Janio Bi-Weekly News Round-up | Mid-April 2019

A curation of the latest news in e-commerce, logistics, and tech in Southeast Asia and beyond.

The beginning of Q2 2019 marks a few interesting developments with some major e-commerce players in the region. Players in Singapore turn to their own market to ride the e-commerce wave, AirAsia is set to disrupt Malaysia’s air freight industry, and the China-Spain air cargo route sees a land freight challenger.

Singapore’s Players, Big and Small, Growing Within Their Own Market

SingPost is selling two of their US ecommerce businesses¹. The postal service provider has sold TradeGlobal and Jagged Peaks in order to focus on its home market, Singapore. In a statement, Singpost’s representative has also said that they believe that their competitive advantages lie in the Asia-Pacific market. Business will remain as usual for the two companies being sold.

Shopmatic & Octopus merge to disrupt omnichannel ecosystem². The combined entity will allow e-commerce businesses to tap into Singapore-based Shopmatic’s e-commerce solutions and Octopus’s retailing solutions. This will effectively provide merchants the opportunity to leverage on an omnichannel retail strategy. Not only that, it’ll give the merged business an opportunity to tap into more markets within Asia and the US.

On the e-commerce front, online marketplace Dei takes Singapore’s Little India online³. The platform currently hosts over 70 Indian brick-and-mortar Indian retailers in Little India. Dei was founded to bridge the gap between e-commerce and Little India, and hopes to cover more areas like Chinatown and Kampong Glam. This move is quite similar to earlier developments in Thailand, where the Thai authorities are trying to encourage Chatuchak merchants to go online⁴.

Malaysia’s Air Cargo Will See A Major Company Disrupting the Market

AirAsia Group eyes disruption in Southeast Asian air cargo sector⁵ by allowing customers to deal with the airline directly for air freight. Group chief executive Tony Fernandes announced that the airline will consolidate all its cargo operations and aircraft belly space under a newly established unit called Red Cargo Logistics. He mentioned that the company will support “social commerce”, meaning e-commerce done via social media.

A Challenger to China-Spain’s Air Freight Route Rises

CEVA Logistics, a Switzerland logistics company, has expanded its China-Europe trucking service to Spain⁶. This move is effectively competing with Chinese air cargo routes to Spain by giving bulk shipments a viable alternative to air and sea freight. Previously, we covered that Cainiao has partnered with Spain’s postal services for e-commerce fulfilment. Now, the bulk shipment segment is seeing a new competitor rising to fill that role.

That’s all for this news round-up! If you’d like to find out more about how we can solve your SEA e-commerce cross-border delivery needs, come and have a conversation with us.