Twinkle literally pushes the boundaries. In the Borderless section, the editors shed light on an e-commerce development in a country that is not often discussed, but is certainly worth discussing. This time: Laos as an e-commerce underdog.
An interesting study was published on Twinkle in early December: regarding the new Asia Marketplace Explorer, a study by the Center for Market Insights (CMI) of the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (HvA). The study covered Asian e-commerce markets. The focus was not on huge countries such as China or India, but on the somewhat neglected, often smaller markets. Eleven countries are mapped. We thought it would be a good idea to include the lowest scoring of these eleven in this section: Laos.
Legislation
The top 11 referred to is ranked by marketplace traffic. Admittedly, the difference between number 1 (South Korea) and 11 (Laos) is not small at 7,902,885,718 compared to 4,785,528. And in that respect, Laos is lucky to be included in the list. If you look further at the market, this becomes increasingly clear. Did you know, for example, that in Laos – although the internet is already widely available there – a law was only passed in 2012 that put the definitions, rights and obligations of online transactions on paper? And that only concerns online transactions. In terms of legislation, they are still a bit behind in Laos; for example, a law came into force in mid-2021 to clarify regulations for e-commerce in the country. This involved simple matters such as: what should be included in an online purchase agreement. A year later, a law was passed requiring online merchants who earn more than $34,000 (in US dollars) annually to pay taxes. Better later than never, so to speak. By the way, the local currency is the Laotian kip.
In terms of legislation, Laos is not really a pioneer, but the country certainly offers opportunities. It is the 87th largest e-commerce market in the world with an expected turnover of $760 million in 2023. This puts it ahead of Nicaragua. The 7 million residents are increasingly using smartphones, social media and online payment services. It is therefore expected that e-commerce in Laos will grow rapidly in the coming years.
Exotic
Nowadays, in many countries, no matter how exotic they are, the largest web shops often have well-known names such as Amazon, Shein or Lazada. Things are slightly different in Laos, and given the range of the largest online shops in that country, we can highly recommend that you take a look. The best-known webshop is Buylao, a platform that mainly sells clothing and gadgets. Shopping-D is also known there, it mainly focuses on food (sameday delivery within two hours) and also has several stores. Furthermore, Olaa is popular and that is a different platform than we are used to here: it is a kind of service provider where users can easily sell things to each other via social media such as Facebook. Finally, we should mention Bydala, a popular seller of consumer electronics. Apparently the company’s knowledge is limited to hardware, because given the state of the website, they have little knowledge of software.
