Southeast Asia’s e-commerce market could grow by more than $280 billion between 2025 and 2030, if women entrepreneurs are incentivised to participate more on digital selling platforms, according to a new report by the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC).
More women have embraced digital businesses showed the Women and e-commerce in Southeast Asia report, released on Thursday.
Businesses set up by Southeast Asian women accounted for half of all active e-commerce vendors in the region. On the Lazada platform specifically, about a third of businesses in Indonesia and two-thirds of businesses in the Philippines are women-owned.
“E-commerce in Southeast Asia is thriving. Since 2015, the market has tripled in size, and it is expected to triple again. In this research, IFC shows that this growth could be even higher if we invest in women entrepreneurs on e-commerce platforms,” commented Alfonso Garcia Mora, vice president for Asia and Pacific at IFC.
In terms of segments, women have been outperforming men in the electronics category since 2019, which represented the largest component of total sales on Alibaba-backed Lazada. “This indicates that women performed at the same level or better in high-value segments,” the report said.
Indonesia: Average women’s GMV as a percentage of men’s by product category
However, businesswomen in Southeast Asia have less access to digital networks and financing options than their male counterparts.
The gender gap in internet usage was 11% across Southeast Asia in 2020, according to the World Wide Web Foundation. Female entrepreneurs in the region still faced barriers such as affordability and comfort levels using digital technologies, indicating a significant obstacle to their inclusion on e-commerce platforms, the IFC report pointed out.
It has also become harder for women to do business online after the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, in the Philippines, the sales numbers of women-owned businesses fell to just 79% of those of men post COVID-19, despite having been higher previously.
Sales figures by women-owned businesses in Indonesia also dropped 44% as a result of the health pandemic.
More can be done
To encourage more women to join e-commerce marketplaces, these platforms have capabilities in place to provide more training, as well as prompt women’s participation in higher-value segments such as electronics, the report said.
“Businesses owned by women in Southeast Asia are generally smaller, have fewer resources, and tend to be concentrated in lower margin sectors such as agriculture, food processing, catering, and beauty,” it added.
E-commerce platforms can also increase women’s engagement in emerging fintech offerings, such as in-platform loans, which currently witness higher access by men.
“Women were less likely to have received financing and were not always aware of financing options available to them. But women who did receive financing were also more likely to report that it had benefited their business in the last year,” the report highlighted.