E-commerce in South-East Asia: Home-field advantage
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UK Only Article:
standard article
Issue:
The new nuclear age
Fly Title:
E-commerce in South-East Asia
Rubric:
The global online-shopping giants may not find it easy to conquer the region
Location:
JAKARTA
TROPICAL rain pounds on the roof of a cavernous warehouse near Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital. Inside, youngsters in orange T-shirts haul around clothes, luggage and electrical goods for Lazada, an e-commerce firm, which has just moved in. The 12,000 square metre space is three times the size of the depot it has vacated, but it already looks full. Three years ago Lazada’s entire stock filled a storeroom the size of a studio flat, recalls Magnus Ekbom, its twenty-something boss in Indonesia.
Internet shopping accounts for less than 1% of all purchases in South-East Asia—a region twice as populous as America, where the proportion is nearly 10%. But surging smartphone use and a broadening middle class mean the market is set to multiply; perhaps fivefold by 2018, reckons Frost & Sullivan, a …<div class="og_rss_groups"></div>
Source: Retailing
E-commerce in South-East Asia: Home-field advantage
