-reader company Kobo in 2011 for $315 million, and taking a stake in U.S. e-retailer The Grommet Inc., No. 415 in the 2014 Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide. In 2005, Rakuten acquired affiliate marketing network Linkshare for $425 million.

Rakuten’s European investments include: acquiring French online shopping mall Price Minister in 2010 for $248 million; taking an 80% stake in 2011 in Germany web marketplace operator Tradoria GmbH; buying U.K. e-retailer Play.com in 2011 for $39 million and participating in a $100 million investment round in 2011 in Russian online retailer Ozon.ru. Play.com is No. 28 in the 2014 Internet Retailer Europe 500 and Ozon.ru is No. 89.

Rakuten Corporate Action

OverDrive       $410 million : will April 2015 ? : e-book distributor
Lyft Inc            $530 million
Ebates Inc        $981 million : October 2014
Viber Media    $905 (or $900?) million : March 2014 : mobile chat and app platform provider
Wuaki.tv
Viki Inc
Kobo Inc.         $350 (or $315?) million : ? 2012 : e-reader and e-book provider
Play.com          $39 million : 2011 : U.K. e-commerce operator

Ikeda                75% stake : June 2011: e-commerce technology and services
Tradoria          80% stake : 2011: e-commerce platform
PriceMinister  $248 million : 2010 : France-based e-commerce operator

Buy.com           $250 million: 2010 : e-retailer

Total                 $3.2 billion

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From internetretailer.com 's article
Rakuten pays $410 million for U.S. e-book marketplace OverDrive

March 19, 2015 by BLOOMBERG NEWS

OverDrive will strengthen Rakuten’s e-book business by adding a distribution platform, more than 2.5 million titles, relationships with 5,000 publishers and 30,000 libraries.

(Bloomberg) -- Rakuten Inc., operator of Japan’s biggest Internet shopping mall, will pay $410 million in cash for e-book distributor OverDrive Inc. to expand its digital content business.

OverDrive will strengthen Rakuten’s e-book business by adding a distribution platform, more than 2.5 million titles, relationships with 5,000 publishers and 30,000 libraries.

Rakuten has spent about $3.2 billion over the past three years to buy companies as it expands into online services and selling e-books, video and other content. The company said earlier this month it would invest $530 million into Lyft Inc. and paid $981 million in cash for Ebates Inc. in October, after acquiring Viber Media Ltd. last March for $905 million.

Rakuten’s billionaire chairman Hiroshi Mikitani has introduced tablets in Japan to help sell e-books, tracking rival Amazon.com Inc.’s strategy of delivering digital content through its Kindle platform. Mikitani is Japan’s third-richest man with a net worth of about $9.8 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

OverDrive supplies the industry’s largest catalog of e- books, audiobooks, music and streaming video to 33,000 libraries, schools and retailers worldwide. It will operate as a subsidiary of Rakuten’s U.S. unit.

As of Dec. 31, Rakuten had about $9.9 billion in net cash, according to Bloomberg.

Rakuten.com Shopping is No. 46 in the Internet Retailer 2014 Top 500 Guide, while Rakuten Inc. is No. 20 (2?) in the Internet Retailer 2015 Asia 500. Amazon.com is No. 1 in the Top 500.

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Japan’s Rakuten buys U.S. rebate site Ebates for $1 billion
September 9, 2014 by BLOOMBERG NEWS

It represents another step toward expansion into the U.S. for the company that previously bought Buy.com and other e-retail assets.

Sept. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Rakuten Inc. agreed to buy U.S. rebates web site Ebates Inc. in Japan’s largest e-commerce deal as the operator of the country’s biggest online mall seeks expansion outside its home market through acquisitions.

Rakuten will pay $1 billion in cash for all of Ebates, it said in a filing to the Tokyo Stock Exchange yesterday. San Francisco-based Ebates offers cash rebates to customers who buy products ranging from laptops to lipsticks from the web site’s retail partners.

Rakuten is betting the purchase will help push its global e-commerce strategy. Rakuten has also been plowing cash into technologies such as mobile applications and online video as it seeks to add to its online marketplace business.

“This deal doesn’t just mean we’ve started a cash-back web site in the U.S., I think we can operate this model all over the world,” Mikitani told reporters at a briefing in Tokyo yesterday. The purchase will lift the proportion of Rakuten’s e- commerce transactions from outside Japan to 16% from about 6% currently, he said.

Rakuten targets to raise the proportion to 50% of total around 2020, said Mikitani, Japan’s fourth-richest man with a net worth of about $7 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Points Program

Rakuten fell 1.3% to 1,254 yen in Tokyo yesterday, the lowest level since May 23. The stock has lost 20% this year, compared with the 0.2% decline in the benchmark Topix index. The shares dropped the most in three months on Sept. 8 on concerns about the deal’s cost effectiveness, after Rakuten confirmed it was in negotiations.

The company wants to create with Ebates a membership-based marketplace with “the world’s largest product line-up” ranging from niche to luxury items, and featuring a points program, Rakuten said in the exchange statement. The potential impact on its earnings from the acquisition is “difficult to estimate” at present, it said.

