Alphabet's YouTube and e-commerce platform Shopee have announced the launch of an online shopping service in Indonesia and plan to expand this service in Southeast Asia as competition becomes increasingly fierce.
According to Reuters, the company's leaders informed the press on September 18 that they will expand services to Thailand and Vietnam in the next few weeks.
YouTube Asia-Pacific director Ajay Vidyasagar said in Jakarta that Indonesia's "strong growth and speed of online shopping" was the driving force behind the launch.
With YouTube Shopping, Alphabet and Shopee will compete with TikTok, a video application owned by Bytedance, which is currently expanding its scale in this region after taking control of Tokopedia, Indonesia's largest e-commerce platform.
When asked about the scale of the partnership with Shopee, Vidyasagar said this cooperation is huge, but refused to give specific numbers.
In early September 2024, YouTube introduced the "Shopping on YouTube" feature in Vietnam, allowing content creators to link products from Shopee directly into their videos.
This feature works similarly to TikTok Shop's “cart attachment,” but only accepts products from Shopee.
When applying this feature, users will be shown products more intuitively and conveniently than when attaching links in the video description.
Reuters reported last year that YouTube had implemented a plan to apply for a license to operate e-commerce services in Indonesia.
TikTok's shopping service, TikTok Shop, accounts for $16.3 billion in 2023 gross merchandise value in Southeast Asia, nearly quadrupling from the previous year, consulting firm Momentum Works said in a report.
Southeast Asia has nearly 700 million people and is one of the fastest growing e-commerce markets in the world.
According to ICTVietnam
