How to Ride the Growing E-commerce Wave in Southeast Asia

A new whitepaper titled “Navigate Retail 5.0 in Southeast Asia” reveals how consumer brands in the region can thrive in a new era of shopping – in what the paper’s authors describe as Retail 5.0.

To succeed online, the paper released by Ascential Digital Commerce says that “optimizing digital retail platform growth can only be accessed by adopting a fundamentally different set of capabilities, skills and in many cases, wholesale organizational change.”

“In this evolving Retail 5.0 landscape, retail operators must constantly reevaluate their investments and innovation strategies to stay relevant, grow, and effectively tap into the largest eCommerce marketplaces,” added Jill Meng, Customer Success Director, APAC, Ascential Digital Commerce.

One key takeaway is for brands to focus resources on mass personalization to reach and retain digital-first shoppers, but cautions against “jumping on the bandwagon and crowding the mass personalization space.”

The other key recommendations include:

Identifying how shoppers are searching for your brand and products online and understanding their purchase journey.
Get full oversight of your and your category’s performance and sales, share online and on the marketplaces, and sell through to inform effective business decisions.
Understanding the marketplace dynamics and their capabilities to focus investment in the right places.

Ascential adds “consumer brands must ensure a highly flexible product innovation and distribution model where sufficient stock is immediately available for rapid distribution globally.” This is crucial especially as businesses can lose up to 22% of weekly sales daily when a product is out of stock, according to data from Edge by Ascential.