Ebates, which has 2.5 million active members and more than 2,600 retailers in its network, posted an operating income of $13.7 million on net revenue of $167.4 million in fiscal 2013, Rakuten said. Members spent $2.2 billion shopping through Ebates last year.

“Joining forces with Rakuten will help accelerate our U.S. and international growth,” Kevin Johnson, chief executive officer of Ebates, said in a Rakuten statement distributed by Businesswire.

Viber Purchase

The deal comes after Rakuten announced 18 acquisitions since the start of last year, and the cybermall operator said in June it’s open to more large-scale buys following its bond debut. Rakuten bought messaging service Viber Media Inc. for $905 million in March, Japan’s biggest e-commerce deal at the time according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The company, which Mikitani founded in 1997, was an acquirer in three of the top ten e-commerce deals in Japan before the Ebates purchase was announced, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. As of June 30, Rakuten had about 1.7 trillion yen ($16 billion) in cash and short-term investments, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

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Rakuten buys mobile messaging company Viber for $900 million
February 14, 2014 by AMY DUSTO Associate Editor

Viber allows members to chat and talk for free on mobile, as well as purchase and send each other digital stickers. Rakuten’s CEO says it has “tremendous potential” to become a gaming platform, too.

Rakuten Inc. has purchased mobile chat and app platform provider Viber Media Inc. for $900 million, the retailer announced today. Viber provides free chat and voice-over- Internet (VoIP) services to consumers. It also allows users to purchase and send digital versions of cartoon-like stickers, similar to emoticons in chat messages, to one another. Additionally, Viber has “tremendous potential” as a mobile gaming platform.

Viber understands how people actually want to engage, this makes Viber the ideal total consumer engagement platform for Rakuten to bring deep understanding to vast new audiences. 

Viber grew its user base by 120% in 2013, to 300 million. Viber will gain access to markets in which it does not currently have strong penetration, while Rakuten will benefit by gaining access to over 277 million new prospective Rakuten users in markets where Viber has an established presence, such as Western Europe.

Rakuten operates the largest online shopping portal in Japan and is the No. 2 e-retailer in all of Asia by sales according to the Internet Retailer’s Asia 500. The company acquired U.S. online discount retailer Buy.com in 2010. It later renamed the retailer Rakuten Shopping and converted it into an online marketplace that hosts other merchants’ shops but does not sell on its own behalf, in the model of Rakuten Japan.

Rakuten has been building out its digital services over the last two years, starting with its acquisition of e-reader and e-book provider Kobo Inc. for $350 million in 2012. Since then, it has also bought two streaming video services, Spanish Wuaki.tv and Palo Alto-based Viki Inc. Today, Rakuten offers 40 Internet services associated with its Rakuten Super Points rewards program, which has roughly 225 million members worldwide. With Viber, the retailer will bring many of those services together onto one platform with single login for members. The acquisition also illustrates a fundamental shift in Rakuten’s strategic direction, which is mobile-first.

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Rakuten books space in the e-reader market by acquiring Kobo

November 8, 2011 by MARK BROHAN Research Director

The value of the all-cash deal is $315 million.

Japan-based Rakuten Inc. keeps on buying up companies it believes will transform it into a global online retailer powerhouse.

This time the merchandising category is the lucrative electronic books and digital content market and the acquisition is Kobo Inc., the e-book reader maker and content  provider that’s also a unit of Toronto-based retailer Indigo Books & Music No. 177 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide.

Rakuten, which acquired U.S. e-retailer Buy.com in 2010 will acquire Kobo for $315 million in cash.

Kobo provides one of the world’s most communal e-book reading experiences with its innovative integration of social media, such as Facebook and Twitter; while Rakuten offers Kobo unparalleled opportunities to extend its reach through some of the world’s largest regional e-commerce companies.

Kobo, which in July launched its first overseas venture in Germany, agreed to be acquired because a bigger organization could help Kobo diversify and grow quicker against bigger rivals such as Barnes & Noble, which makes and markets the Nook e-reader, and Amazon.com, which develops and sells the Kindle e-reader.

Kobo is the most social eBook service on the market and one of the world’s largest eBook stores with over 2.5 million titles. This transaction will greatly strengthen position in current markets and allow to diversify quickly into other countries and e-commerce categories.

Kobo was increasingly an also-ran in the U.S. e-book reader market with only 6% market share in April 2011, according to a survey by e-commerce software firm Elastic Path reported by research firm eMarketer. But Kobo commanded 36% of the market in its home country of Canada in August 2011, according to a survey by market research firm Ipsos.

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Japan’s Rakuten to buy U.K.-based online retailer Play.com
September 21, 2011 by Thad Rueter

The acquisition marks the latest global e-commerce investment for the owner of Buy.com

Japan-based Rakuten Inc. today said it will buy U.K. e-commerce operator Play.com for 25 million pounds (US$39 million).

The acquisition of the retailer, which sells music, DVDs, books, consumer electronics, office equipment, mobile phones, toys and other products, marks the latest global e-commerce investment by Rakuten, which in 2010 bought U.S. e-retailer Buy.com Inc.

