Growth market

In Vietnam, 76 percent of consumers said they had done more shopping online in recent months, according to a survey by digital marketing company Criteo.

In Thailand, e-commerce solutions company aCommerce reported year-on-year growth in new customers of between 150 percent and 200 percent during the pandemic.

" (The new customers) are not only limited to the tech-savvy generation, but also comprise the older generation, which you would not have targeted as a customer base as recently as last year," said aCommerce co-founder and group CEO Paul Srivorakul.

On its way to becoming Thailand's first unicorn－a startup valued at more than $1 billion－aCommerce operates across Southeast Asia in markets such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.

The way in which e-commerce is conducted has also diversified, Srivorakul said.

"Brands are not only doing it on e-marketplaces, but on 'brand.com'as well, where we can see volume growing two to three times faster than on e-marketplaces," he said.

Srivorakul added that social commerce is another growth channel, with brands offering their employees, influencers and store associates incentives such as commission to sell to their social networks.

Consumers in emerging Southeast Asian markets are conducting more brand research on social media, according to a report by the agency We Are Social, which is based in London, and Hootsuite, a social media management platform. In Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, nearly 60 percent of internet users turn to social media for more information about brands. The global average is 42 percent.

Liu, from Lazada, said other critical factors driving the digital shift and redefining the e-commerce shopping experience include livestreaming and the use of artificial intelligence and algorithms to provide better shopping services.

In June, Lazada's livestreaming service LazLive attracted more than 74 million views, nearly three times the number for April, Liu said. "Compared with last June, this led to more than 17 times the total GMV generated through livestreaming," she added.

The advent of livestreaming can also be a cross-border opportunity to connect China with Southeast Asia.

In April, the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region website reported that Guangxi TUS-Innovation Cross-border E-commerce Co held a livestreaming session on Lazada to sell anti-pandemic products such as face masks and goggles. The broadcast attracted nearly 10,000 views in Southeast Asia.

For Rachel Pang, the founder and CEO of online shopping portal Shopavision, increased digital consumption triggered by COVID-19 resulted in a "surprising opportunity" for her startup, which aims to be Singapore's first and only livestream-focused shopping site.

"Over the past four years, I've seen the growth of livestream commerce, as well as the new retail concept in China," said Pang, an observer of digital and business trends and a frequent traveler to China for market research. "Livestream commerce can work here (in Singapore), just like it did in China."

Shopavision started its pre-launch marketing in December and is due to officially introduce its app before the end of this year.

During its first livestreaming session with a crab farm in Singapore, Pang said the portal helped sell live seafood on the spot, registering sales totaling $6,000 in just two hours, in addition to providing an educative and experiential tour of the farm.

More than 40 livestreaming shows were held during the three-month pre-launch marketing period, Pang said, generating over 400,000 views, more than $50,000 in sales and reaching 2 million people. The platform now has a team of 30 livestream hosts.

But until last year, Pang said nine out of 10 people she spoke to in Singapore were still unfamiliar with livestreaming.

"The number of online shoppers has hit a new high (during the pandemic)," she said. With livestreaming on social media platforms such as Facebook becoming more common, she added that such broadcasts have the potential to drive marketing and sales.

Lazada's Liu said that even before the pandemic started, Southeast Asia was undergoing rapid digitalization, and the contagion has accelerated this trend.

According to a report by Facebook and the global consultancy Bain & Co, 70 percent of consumers, or 310 million people, in the region are expected to have gone digital by the end of this year－a figure previously forecast for 2025.

The region's e-commerce GMV grew by 23 percent annually from 2018 to this year, faster than China's compound annual growth rate during the same period, the report said.

Liu said, "E-commerce is projected to grow to $300 billion by 2025, but has a penetration rate of less than 5 percent among the 650 million people living in Southeast Asia." She added that this presents huge opportunities for e-commerce companies.

However, she said the region faces a number of challenges in developing e-commerce, ranging from the lack of a logistics and payment infrastructure to numerous consumer preferences, as well as cross-border concerns.