COVER STORY
How Do Leading
Brands Defend and Grow Their E-commerce
Market Share
About Vaibhav
Watching two generations in the family build a logistics business , Vaibhav developed a natural inclination towards entrepreneurship from an early age . Later , owing to his passion for technology & e-commerce , Vaibhav founded Anchanto in June 2011 .
A technology veteran of 20 years and a thought leader in the eCommerce technology domain , Vaibhav uses his expertise to help retailers & e-commerce businesses transform their operations through innovation and technology . Since inception , Anchanto has grown significantly under his exemplary leadership .
At a recent event , Vaibhav Dabhade , Founder and CEO Anchanto , was asked how he feels about the year 2024 in the backdrop of the Southeast Asian e-commerce landscape . As someone who has been closely monitoring the industry even before it became the norm in the region , he calls it the ‘ Year of Reality Check ’ for e-commerce .
According to Vaibhav , this is because the early days of e-commerce hypergrowth in the Philippines are quite visibly over , and the ecosystem is finally consolidating after years of fragmentation . The Filipino e-commerce market , growing at a steady pace and about to reach US $ 14.6 bn in 2024 as per Statista , stays dominated by 4 to 5 market leaders including Shopee , Lazada and Zalora .
Clearly , the market is now entering into a phase of ‘ predictable growth .’ The penetration has reached a phase with limited variation as shown in the graph below and marketplace environments are entering the phase of ‘ early maturity ’.
Today , Anchanto has offices across 11 countries with more than 300 team members from 17 nationalities . With majority of the leading international and homegrown Brands and Retailers in the Philippines as well as 3PLs and e-commerce enablers among its customers , Anchanto has emerged as leader in the e-commerce technology domain .
Source : Statista
All this indeed sounds positive , but Vaibhav notes that this is where the inevitable reality check comes in : For e-commerce businesses in the Philippines , growth will be more difficult hereon . And businesses will be naturally compelled to introspect even the way growth is measured .
To cut a long story short , analyzing only the Gross Merchandise Value ( GMV ) will no longer be enough . Before he explains further , Vaibhav shares the implications that market consolidation brings with it .
4 main implications that we start to witness
1 . Investments by marketplaces are decreasing 2 . Changing consumer behaviors are impacting sales trends faster 3 . Data with immense potential is available to be tapped 4 . Competition is getting more intense than ever
Marketplace Investments : For a prolonged period now , almost all brands and retailers in the Philippines have been benefitting from the lucrative opportunities fueled by marketplace spending . Special sales like 11.11 , Black Friday , Lunar New Year , etc , have been great platforms for brands to enhance the attractiveness of their online channels . But marketplaces are gradually decreasing the subvention of their official sales thus eliminating that extra boost for brands .
Changing consumer behavior : Dominated by a young population , it is no surprise that consumer behaviors and expectations change at a fast pace .
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