Play.com, No. 26 in the Internet Retailer Europe 300 Guide, had online sales of $660 million last year, up 18% from the year before.  Buy.com is No. 32 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide.

“The U.K. market is one of Europe’s largest and most mature e-commerce markets. Play.com is not only a pioneer in the market, but also one of the U.K.’s most successful e-commerce businesses,” says Hiroshi Mikitani, chairman and CEO of the Japan-based e-marketplace operator. “We aim to leverage our e-commerce strength and experience to further expand and develop Play.com’s business model and channel its loyal user base, merchants, and deep product offerings into Rakuten’s global e-commerce network.”

Rakuten says it will buy up all of Play.com’s stock.

Earlier this month, Rakuten was part of a group of investors that raised $100 million for Russia-based online retailer Ozon.ru, which, like Play.com, sells a wide variety of products.  The investment followed Rakuten’s purchases in June of a 75% stake in Brazil-based Ikeda, which sells e-commerce technology and services to more than 100 of the largest online retailers in that country. Rakuten this year also acquired 80% of Germany-based Tradoria GmbH, which sells an e-commerce platform. In 2010, Rakuten bought France-based e-commerce operator PriceMinister.

Telecom's e-commerce in Indonesia

Taken from The Jakarta Post's article

Telcom firms build up e-commerce outlets

Driven by a huge market potential and hundreds of millions of Internet users in the country, domestic telecommunications operators are getting more serious about developing their e-commerce businesses.

Three major telecommunication operators PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia (Telkom), PT XL Axiata and PT Indosat have allocated some amount of investment this year to revamp their e-commerce businesses.

XL

Through its financial report, XL disclosed that on Jan. 27, it poured US$12.1 million into Elevenia (www. elevenia.co.id), its e-commerce outlet. That investment was equal to the amount invested in the marketplace by its partner SK Planet, a subsidiary of South Korean SK Telecom.

"The additional investment was part of Elevenia's blueprint that has been agreed upon by both XL and SK Planet," said Elevenia chief financial officer Lila Nirmandari.

Both business partners open the possibility of adding more fresh capital to the marketplace in the coming months, depending on the market dynamic, she told The Jakarta Post.

Lila said most of the $24.2 million investment would be used to support sales and promotion activities to make Elevenia known better outside Greater Jakarta.

Officially launched in March last year, Elevenia was first established in mid-2013 with initial investments of $18.3 million from XL and another $18.3 million from SK Planet, giving each of them a 50 percent of stake.

As of February, Elevenia had around 20,000 merchants and 2 million products comprising eight categories: fashion, beauty & health, babies & kids, home or garden, gadget, electronics, sports or hobby and service or food.

Elevenia aimed to increase its revenue by four to five times this year compared to its revenue of Rp 3.5 billion ($267,500) last year, leveraging on XL's surging data subscribers.

Last year alone, around 51 percent of XL's 59.6 million subscribers (including postpaid users) were data users.

Indosat

Separately, Indosat also aims to boost. its e-commerce outlet Cipika (www.cipika.co.id), which is run by the company's digital commerce division.

Taking a bolder stance to differentiate it self from other marketplaces, Cipika plans to change its product focus from local food and snacks to gadgets this year.

"Focusing on gadget and electronics [this year], we want to leverage on Indosat's core products and core networks," said Indosat's head of digital commerce division, Carlos Karo Karo. As of September last year, Indosat had 54.2 million subscribers, of whom around 50 percent were data users.

Cipika would sell phones bundled with Indosat's mobile packages as well as phones bundled with competitors mobile packages, Carlos said.

In the span of November 2014 te January this year, gadgets contributed to around 30 percent of transactions in Cipika, while food and snacks remained a major contributor, he added.

In 2014, food and snacks contributed to around 80 percent of transactions in Cipika, while the remaining 20 percent was from another three product categories: gadgets, travel and lifestyle.

"This year, we hope 80 percent of the transactions will be from gadgets," Carlos told the Post.

Carlos refused to disclose how much Indosat would invest for Cipika this year to support its marketplace , business transformation, but said that an investment fund dedicated to the development of the marketplace was already in place.

Indosat usually spends between Rp 7 and 8 trillion in its annual capital expenditure, part of which is allotted for its digital service.

Carlos said Indosat would continue investing in its digital service in the future as it had still an ample room to grow.

Only around 1.7 percent of transactions in Indonesia's market were currently done online and it was forecast to increase to 7 percent by 2019, he said.

"Cipika aims to cater between 17 and 20 percent of those online transactions in 2019," he went on.

Telkom

Meanwhile Blanja (www.blanja.com), a marketplace jointly run by state-owned telecommunications firm Telkom and US-based marketplace giant eBay, does not target specific growth rate this year but foresees a huge potential.

Telkom, which netted around 138 million subscribers as of September last year, and eBay initially established PT Metra Plasa with a total investment of $14.2 million in April 2012 to make a joint e-commerce marketplace. It later developed into today's Blanja.

