Hello Betamax, Amazon's 2019 rollout of local services in Singapore was a big deal. Just two years before that, in 2017, I remember covering the launch of Prime Now from inside the company's massive warehouse and being excited about the possibilities of same-day deliveries that Amazon Prime could offer (still a novelty at the time).  The tech giant saw limited uptake in the city-state, though. While I know of people who regularly order from Amazon Fresh, over the years, I can count on two hands the number of times I've bought items from the platform. Even beyond Singapore's shores, Amazon never made a push into Southeast Asia. In the meantime, platforms like Shopee and Lazada grew exponentially as they gamified their marketplaces, expanded their product selection, ramped up partnerships with brand-name retailers, experimented with livestreaming, added groceries to the mix, and so on. So it felt serendipitous that, while catching up with a good friend who was visiting from the US over the weekend, I heard her delight in discovering the magic that is Shopee - its sheer variety and the availability of cheap Chinese goods on the platform. Apparently, she's already spent a few hundred dollars on Shopee purchases for her toddlers in just two weeks. It was also timely that this week, parent company Sea Group reported that Shopee recorded a new high in gross merchandise value and a revenue growth of 45% in its first quarter. Amazon isn't the first case of a large global firm that has had to retreat from the region after failing to make a dent in the market, and it isn't going to be the last. But in Southeast Asia, we've seen time and again that being hyperlocal wins. Melissa Goh, senior editor |
