{
  "id": 6245540,
  "title": "Southeast Asia’s live commerce boom enters its harder second act",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/08/southeast-asias-live-commerce-boom-enters-its-harder-second-act",
  "topic": "business",
  "section": "Business",
  "published": "2026-09-08T05:44:31.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "e27",
    "slug": "e27",
    "url": "https://e27.co/southeast-asias-live-commerce-boom-enters-its-harder-second-act-20260908/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Southeast Asia's e-commerce landscape is shifting from search-driven shopping to live commerce experiences. By 2025, live commerce gross merchandise value across major platforms like Shopee, TikTok Shop, and Lazada had reached $49.7 billion, nearly doubling from the previous year. This trend is expected to continue, with the segment projected to hit $77.9 billion by the end of 2026.\n\nLive commerce's growth represents a significant transformation in the region's online retail economy. It has become a major sales engine, accounting for 37% of platform e-commerce gross merchandise value in the first half of 2026, up from 20% in 2024. This shift is particularly impactful in mobile-first markets with price-sensitive consumers and high social media usage.\n\nLive commerce allows sellers, creators, and brands to showcase products in real-time, answer questions, and facilitate purchases through limited-time offers and platform vouchers. This format has become a daily operating channel for many brands, especially in categories like beauty, fashion, household goods, and fast-moving consumer products. However, its effectiveness varies depending on the product type and execution quality.\n\nWhile live commerce's short-term returns remain attractive, the market expects these gains to become more competitive as more brands adopt similar strategies. The next frontier is \"brandformance,\" which focuses on building long-term consumer preference through content. Companies that leverage content to explain product benefits in specific cultural or regional contexts are likely to gain a competitive edge in the fragmented Southeast Asian market.\n\nThe emergence of AI-driven live commerce presents both opportunities and challenges. AI can reduce the cost of executing live streams by up to 25% while maintaining 80% of human-generated GMV. While this lowers barriers for smaller sellers, it also threatens to standardize the live commerce experience, making it harder for brands to differentiate themselves based solely on operational capabilities. The key to future success will lie in creating content that cannot be easily replicated by AI, such as culturally relevant product explanations and unique brand stories.",
  "summary": "Southeast Asia’s e-commerce story is no longer just about search bars, discount vouchers and marketplace rankings. Increasingly, shoppers are discovering what to buy through livestreams, short videos, creator reviews and affiliate content. And that shift is now large enough to reshape the region’s online retail economy. Content commerce gross merchandise value across Shopee, TikTok Shop, […] The…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 2,
    "also_reported_by": [
      {
        "outlet": "The Korea Times",
        "title": "Korean farm equipment makers secure $4.98 mil. in export orders from Southeast Asia",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/08/korean-farm-equipment-makers-secure-4-98-mil-in-export-orders-from",
        "published": "2026-09-08T04:17:02.000Z"
      }
    ]
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}