Officially launched in December last year, Blanja currently has around 80,000 page visits per day and almost 500,000 registered customers, said Blanja CEO Aulia Marinto.

"Let's not forget that the e-commerce industry is still quite new and there is ample room to grow as Internet penetration gets better and the economy keeps growing," he added.

UBS has projected that Indonesia's Internet penetration will hit 55 percent in 2017, meaning that there will be around 130 million people having access to the Internet.

However, while the potential is huge, challenges for e-commerce remain at logistic, payment gateways and regulation certainty, according to the three telecommunications operators.

Blanja's Aulia said e-commerce very much depended on external factors that could become enablers, such as logistics services and payment methods.

Communications and Information Minister Rudiantara said recently that the government planned to issue an "e-commerce roadmap" in the next three to six months to provide clear guidelines on logistics services, payment gateways and taxes for the e-commerce industry.

South East Asia B2C E-Commerce Market 2014

Taken from Ystats.com from part of the report
South East Asia B2C E-Commerce Market 2014

South East Asian nations lead in markers of E-Commerce potential

South East Asia is home to the world’s second fastest growing B2C E-Commerce market, Indonesia, and the country with the highest Internet growth rate in recent years, the Philippines. Another market, Singapore, boasts one of the most developed infrastructures for online retail. Malaysia ranks among the top thirty emerging B2C E-Commerce markets, while Thailand and Vietnam show high growth potential for mobile commerce, with expanding smartphone penetration and increasing mobile shopper penetration.

With B2C E-Commerce in South East Asia only starting to evolve, cross-border sales are relatively high, with Amazon.com being one of the leading online merchants despite not having local presence in the region. Nevertheless, there are local gems as well: The top 5 South East Asian E-Commerce companies, each generating tens of millions EUR revenue are iBuy, a public company operating several flash sales websites, Groupon’s local operations in the group buying business, online luxury fashion club Reebonz, online mass merchant and marketplace operator Lazada and online fashion retailer Zalora.

The highest B2C E-Commerce growth rate in South East Asia is in Indonesia. The fourth most populous country in the world, Indonesia has a relatively low penetration of Internet users, below 30% in 2013. However, by 2016 the number of Internet users is projected to top 100 million, with online shopper penetration also increasing. Shopping via mobile browsers and retail apps is also on the rise, with some merchants reporting as much as one third of total online sales coming from mobile users. The competition landscape in Indonesia is very diverse, featuring models such as C2C forums and classifieds, C2C online marketplaces, B2C E-Commerce merchants and social network sellers. Across these models, the C2C online portal OLX (formerly Tokobagus) is one of the leaders by online shopper penetration, followed by online classifieds website Berniaga, online forum and marketplace Kaskus and B2C online merchants Lazada and Zalora.

Though online retail in Malaysia still accounts for less than 1% of total retail sales, its growth potential is high, as Internet penetration, payment and logistics infrastructure are relatively advanced. Online shopping is encouraged by new E-Commerce regulations adopted in 2013 and growing smartphone penetration is boosted by governmental initiatives. Websites such as group buying merchant Groupon, online classifieds Mudah.my, online marketplaces Qoo10, Youbeli and Lelong are among the popular choices for Internet shopping. Global groceries retailer Tesco also has established a strong online presence in the country, where groceries is one of the popular categories to be purchased online.

In the Philippines, B2C E-Commerce is gradually evolving, boosted by improving ICT and payments infrastructure. A recent legislative proposal addressed several of the issues in the online retailing industry, and is expected to have a positive effect on the market. The leaders of B2C E-Commerce market in the Philippines are local online merchants Lazada and Zalora and the global online merchant Amazon.com. Daily deals websites, such as Ensogo, MetroDeal, CashCashPinoy, and Deals.eBay are likewise among the most popular in the Philippines.

Despite its relatively small population, Singapore ranks high in E-Commerce indexes due to developed infrastructure. The highest Internet penetration in the region, the world’s highest ranking in ease of conducting business, and one of top 3 best logistics infrastructures in the world plus a high performing payments system make Singapore an attractive market for online retailers, many of whom establish regional headquarters there, like Alibaba’s Taobao marketplace. Over half of Internet users in Singapore shop online and almost 50% do so over mobile phones. Amazon.com delivers to Singapore for free and is the most visited retail website, while B2C E-Commerce site Qoo10, a joint venture of Giosis Group and eBay, ranks next to it. 

In Thailand only a small double-digit share of Internet users makes purchases over the Internet in online shops, but a significant share do so through social networks and on mobile. More than half of social network users have participated in social commerce at least once, and over 20% use social networks with online shopping as the primary purpose. Shopping via mobile messaging apps is very popular and one such popular app, Line, has over 5 million accounts in Thailand participating in mobile flash sales. Online marketplaces and classifieds such as Olx.co.th, Weloveshopping.com and Tarad.com are popular online shopping destinations, while also online merchants, such as Lazada and Zalora show strong growth.

