佣金齐涨？利润腰斩？东南亚“后红利时代” 一批跨境卖家狼狈撤离......

Southeast Asia’s cross-border e-commerce has left behind the era of widespread early-stage growth dividends, and has officially entered the "post-dividend era" defined by high operating costs and fierce market competition. A large number of small and medium-sized sellers (SMBs) have been forced to exit the market. For general readers looking to understand the market, here are the key takeaways:

1. Current industry landscape: The three major platforms dominating the region – Shopee, Lazada, and TikTok Shop – have continuously raised commission and fee rates. Sellers now face more than a dozen different charges, with total platform cuts ranging from a minimum of 18.5% to as high as 50% of revenue. Where early entrants once enjoyed profit margins of 25% to 35%, net profit margins from organic traffic now only hover between 5% and 10%. Even well-operated businesses only maintain margins of 10% to 15%. More than half of SMBs are unprofitable or losing money, and have been forced to exit the market.

2. Paths forward for sellers: Some sellers have attempted to relocate to emerging markets such as Russia and Latin America. However, Russia carries even higher commission rates, while Latin America has high barriers to entry for local stores and slow logistics turnaround, making neither market an easy alternative. Cross-platform operation also comes with its own unique pain points. Common strategies for sellers that remain in Southeast Asia include cutting non-essential paid advertising to control costs, shifting to local store accounts to access preferential platform traffic, and diverting customers to private-domain independent websites to avoid platform commission fees.

The structural shift of Southeast Asia’s e-commerce market into the post-dividend era has created both new challenges and new opportunities for brands going overseas into the region. Key insights are summarized below:

1. Channel and pricing strategy: The three major regional platforms have all continuously raised commissions and fees, pushing total platform cuts as high as 50% and driving substantial increases in channel costs. Brands need to recalculate full-funnel profit margins and adjust their pricing strategies. The market is also gripped by intense price competition: raising prices directly leads to traffic loss, and brands also face threats from unauthorized resellers stealing orders. Brands therefore need to support downstream sellers with cost controls to maintain price competitiveness.

2. Multi-channel layout strategy: A mature multi-channel layout logic has already formed in the industry: brands use Shopee to scale volume, TikTok Shop to launch viral hits in content-driven categories like beauty and fashion, and Lazada to protect profit margins. Brands can follow this framework to build a multi-channel footprint and reduce risk from cost increases on any single platform.

3. New growth opportunities: A growing number of sellers are moving off-platform to build private-domain independent websites. Brands can build their own private-domain assets early to accumulate first-party user data, reduce reliance on platforms, and improve long-term profitability.

For sellers looking to enter or already operating in Southeast Asia’s cross-border e-commerce market, here is a summary of current market risks, opportunities, and actionable strategies:

1. Core risk warning: Southeast Asia e-commerce has officially entered the post-dividend era. Over the past two years, the three major platforms have repeatedly raised commission rates and added new miscellaneous fees, pushing total platform cuts to 30%-50% for most sellers. The 25%-35% profit margins of the early years are a thing of the past; sellers relying solely on organic traffic only see net margins of 5%-10%. A large share of SMBs have already been forced out after their profits fell below break-even, and new entrants should proceed with extreme caution.

2. Outlook for relocating to other markets: Commission rates in Russia are even higher than in Southeast Asia, reaching up to 50%. While fee rates in Latin America are relatively lower, opening a local store requires local business registration, tax IDs and other qualifications, leading to high entry costs. Logistics turnaround also takes 40 to 70 days, creating heavy cash flow pressure.

3. Actionable strategies for current market: Sellers can spread risk through a full multi-channel layout across platforms. They can also cut non-essential paid programs and control costs through rigorous product selection and small-scale targeted advertising. Alternatively, they can divert platform traffic to private-domain independent websites to avoid commission fees, though they must remain mindful of the risk of account suspension for violating platform policies.

Industry changes in Southeast Asia’s post-dividend e-commerce era hold the following implications for manufacturing supply chains going overseas, for production planning and digital transformation:

1. Product design and production requirements: Price competition is extremely fierce in the current market, and consumers are highly price-sensitive. Small price increases lead directly to traffic loss and lost orders to unauthorized competitors. Factories therefore need to optimize product design while controlling production costs, to meet the market’s demand for high value at low price points and preserve profit margins for downstream sellers.

