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TikTok’s global e-commerce expansion plans hit roadblock amid uncertainty from Indonesia’s ban on online shopping via social media
- TikTok’s ambitious global e-commerce revenue targets ‘now in doubt’ after social media app’s online retail debacle in Indonesia
- Jakarta’s ban could bode well for other e-commerce platforms operating in Southeast Asia, including Shopee, Tokopedia and Alibaba’s Lazada
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Ben Jiangin Beijing
The global e-commerce expansion plans of short video app operator TikTok have hit a roadblock, according to analysts, amid the uncertainty created in Southeast Asia after Indonesia imposed a ban on online shopping via social media.
“TikTok was certainly counting on the Southeast Asian e-commerce market, with major economies like Indonesia, to reach its ambitious global revenue goals,” said William Yuen Yee, research assistant at the Columbia-Harvard China and the World programme and a consultant for independent research firm the Rhodium Group. “Those targets are now in doubt.”
Across other Southeast Asian economies, offline marketplaces and merchants whose interests are affected by social commerce platforms are expected to complain to their governments and lobby for a ban on TikTok Shop, the South China Morning Post reported on Wednesday.
TikTok Shop’s debacle in Indonesia – a market that made up almost 60 per cent of TikTok’s total e-commerce revenue in the region before the ban, according to market research firm Cube Asia – poses a challenge on how the app operator’s online retail business model could move forward, as competition from other shopping platforms in the region is expected to intensify.
Jakarta’s ban could bode well for other e-commerce platforms that are less reliant on social media influencers to peddle goods through short video clips or live-streaming sessions, according to Li Chengdong, founder and chief analyst at Beijing-based consultancy Dolphin.
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