Vietnam has the fastest growing middle and affluent class in the South East Asia region and one of the most engaged online audiences. Furthermore, a larger share of Internet users in Vietnam visits retail websites than in any other South East Asian country, with the most purchased online shopping categories being clothing and electronics. The most popular model in E-Commerce in Vietnam is the online marketplace, including B2C and C2C players such as Vatgia.com, Enbac.vn, 5giay.vn.

The World’s Leading E-Commerce Companies 2014

Taken from Ystats.com part of the report
The World’s Leading E-Commerce Companies 2014

Who Really Leads in Global E-Commerce Sales?

During the prolonged anticipation and recent aftermath of the biggest tech world IPO, Alibaba Group

Holding was a star of the global business and E-Commerce news, and was often referred to as the largest E-Commerce company worldwide. A new exclusive publication by yStats.com which ranks the world’s largest E-Commerce companies based solely on the official revenues data reveals what company actually deserves this title.

The global top ten includes B2C E-Commerce companies and E-Commerce marketplaces. By far the

largest company worldwide in terms of E-Commerce revenues generated in 2013 was Amazon.com Inc.

Amazon’s USD 74 billion sales of products and services is greater than the combined revenues of the other nine ranked companies. In second place with USD 11 billion sales is Chinese B2C E-Commerce merchant JD.com Inc., which went public this year ahead of Alibaba. American retailer Wal-Mart and online pure play company eBay rank next. German multichannel merchant Otto Group makes the last place in the top 5 with USD 8 billion sales. Alibaba is number six with USD 4 billion of E-Commerce revenues excluding wholesale. Ranking below are the E-Commerce subsidiary of the French Groupe Casino Cnova, UK groceries retailer Tesco, Japanese E-Commerce giant Rakuten and another US-based merchant Best Buy. When considering companies that have their business primarily in the marketplace segment, of this top 10, eBay Inc. is number one by E-Commerce marketplace revenues, which total more than that of Alibaba and Rakuten combined.

As for Alibaba, by revenues generated from retail marketplaces, which reached over USD 4 billion in 2013, it is number six in the top ten. However, in terms of growth, Alibaba outpaces all its competitors in the top 10, more than doubling the revenues from retail marketplaces last year. JD.com Inc. ranks next with close to +70%. Among the E-Commerce marketplace companies in the top ten, Alibaba had by far the largest gross merchandise value.

Finally, the ranking revealed the top five companies in terms of purely B2C E-Commerce revenues. By this criterion, the ranking is topped by Amazon with over USD 60 billion B2C E-Commerce sales of goods, followed by JD.com with over 10 billion and then by Wal-Mart, the Otto Group and Tesco. 

Asia B2C E-Commerce 2014

This posting is updated from previous one

Asia B2C E-Commerce

The update one as usual taken from Ystats.com part of the report

Asia-Pacific B2C E-Commerce Market 2014

Asia-Pacific region predicted to become the world’s largest B2C E-Commerce market

Asia-Pacific is the fastest growing region on the global B2C E-Commerce market. Between 2013 and 2018 it is forecasted to grow by over 20% annually and surpass North America to become the number one region worldwide in terms of B2C E-Commerce sales. The large population base coupled with increasing Internet connectivity and disposable incomes set the stage for this rapid growth.

The booming Asia – Pacific market is a field of activity for both regional and global players. The three largest companies based in the region are China-based Alibaba and JD.com and Japan’s Rakuten. While Alibaba and JD.com shine on the global stage through IPO offerings, Rakuten pursues customers around the globe by launching marketplaces beyond the home region. Among the global brands with the large shares in the region are Amazon, eBay and Yahoo.

China is the largest online shopping market in the Asia-Pacific region and second largest worldwide. The number of online shoppers, at over 300 million in 2013 continues to grow as Internet penetration

continues. The hottest trends on the booming E-Commerce market in China are the development of

mobile and social channels for online shopping, growing popularity of group-buying websites and the rise in purchases of luxury goods online.

The number two market in Asia-Pacific and number three worldwide in terms of online retail sales is

Japan. Though the market is one of the most advanced, further growth of close to 10% is still expected, primarily from development of new channels, such as M-Commerce, whose share on total retail has reached double-digit figures.

South Korea is also among the B2C E-Commerce leaders. Online shoppers in this country are among the most experienced with online shopping, paying with credit cards online and having the goods delivered to the doorstep through courier services. Moreover, they are the trend-setters in mobile shopping, as the practice of shopping through messaging apps and scanning codes with smartphones at virtual stores were developed there and are spreading throughout the region and the world.

Another regional front-runner is Australia. Despite a smaller population compared to some of the huge nations in Asia-Pacific, Australia has one of the highest B2C E-Commerce sales rates, reaching a high one digit percentage of total retail sales. Internet penetration is one of the highest in the region and over three quarters of Internet users make purchases online.

A rising star on the regional B2C E-Commerce scene is Indonesia. While the sales are still below 1% of the total retail market and two thirds of the population does not yet have Internet access, the prospects for growth are bright. The growth rate in 2013 was already one of the highest worldwide, and improving infrastructure, growing Internet and mobile penetration on the large population are expected to contribute to further sale’s surge.

