Ideas We Discovered From The Top 5 Online Marketplaces in Singapore

Ideas We Discovered From The Top 5 Online Marketplaces in Singapore

By Rakesh Jain

Singapore, one of the wealthiest countries, according to the World Bank GDP per capita rankings, is now an eCommerce hub due to its record-breaking online sales. With a stable economy and high-speed internet, the number of online shoppers in Singapore is multiplying every split second of time.

According to Statista, Singaporean eCommerce will amount to $4.99 billion by the end 2019 and is expected to show annual growth rate (CAGR 2019-2023) of 14.7%, resulting in a market volume of $8.64 billion by 2023. All the credits for such gigantic eCommerce sales among other Southeast Asian countries go only to the popularity of Singaporeans online shopping and its government’s interest in making it a consumer-centric nation.

So, it is clear why companies are interested in Singaporean marketplace, but now, let’s see which are the top 5 online marketplaces of Singapore and what we have drawn out of them after studying their eCommerce sales so far.

1. Qoo10

One of the best and popular online shopping sites in Singapore, Qoo10 is heaven for all, especially women. Formerly known as Gmarket, Qoo10 has everything from fashion, beauty, clothing, consumer electronics, computer & gaming, food, books, music and is famous for its Korean products. Founded in 2010, Qoo10 also operates in Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and China. With more than 1.6 million registered users, Qoo10 generates about S$26 million in monthly revenue from the Singapore market.

We noticed that Qoo10 never bores or fails to impress its customers. It offers regular weekly exclusive deals and discounts on a lot of its products to keep customers coming back to it, and thus the purchasing cycle keeps on moving. Qoo10 also provides the facility to check product specifications and review, which makes it more customer interactive, which is necessary for any eCommerce business.

2. Lazada

With more than 550 million consumers, Lazada can be better described as an ecommerce powerhouse. Known to be Southeast Asia’s number one online shopping destination, Lazada was founded in 2011 by Rocket Internet, and today has everything from pin to plane, you just have to name it.

Present in Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam, Lazada is a general online department store and marketplace, allowing retailers to sell their own products. It has a massive collection of products, including men’s and women’s fashion, electronics, groceries, health, beauty, home, and living items.

As you can see, Lazada uses .sg instead of .com, which actually boosts the brand. We learned that using such local extension will target local clientele more creating and sustaining a lasting long-term relationship with the customers.

3. Carousell

Started as a mobile platform, Carousell is now also a web shopping site designed for buying and selling new and secondhand items. Founded on May 1, 2012, by a group of Singaporean students, Carousell is a one-stop solution for an individual as well as a brand to take pictures of their products with a phone and sell instantly and directly to the buyer online. Carousell is now available in 13 major cities in Asia, including Singapore, Jakarta, Taipei, Kuala Lumpur, and Hong Kong and has sold more than 8 million products so far.

It’s listing, 3-day bump, urgent sellers, direct chat, and other features are something every eCommerce sellers must take note of to make their business better.

4. Zalora

Founded in 2012 by Rocket Internet, Zalora is known to be one of the leading online fashion destinations in Asia. Comprising of almost all brands, both local and international, Zalora offers everything from shoes to shirts, dresses and lingerie, outerwear, skirts, swimwear, and accessories too.

Zalora’s attractive discount coupons, express delivery, cash on delivery option, as well as a 30-day free returns policy has made it homely site for Singaporeans.

5. Shopee

Health & Beauty, Women’s Apparel, Men’s Apparel, Women’s Shoes, Mobile & Gadgets, Men’s Shoes, Accessories, Bags, Toys, Kids & Babies, Home & Living, Home Appliances, Food, and many more, Shopee is a shopping paradise for Singaporeans. Started off as a mobile-only, Shopee today is equally popular among web users too. It has wooed almost all Southeast Asian countries like Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippine, and Taiwan.

The idea that we liked about Shopee is that it allows its users to check ratings and reviews before purchasing the product.

In a nutshell

For Singaporeans, their favorite pastime is shopping. A majority of the country’s economy comes from its eCommerce sales. Apart from domestic B2C eCommerce, Singapore is also famous for B2B eCommerce as well as cross-border eCommerce. One thing that we can learn from Singaporean eCommerce is the way its government involves in it. The active support of the Singaporean government with various initiatives to help businesses establish strategies locally and abroad is the reason eCommerce is a big hit there.

Singapore’s, tech-savvy nature, its availability of online payments, easy communication access due to the English language, geographical location, and Infrastructure, digital marketing, and craze for mobile commerce, altogether makes it a safe and perfect environment for eCommerce business.

Author bio:

Rakesh Jain is the co-founder and CEO of MobiCommerce, a leading multi-vendor ecommerce marketplace software solutions provider. When he is not busy taking the company to newer heights, he writes for top publications, teaching eCommerce store owners different ways to manage, grow and scale their business.

More information about Irish Tech News and the Business Showcase

FYI the ROI for you is => Irish Tech News now gets over 1.5 million monthly views, and up to 900k monthly unique visitors, from over 160 countries. We have over 860,000 relevant followers on Twitter on our various accounts & were recently described as Ireland’s leading online tech news site and Ireland’s answer to TechCrunch, so we can offer you a good audience!

Since introducing desktop notifications a short time ago, which notify readers directly in their browser of new articles being published, over 16000 people have now signed up to receive them ensuring they are instantly kept up to date on all our latest content. Desktop notifications offer a unique method of serving content directly to verified readers and bypass the issue of content getting lost in people’s crowded news feeds.

Drop us a line if you want to be featured, guest post, suggest a possible interview, or just let us know what you would like to see more of in our future articles. We’re always open to new and interesting suggestions for informative and different articles. Contact us, by email, twitter or whatever social media works for you and hopefully we can share your story too and reach our global audience.

If you would like to have your company featured in the Irish Tech News BusinessShowcase, get in contact with us at Simon@IrishTechNews.ie or on Twitter: @SimonCocking