Fuelled by a young and entrepreneurial workforce, online shopping platforms have quickly developed in Thailand during the Covid-19 pandemic and its restrictions on social movement.
The development of “social commerce” in particular is being seen as a game-changer with respect to young entrepreneurs’ capabilities to buy and sell online, across social media as much as designated e-commerce platforms.
While social commerce is not a novel concept – it has been a talking point since even before the pandemic, it has quickly become a leading conduit for people to sell products via live chat.
This trend has continuously grown and expanded its perimeter and still has great potential. LINE has been crowned as the most used mobile application in Thailand, followed by Facebook. The number of Line and Facebook users has grown 5.8% over the last year, (equivalent to approximately 3 million new users in the Kingdom).
An increase in social-enabled sales has followed, and also placed a demand on manpower within key players in this industry. Additional headcount has been required to solve on-the-spot customer queries, and also handle sales and after-sales service. There is also a large part of the workforce now dedicated to developing artificial intelligence-based solutions to help further advance the social commerce sector.
Advancements in technology are being led by businesses such as Ensemble Thailand which presents state-of-the-art chatbots to fortify social commerce while converting leads into paying customers across a minimum of interactions.