B2C E-Commerce is growing fast in India also, with rates of above 50% and further strong growth

projected for the next five years. Mobile commerce especially has great potential for development, as

over 90% of Internet users access the web through mobile connections. More foreign players may invest into the market’s growth if the country’s government decides to ease the FDI restriction in the B2C E-Commerce sector.

Another B2C E-Commerce hopeful is Thailand. The country already shows top rates in mobile shopping: users actively adopt shopping options integrated in popular messaging apps, and actively buy and exchange goods through social networks. Meanwhile, its neighbor from the Southeast Asia, Malaysia, boasts one of the most developed infrastructures for online shopping and strong growth perspectives.

Asia the largest e-commerce market in 2015

Taken from tech.firstpost.com

Asia to become world’s largest e-commerce market in 2015

Asia is set to surpass North America to become the world’s largest e-commerce market this year, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).

According to a report in Beijing by the EIU Tuesday, an advisory company under the Economist magazine group, it is estimated that retail sales in Asia will grow by an average 4.6 percent on a volume basis to $7.6 trillion, compared with 2.5 percent in North America and 0.8 percent in Europe in 2015.

The Asian consumer market was largely driven by the rising independence and economic power of Asia’s women, and female consumers in Asia are showing an unprecedented enthusiasm for online shopping. 

The report comes in the backdrop of huge demand for e-commerce generated in China by platforms like Alibaba which is picking up at a rapid pace in India.

The two countries together account for about three billion people.

The EIU report is based on a survey of 5,500 women across major cities on the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macao, as well as countries including India, Japan, Singapore and the Republic of Korea.

Among the survey respondents, 43 percent were in managerial, executive or professional services jobs.

Nearly half of the women agreed or strongly agreed that they preferred online to in-store shopping.

The proportion on the Chinese mainland was as much as 69 percent. Sixty-three percent of those polled browsed the Internet at least once a day for products and services, with nearly 30 percent doing so twice or more per day.

When choosing an online retailer, price and quality were the main factors considered, followed by genuine products and convenience.

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As Internet use matures globally, annual growth in eCommerce between businesses and consumers will slow, settling at about 10% by 2018, according to eMarketer, which says such B2C sales will reach $1.47 trillion in 2014, up 20 percent from last year.

By 2018, the company projects, the total will reach $2.36 trillion, a 61 percent boost over the 2014 year-end projection and $200 billion in annual new dollars spent. eMarketer defines B2C eCommerce as sales that include all products and services ordered or booked via the Internet on any device, including leisure and unmanaged business travel.

Regionally, the combined spending of the U.S. and Canada will remain on top in B2C eCommerce sales this year, representing about one-third of the dollars spent on digital purchases worldwide, the company said in its forecast report. It previous had predicted that Asia-Pacific would surpass North America in market share, but it changed that view because of unanticipated slower growth in China’s B2C eCommerce spending caused by market maturation.

“With China accounting for a significant portion of eCommerce sales in Asia-Pacific, this affected our estimates materially,” the research company said. Instead, eMarketer expects the region to take the global lead in B2C eCommerce sales next year, when it will achieve a 33.4 percent share to North America’s 31.7 percent and Western Europe’s 24.6 percent.

“These three regions combined will continue to take around 90% of the global eCommerce market throughout our forecast period,” eMarketer said.

A growing base of digital buyers will help boost eCommerce sales in Asia-Pacific, as more new buyers come online. However, by 2018, nearly 70% of Internet users in both Western Europe and North America will purchase items on digital devices compared with just more than 50 percent in Asia-Pacific, eMarketer said.

“Buyer penetration in Asia-Pacific translates to the largest number of consumers, but the region is far more fragmented than North America and Western Europe,” the company noted. “In the latter two regions, eCommerce continues to grow at double-digit rates and will do so for several more years.”

In such large markets, this illustrates that individual buyers are making purchases more frequently and with higher order values, and consumer behaviors are relatively consistent across countries in both regions, the company said.

However, across Asia-Pacific countries, consumer behaviors are more disparate. China alone will make up more than half the region’s eCommerce sales this year, jumping to 70 percent by 2018, eMarketer said, which noted Australia and Japan rival markets like the U.S., UK and Western Europe in buyer penetration and average order values.

“On the other hand, in less-mature markets like India and Indonesia, there are large absolute numbers of digital buyers, but many are new to the market,” the company said. “Instead of buying high-ticket items, new digital buyers tend to wet their feet with less costly purchases due to product availability or simply to income constraints.”

A report published last month during the Global E-commerce Summit in Barcelona found Europe B2C eCommerce last year grew by 16.3 percent year over year to €363.1 billion (US$486.1 billion). The report predicted 17.2 percent growth this year, to €425.5 billion, eventually growing to €625 billion by 2016. The European e-commerce figures were compiled with various national eCommerce associations and in cooperation with GfK.

