E-commerce in Asia, Where are we heading?

This is my first blog and have been toiling on this idea now for sometime since I started the linkedin group with the same purpose last year. So kindly bear the rough edges please, we'll get better together as we move along in weeks to come. And I welcome feedback and joint posts. I would like to start this week, with a bit of background to the e-commerce industry in Asia which includes m-commerce and any other channels of businesses linked to this theme.

Internet penetration growth in the emerging markets will double by 2015 in countries like Brazil, Russia, India, China and Indonesia with users advancing their levels of usage from simple communication, socialising, networking, sharing, browsing, searching, shopping, entertainment, payments to full blown m-wallets.

Asia is home to over a billion Internet users with  increasing number of users connecting to the Internet for the first time via their mobile devices.  China alone holds slightly over half a billion users. With plenty of room for growth (currently Internet penetration is only 27%), Asia is expected to double up its Internet users fuelled by growth coming from South East Asia, India and China. Out of this some 450 million Internet users are also shopping online, contributing to the USD 383.9 billion in online sales for B2C segment in 2013, a little off the marks from eMarketers previous forecast of USD 430 billion for 2013.  The average spending per customer is also increasing steadily year on year, turning this region into the promise land of everything digital for both B2B and B2C businesses.  This year eMaketer is betting that Asia will take over US once again. It will be certainly interesting to track the B2C segment this year and see if this prediction hits the mark.  

However the key question for us here is how many of our very own e-commerce brands are prepared to embrace this growth? We have seen this pattern before in other industries where local brands replicate a business model but fail to capture opportunities when time is right due to the fact that they are poorly funded, managed and prepared for rapid expansion. In addition, replicating a proven model is the main theme of business rather than inventing something new which leaves us with price war and no real edge or differentiators really. As a result, global brands expands and captures most of the market share.

This blog site will be dedicated to discuss such challenges and how e-commerce businesses from this region can overcome such weak spots. Occasionally, I hope to interview and feature some real people and businesses in this domain for a inbound view of the business and its hurdles.  Hopefully, this blog will bring experts together, open minds and power ideas which will change how we do business in this space and create real values in the process. So take advantage and post your views/questions and make this a meeting point for members of the industry.

Signing off till the next blog and leave me a note here if you wish to contact me.