Sales volume via social commerce is expected to surge, equalling e-marketplaces within a few years thanks to the popularity of live and chat commerce and the high penetration rate of social media users in the country, says Zortout, an e-commerce solutions provider.
Zortout is the operator of integrated order and stock management platform Zort.
Zort recently expanded its services to Line Shopping and TikTok Shop to ride the surging wave of social commerce.
"We expect the sales volume of social commerce to be on par with e-marketplaces within 1-2 years because of the rise of Line Shopping and TikTok Shop," said Sawapop Tuamsang, co-founder of Zortout.
Last year, Thailand's e-marketplaces accounted for 47% of e-commerce transactions, followed by social commerce with 30% and brands' own websites making up the rest.
Some 2 million merchants are now expected to be engaged in social commerce, including corporate users.
Social commerce is dominated by Facebook and Line Shopping, but TikTok has been growing fast.
"We see users increasingly engage in chat and live commerce with video," said Mr Sawapop.
The top product categories for social commerce are fashion, skincare and electronics, he said.
Through collaboration with Line Shopping and TikTok Shop, the company uses Zort to support merchants with order management, stock, shipment and payment systems.
This new collaboration is expected to push up sales for online merchants by 50%, said Mr Sawapop.
"We support merchants for multi-channel sales management, which can save costs for online sellers by at least 30% as fewer staff are needed," he said.
Wariya Leerasiri, planning and strategic development manager for e-commerce at Line Thailand, said social commerce is a popular channel because it is easy to use and reliable for chatting with merchants directly.
"This service can build a personalised trading experience, which is a key charm that appeals to Thais," she said.
Line Shopping has 450,000 stores, 80% of which are small and medium-sized enterprises.
"We support our merchants to have their own customers' data and we don't charge them a commission fee," said Ms Wariya.
Kornnikar Niwatsaiwong, TikTok Shop lead at TikTok Thailand, said the platform has more than 1 billion users globally.
TikTok Shop is the newest e-commerce solution for short mobile videos that expands new sales channels and creates shoppertainment.
Consumers can instantly make in-store purchases on TikTok Shop via links on those videos, she said.
The company is opening more TikTok Shop features in Asean markets, said Ms Kornnikar.