2. New business opportunities: To avoid high platform commissions, a growing number of sellers are building private-domain independent websites, which has driven a sharp increase in demand for differentiated, high-repeat-purchase, branded products. Factories can partner with these emerging sellers, develop products adapted for private-domain operation, and open up new channels for order growth.

3. Implications for private label overseas expansion: Factories launching their own branded products overseas should avoid over-reliance on a single platform, and follow the industry’s established playbook for diversified multi-channel layout, with each platform fulfilling a different functional role. They also need to build out robust digital inventory management capabilities to mitigate inventory risk from the impulsive, flash-demand traffic patterns of TikTok’s content commerce model.

Industry changes in Southeast Asia’s post-dividend e-commerce era have created new market demand and growth opportunities for service providers. Key insights are summarized below:

1. Industry development trend: Broad-based commission hikes across platforms have driven up sellers’ operating costs, severely eroding profits for large numbers of SMBs. Sellers have strong demand to reduce platform reliance and avoid high commissions, which has spawned a new off-platform ecosystem built around private-domain independent websites. A new growth dividend is emerging in this track.

2. Core pain points of clients: Sellers currently face three core pain points. First, high platform cuts compress profit margins and threaten business survival. Second, sellers lack the capabilities and tools required for efficient cross-platform operation. Third, sellers lack access to compliant qualifications and supporting channels to open local stores.

3. Actionable solution opportunities: Service providers can launch low-cost independent website building services for SMBs, paired with end-to-end solutions for traffic diversion from platforms and private-domain operation. For cross-platform sellers, they can offer multi-platform management tools and third-party operational services. For sellers building local store footprints, they can offer supporting services including compliant accounts, tax services and withdrawal solutions to precisely match market demand.

In the post-dividend era of Southeast Asia e-commerce, merchant demands and the flaws of the current platform model offer the following insights for platform operators adjusting their strategies:

1. Core current issues: Repeated commission and fee hikes across the three major platforms, with more than a dozen new miscellaneous fees added, have driven a sharp increase in merchants’ total operating costs. Large numbers of SMBs have seen their profits halved and been forced to exit the market, and some merchants have even chosen to divert traffic off-platform to private domains to avoid fees. In the long term, this trend undermines the foundation of the platform ecosystem.

2. Core demands of merchants: SMBs need more transparent, stable fee structures to reduce fixed operating costs. They also need platforms to crack down on unauthorized arbitrage selling and curb cutthroat price competition to maintain a fair operating environment.

3. Direction for operational adjustment: Platforms need to balance their own revenue growth with the survival space of merchants, avoiding excessive commission hikes that trigger mass merchant exits. They can optimize fee structures, eliminate unnecessary miscellaneous charges, and offer preferential rates to compliant merchants. At the same time, they should strengthen platform governance, crack down on unauthorized reselling, stabilize market price order, reduce competitive pressure on merchants, and maintain the long-term stability of the platform ecosystem.

Southeast Asia’s e-commerce industry has entered the post-dividend era, giving rise to many new industry trends and research-worthy problems. Core information is summarized below:

1. New overall industry trends: Southeast Asia e-commerce has completed its transition from a subsidy-driven growth phase to a mature phase. Platforms’ growth logic has shifted from subsidizing user acquisition to extracting profits from merchants, and the industry has entered a consolidation phase of natural selection. The large cohort of unstructured dropshipping SMBs that once drove growth have now become excess inventory in the market, and large numbers are exiting.

2. New emergent business models: Broad-based commission hikes have intensified conflicts of interest between platforms and merchants, giving rise to a new gray ecosystem. Large numbers of sellers are diverting traffic from platforms to build closed-loop sales funnels combining private domains and independent websites. A full independent site industry that serves sellers looking to avoid high commissions is taking shape, and it may spawn a new wave of independent site entrepreneurship going forward.

3. Research-worthy new problems: Uncontrolled price competition has led to a sharp increase in rule-breaking behavior, including fee evasion and the unauthorized use of local store accounts, driving up overall industry compliance risk. In addition, sellers relocating to emerging markets face new structural barriers including high entry requirements, high logistics costs, and heavy cash flow pressure – all areas that merit in-depth research.