Want to find out the best ecommerce platforms around the world? We’ll start with Southeast Asia with  this list. 

Before ecommerce platforms took off, buying an item online would look something like this. You’d talk to the seller (Facebook, Instagram, their personal site), put in a request, and go to the bank to pay over the counter. 

After that, sellers will manually prepare their stocks and be the ones to ship their products. 

But in a span of a decade, those days are long gone!

Enter e-commerce platforms. These sites make selling products online easier for small sellers and micro merchants. And that’s because they can: 

• Reach more people and expand their customer base.
• Track orders, receive payments, and ship products in one place.
• Get exposure through the site’s algorithm, and more!

Here are the most popular and best ecommerce platforms in 2023!

1. Shopee

It won’t be a Southeast Asian ecommerce list without Shopee. This Singapore-founded platform rakes in more than 12 million active monthly users. Oh, and they achieved almost a billion dollars in revenue back in 2020. 

Who’s selling there? Just about every brand in the market! But no really, there’s a hefty mix of well-known brands and some small businesses that sell clothes, perfumes, food, electronics, and other everyday household items.   

2. Lazada

While Shopee is generally known for its dupes, Lazada is better known for their beauty and home electronics categories. This Alibaba-owned ecommerce platform rivals Shopee.

Recently though, they’ve been adopting new tech–like a personal AI shopper called Lazziechat for better user experience. 

3. Bukalapak

Bukalapak, which means, open a market stall, is an Indonesian e-commerce startup. They work mostly just like Shopee and Lazada but mostly focus on empowering Indonesian small businesses called warungs. 

How does that work? They offer them digital and financial services to make money transfers and business payments easier. 

4. Zalora

Most of the platforms on this list sell almost everything under the sun. But Zalora, an ecommerce platform from the Philippines, sells exclusively fashion and apparel. They’ve got homegrown brands, but they also have some international brands there too.  

To date, they’ve expanded beyond Southeast Asia to Australia and New Zealand. 

5. Tokopedia

Here’s another Indonesian ecommerce platform: Tokopedia! They sell just about every category you can think of: food and beverage, fashion, beauty products, and more! This platform is known for its grandiose marketing campaigns, especially because it got worldwide superstars BTS as ambassadors. 

Oh, and recently they launched Tokopedia Salam, which sells Muslim-friendly products with Sharia-compliant payment methods. 

6. Carousell

Hello, second-hand item lovers! If you’re looking for a place to sell your pre-loved items like clothing, accessories, makeup, books, and even random household items, Carousell is the place to be!

So far, the platform has over 196 million listings and 6 million monthly users. Most people sell their items using words like ‘lightly used’ or  ‘never used’. Oh, and they usually add a disclaimer of why they’re selling the item in the first place. 

If you want to sell untouched products–you can too! You can see a handful of listings that aren’t secondhand. 

7. Tiki

Did you know that next to Indonesia, Vietnam is the second-largest ecommerce market? Here’s Tiki a local ecommerce platform that’s popular among younger demographic. 

But here’s another interesting fact: they actually started out as an online bookseller like Amazon.

How to Stand Out As a Seller in an Ecommerce Platform 

When it comes to e-commerce, there’s no ceiling to the market growth. 

Thinking of selling in Southeast Asia? You’re not alone! In fact, you’re competing with thousands of other sellers out there who have been in this industry for years. 

The key to standing out? Make sure your visuals look clean, eye-catching, and easy to understand. It also pays to localize your marketing strategies and keep an eye out for those double-digit sales. 

One way to do that is by partnering with graphic design agencies who can help you fulfill your creative vision–like DotYeti! We’re a creative and on-demand platform that can provide social media graphics, animations, and photo manipulation all for one monthly fee. 

Want to learn more? Book a demo and start your creative design journey today!