The growth is going to accelerate due to higher spending in mature countries and increase of the number of transactions in emerging markets, the report found.

e-Commerce on Social Media (SocialCommerce)

Taken from The Internet Retailer

2015 Social Media 500

Meet the 500 Masters of Social Marketing
& Commerce in 2015

As consumers continue to spend more of their online time on social networks (according to comScore Inc., the networks claim 20% of daily attention spans), and as those networks roll out advertising formats with unparalleled targeting capabilities, e-retailers are massively stepping up their social media marketing, and Internet Retailer’s latest research shows that these moves are paying off. Indeed, the 500 leading social media marketers in the U.S. and Canada are fine-tuning their social media marketing and commerce initiatives to maximize their impact on their bottom lines. They collectively grew their social commerce sales in 2014 by 26.0% to $3.30 billion, up from $2.62 billion—well ahead of the growth rate of e-commerce overall in the U.S. (16.9% in 2013 according to the Department of Commerce)—according to the data in the just-released 2015 Social Media 500. As a whole, the data show these 500 e-retailers:

• Boosted their Facebook Likes in 2014 by 33% to 915.7 million

• Grew their Twitter following by 26% to 88.6 million followers

• Increased their number of Pinterest followers by 16% to 34.7 million; and

• Drove 78% more video views on YouTube for a total of 3.89 billion.

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Taken from pymnts.com

SOCIAL COMMERCE RETAIL SALES UP 26%

While retailers fight the crowded social media space to get their voice heard by consumers, a new report says social media is playing a larger role in retailers e-commerce strategies.

Data from Internet Retailer’s 2015 Social Media 500 shows that total social commerce sales reached $3.30 billion in 2014, which was up 26% from 2013’s $2.62 billion. Retailers also saw an average growth of 5.4 percent in 2014 in terms of total site traffic from social networks. The data also shows that those visitors are more likely to purchase once they click on a retailer’s site from a social network.

But driving that traffic isn’t cheap.

“Merchants are having to spend more on ads to have their content seen by consumers. That’s because Facebook shows fewer of a brand or retailer’s posts to its fans now than it did a few years ago, a strategy that effectively forces marketers to spend more on advertising to reach Facebook users,” wrote Stefany Zaroban for Internet Retailer.

Organic reach is getting harder for retailers, so they are having to turn to social media to help market their brand. A report from social analytics vendor Socialbakers said, on average, only 25 percent of companies are able to reach its customer base through organic posts. And in Internet Retailer’s research, of the 43 e-retailers that reported its social ad budgets, their total budgets were up 144 percent in 2014 to $17.9 million a month.

Data from the report also indicated that retailers have placed a large focus in increasing their social media audience. In 2014, those surveyed said their collective number of Facebook “likes” grew 33 percent in 2014; Twitter grew by 26 percent; Pinterest followers grew by 16 percent; and YouTube views grew by 78 percent.

Investasi Telkom di ICT & MEDIA

Diambil dari situs BeritaSatu.com

Gagal Akuisisi 2degrees, Telkom Ekspansi ke Asia dan Timur Tengah

Investasi Bisnis Contact Center

Telkom sudah masuk pasar Australia dan Selandia Baru dengan mengakuisisi 75 persen saham Contact Centres Australia Pty Ltd (CCA), perusahaan yang bergerak di solusi business process outsourcing (BPO) yang berbasis di Sydney, Australia.

Telkom mengakuisisi CCA melalui anak usahanya, Telekomunikasi Indonesia International Australia Pty Ltd, dengan nilai transaksi Aus$ 11 juta. Aksi akuisisi tersebut rampung pada 25 September 2014.

Sebagai informasi, CCA adalah salah satu perusahaan contact center terbesar di Australia yang memiliki dua anak usaha, yakni Financial Information Services Pty Ltd, yang berkantor pusat di New South Wales, Australia serta Contact Center New Zealand Ltd di Wellington, Selandia Baru.

Investasi Bisnis e-Commerce

eBay Inc, perusahaan jual beli online asal Amerika Serikat (AS), berencana menambah kepemilikan saham pada PT Metra Plasa menjadi 49 persen dari sebelumnya 40 persen.

Saat ini, sebanyak 60 persen saham Metra Plasa dikuasai oleh PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia Tbk (Telkom/TLKM). Dengan begitu, kepemilikan Telkom pada Metra Plasa bakal berkurang menjadi 51 persen

Semula, Telkom melalui anak usahanya, PT Multimedia Nusantara, sepakat membentuk perusahan baru bersama eBay dengan kepemilikan masing-masing sebesar 60 persen dan 40 persen. Pembentukan Metra Plasa tersebut sejak April 2012.

“eBay bisa menambah menjadi 49 persen. Mereka juga punya opsi untuk menjadi mayoritas. Ada tahapan menuju ke sana, mereka inginnya cepat. Tapi saya belum bisa disclose,” kata Indra, belum lama ini.

Metra Plasa pada awalnya mengelola situs belanja online Plasa.com. Dengan menggandeng eBay, Telkom akhirnya mengembangkan situs belanja bernama blanja.com.

