Latest Chat Commerce Situation in Thailand

The rise of online shopping

In Thailand, environment for Internet and an infrastructure for e-commerce logistics are improving rapidly, which make the general public more accessible to online shopping.

Chat Commerce is becoming a mainstream online shopping platform, by meeting demand on market in Thailand.  On Chat Commerce, you can do everything at once from offering or purchasing the products based on person to person interactions. 

Now, we will introduce Chat Commerce with the current e-commerce situation in Thailand.

First of all, let me explain about the internet environment in Thailand.  According to the data provided by the research company in England, the penetration rate of smart phone in Thailand is 98% and that of SNS is 67%.  On the other hand, the penetration rate of computer is only about 25%.  The rate for purchasing the products through SNS is the highest in the world. 

Regarding SNS users, out of 69 million people, the entire Thai population, Facebook users are 50 million (The number of active users in Bangkok is the largest in number in the world), Line users are 33 million people（The world’s second）, Instagram users are 13.6million people.  Mainly all these users are from the age of 18 to 34.  One of the characteristics of Thai people is that people prefer graphics to letters or writings, and that is part of the reason why Instagram and SNS became so popular in Thailand.

Also, the article in Bangkokpost reports that about 50% of all online shopping sales in Thailand are conducted through smartphones.  The percentage of business transactions through SNS accounts for 51% of the entire e-commerce transactions in Thailand, and that shows CtoC transactions play important role in the e-commerce business.

For the reasons above, targeting for devices and PR marketing on SNS are going to be very important when considering e-commerce business in Thailand.

Example of Chat Commerce

Now, we will introduce how Chat Commerce does effective PR and their business transactions at small select shops in Thailand. 

First, Chat Commerce creates the advertisement pages on Instagram or Facebook to let people know about their products. On Instagram account, LINE ID is tagged in the self-introduction page so that anyone can get in touch the shop owner when they like the products.

Instagram(@nateeshopp)

https://www.instagram.com/nateeshopp/

Second, they offer individual services to their customers on LINE. When the customers add the shop’s official account to their contact list or the shop gets the messages from the customers, it will offer individual services.  There, customers can see the figure wearing their own sized clothes in the photo, and they can even negotiate the price on person to person basis, which is the biggest advantage for the customers. They are also using Pantip, the largest online review website when they consider purchasing things online.

Third, the shop asks for the payment only after the contract is made.
When the customers decided to buy some products, the shop sends their bank account number on LINE, asking for the payment before the due date and also customer’s address in order to proceed to send the purchased products.  “Prompt pay” is a mobile application which enables customers to pay through QR code by registering the phone number or individual number.(マイナンバー)  Thai government is encouraging their people to use this Prompt pay, and more than 30million people are using this application. In Thailand, a settlement of credit card account is not very common, but cashless services like Prompt pay is getting more popular.

Fourth, they offer after sales service and introduce their new products regularly.
They offer new product information to their customer who registered on LINE and sales promotions repeatedly.

They repeat these procedures. (from one to four).

Now in Thailand, the settlement system is not reliable, so people mainly purchase inexpensive or cheap products online, but the market is expected to expand as highly reliable services like Prompt pay is becoming more common in Thailand. 

The reason why more people use LINE rather than using DM function on Instagram or messenger on Facebook when offering their services is because there are more LINE users and it is convenient to send messages to all the customers simultaneously with low costs.

In short, using Chat Commerce makes it possible to:

1 advertise the products with lower cost without having our own website.

2 offer individual services

3 appeal to the potential customers who are just browsing through SNS every day.

4 have connection with customers even after their business has completed.

 

As for the customers, what they can do is:

1 to purchase the products through SNS which customers feel comfortable using and receive products without leaving their home.

2 to receive an individual service.

3 to see the photos of their own sized figure, which helps customers when they consider purchasing the products.

 

Using SNS for advertisement or sales promotion is becoming the mainstream in Japan, but selling and buying on LINE chat function after the sales promotion on SNS is one of the biggest characteristics in the e-commerce market in Thailand.

Reference:

日本貿易振興機構「アジアのEC 2017」https://www.jetro.go.jp/ext_images/_Reports/01/fb62cc2ca58764b0/20170022.pdf（2018年6月22日アクセス

日本貿易振興機構「タイのアパレル市場に関する動向調査」https://www.jetro.go.jp/ext_images/jfile/report/07000583/thai_apparel.pdf（2018年6月22日アクセス）

WE ARE SOCIAL「DIGITAL IN SOUTHEAST ASIA2017」https://wearesocial.com/uk/（2018年6月22日アクセス）

News From Bangkok UNESCO bangkok「Scoring goals for International Literacy Day in Thailand」http://www.unescobkk.org/news/article/scoring-goals-for-international-literacy-day-in-thailand/