Social commerce has driven Line Man, an on-demand delivery service, to reach 1 million active users in only two years of operations, the company says.
Line Man is a home-grown service in Thailand.
“Understanding locals' behaviour and their pain points has enabled our service to scale up at a rapid speed,” said Ariya Banomyong, managing director of Line Thailand.
The service aims to bridge the O2O (online-to-offline) platform in Thailand, connecting 42 million Line users to Thai small- and medium-sized enterprises, including restaurants, vendors on social media, taxi drivers and convenience stores.
Orders via Line Man increased by 489% in May, compared with the same period last year. Line Man offers five services — messenger, postal delivery, food delivery, goods delivery and taxi hailing.
Driven by the popularity of social commerce, messenger and parcel door-to-door delivery services are the most popular services, helping sellers on social media save time by not having to travel or wait at the post office when sending goods.
Introduced in March 2017, the service has saved 300,000 hours of trips to the post office for small businesses, the company estimates.
In Thailand, social commerce is a key driver of e-commerce growth. According to a PWC study, total value of the e-commerce market in Thailand last year was US$3.1 billion (101.7 billion baht), 51% was from social commerce and 49% from e-market.
The number of social commerce consumers in Thailand is three times higher than the 16% global average.
Food delivery is a growth area, delivering from over 40,000 restaurants and street food vendors in Greater Bangkok. Line Man has 10 times the number of restaurants of its closest competitor.
Kasikornbank research from 2017 found the food delivery market is only 7% of the 397-billion-baht restaurant market.
“Food delivery has been around for years, but it only focuses on a few thousands restaurants. This is an untapped opportunity," said Mr Ariya.
He said there are six taxi apps and services in Thailand, yet the needs and pain points of users has remained the same: getting a taxi when needed, especially during peak times or when it rains.
“This is why Line has joined the transport business with Line Man Taxi. The service is still new, but has been growing faster than we anticipated, demonstrating positive feedback from the market,” said Mr Ariya.
Line Man Taxi is a 100% legal taxi-hailing service. The most popular pick-up point is Siam Paragon.
Mr Ariya said Line Man is still in the emerging stage, aiming to increase the number of users rather than raise monetisation.
Users pay for delivery services based on distance, but Line does not charge a commission fee. Line is also exploring marketing opportunities via the platform.