Menurut Indra, sejak 2012, eBay telah mengucurkan dana sekitar US$ 9,2 juta pada Metra Plasa. Telkom pertama kali berinvestasi pada plasa.com pada 2009 sekitar US$ 5 juta. Dengan demikian, total investasi Telkom dan eBay dalam mengembangkan situs belanja online sekitar US$ 14,2 juta. Per September 2014, aset sebelum eliminasi Metra Plasa sekitar Rp 68 miliar.

Ke depan, kata Indra, eBay berpeluang menambahkan investasinya ke Metra Plasa. Strategi menggandeng eBay membuat Telkom belajar terkait platform serta cross border trading. Nantinya, sistem eBay memungkinkan barang yang terdaftar pada blanja.com dijual ke luar negeri. Saat ini, situs blanja.com memiliki total 1 juta produk terdaftar, 600 penjual, serta 50.000 pengunjung per hari.

E-Commerce SE Asian profile

Taken from Nielsen's Report
SOUTHEAST ASIAN CONSUMERS FLOCK ONLINE TO PURCHASE PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

Consumers across Southeast Asia are going online in droves, particularly with the rapid up-take of connected devices, and they are increasingly searching out online channels to research and purchase the products and services they need and want. The growth of connected device ownership across Southeast Asia is laying the foundation for a booming online retail sector, with the number of consumers in the region making online purchases increasing significantly in the past two years. Online shopping is set to continue its upward trajectory in the years ahead as consumers’ familiarity with, and trust in, online retail sites grows.

Digital consumers across Southeast Asia enjoy going online to shop, although Filipinos, Vietnamese and Singaporeans are most inclined to purchase items online, while in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand consumers are more likely to go online to browse. Reading online reviews, product research and convenience rank among the main factors motivating consumers in Southeast Asia to go online to shop. Notably, a large proportion of Southeast Asian consumers also view the internet as a means of checking out products to inform their offline purchases. This trend, which signals a need for retailers to ensure they do not neglect digital as part of their overall engagement strategy, was most prominent in Indonesia, the Philippines and Singapore where a large number of consumers often look at products online before purchasing them in a store.

Travel services such as airline tickets and tour and hotel reservations are the most commonly purchased items online in Southeast Asia, along with tickets for events such as movies, live performances, exhibitions and sports games. Singaporeans have the highest online purchasing intention globally for airline tickets and hotel and tour reservations, and second highest globally for event tickets; around seven in 10 Singaporeans plan to go online to purchase flights (70%) and make hotel and tour reservations (69%) within the next six months. Malaysians’ online purchase intent is also high, with Malaysia ranking second globally for tours and hotel reservations and third globally for intention to purchase airline tickets and event tickets online. Around half of consumers in Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam intend to make travel and event purchases online, along with approximately four in 10 consumers in Thailand.

As e-commerce retailers’ product and service offerings have evolved to meet the demands of online shoppers, the categories which rank most favourably for online shopping have shifted substantially in the past two years; in 2012 categories such as computer and gaming software, mobile phones and clothing and accessories ranked among the most frequently purchased items online. While these categories continue to enjoy high engagement with Southeast Asian consumers when it comes to browsing, the conversion from looking to buying has dropped behind other categories in the past two years.

As Southeast Asian consumers become more familiar with online retailing environments, they are looking to broaden the number of tools and apps they use, both as a means of making their shopping experience easier and more convenient, and also to seek out the best deals. Emerging e-commerce capabilities such as grocery list apps and tools and discount alert apps are beginning to gain traction across the region, particularly in Thailand and Vietnam. More than half of Vietnamese netizens (56%) said they use price-saving apps in-store and when planning their shopping trips, and 44 percent manage their grocery list with grocery retailers’ mobile apps and online tools. In Thailand 55 percent use price-saving apps when planning their shopping trips, 44 percent use price-saving apps in-store and 40 percent use grocery retailers’ mobile apps and online tools to manage their grocery list.

Credit card security remains a key concern for consumers across the region with five of the six Southeast Asia markets ranking above the global average with respect to their concern around providing credit card information online. Filipinos are the most cautious when it comes to paying online by credit card (67% do not trust giving their credit card information online), followed by Thais (62%), Indonesians (60%), Vietnamese (55%), Malaysians (52%) and Singaporeans (41%), compared to 49 percent of consumers globally. In order to gain the trust of consumers online retailers must look for opportunities to provide reassurances around online payment security.

When it comes to devices most frequently used to shop online, although PCs dominate in the majority of Southeast Asia markets, use of mobile phones for online shopping is growing in popularity across the region. Increasing connected device ownership in Southeast Asia is by far one of the most significant factors driving the growth of online shopping, and rising affluence, availability of high-speed connectivity and evolving online offerings will compound this effect in the years ahead. The Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand rank in the top 10 markets globally for use of a mobile phone to shop online and all Southeast Asia markets scored above the global average. Tablet usage is also gaining traction as a means of accessing online retail sites, with all Southeast Asia markets except Singapore ranking above the global average for use of a tablet to shop online.

Insights contained in this article are taken from The Nielsen Global Survey of E-Commerce which was conducted between 17 February and 7 March 2014 and polled more than 30,000 online consumers in 60 countries throughout Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and North America.