A look back at 2015: the year in Southeast Asia ecommerce

Co-authored by Felicia Moursalien.

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After the massive capital injections of 2014, 2015 set the stage for a veritable royal rumble of ecommerce players as they competed for market dominance. So while ecommerce in Southeast Asia remains fragmented and nascent, we can definitely tip our hat to some of the major entrants and highlights.

This was the year we saw Indonesia double down on ecommerce, with national pride MatahariMall claiming to raise $500 million to take on Lazada’s rocketship and the return of Magnus Ekbom to the the helm of Lazada Indonesia.

We saw some key players struggle to find their directions. Line, the popular messaging app, went through a year of soul-searching as it launched and then canned several initiatives like Line Flash Sale, Hot Brand, Groceries, and now also Line Hot Deal. Only Line Shop, its mobile C2C marketplace, remains, however, in a shark-infested space that also counts Shopee and Carousell as inhabitants.

Then there’s Paraplou who sadly announced the closure of operations this year and SingPost who went on an international shopping spree but lost top executives and faced a delay in closing its Alibaba investment.

At aCommerce, we said goodbye to some of our own top executives in Indonesia as they joined the Indonesia fight in the B2C bloodbath (to be discussed below).

More money flowed into the region with Carousell allegedly topping up its war chest with $50 million to take the lead in the mobile marketplace race. In the enterprise game, aCommerce took home a strategic investment from juggernaut distributor DKSH, giving us the fuel to re-enter Singapore and expand into the rest of Southeast Asia.

From the imminent B2C and C2C bloodbath, to mobile commerce, the Uberization of logistics, and drone deliveries, here is a look back at some of our predictions for ecommerce in Southeast in 2015.

1. The year of M&As: consolidation will rise in the B2C ecommerce space

Last year we said that 2015 would be the year that smaller ecommerce companies ran out of their own steam, i.e. organic growth, and would either have to merge or acquire to keep pace with deep pocketed players. Consolidation did happen this year.

First, Ardent Capital-backed WhatsNew acquired lifestyle vertical site Moxy in Thailand early in the year to pivot into female-focused ecommerce and expand into Indonesia. And Lazada swallowed up Lamido in March. In July, Luxola, one of Southeast Asia’s leading beauty e-tailers, got picked up by LVMH, the Paris-based luxury powerhouse that also owns Sephora.

2. Digital agencies will adapt or go extinct

3. The marketplace space will get overcrowded

4. Cross-border ecommerce will accelerate with AEC

5. Demographic evolution: foreign entrepreneurs will flood the market

6. The Uber-ization of logistics and everything else

7. Mobile commerce still crippled by poor UX

8. B2B ecommerce will be the new black

9. Cash on delivery will remain necessary to win SEA

10. Drone deliveries will definitely happen (not)