Overview of Singapore’s e-commerce market and its development characteristics

As the only developed country in Southeast Asia, Singapore’s e-commerce market is on the right track and developing rapidly. According to PayPal data research, total online retail sales in Singapore have exceeded US$4.4 billion. Currently, Singapore’s e-commerce covers many fields such as retail, food and beverage, financial technology, tourism, cross-border e-commerce, B2B, health and beauty, education, housekeeping services and electronic products.

Current situation of e-commerce market

Singapore’s e-commerce market reached S$3.3 billion in 2019, an increase of 8% compared to 2018. During the 2020 epidemic, the market size continued to expand rapidly. IDC data shows that the size of Singapore’s e-commerce market reached 4 billion Singapore dollars in 2020 and is expected to grow to 6.8 billion Singapore dollars in 2025. In addition, China’s e-commerce market is also growing rapidly, with the e-commerce market reaching US$1.4 trillion in 2019.

Introduction to e-commerce platform

• Shopee: Founded in 2015, headquartered in Singapore, its business covers many countries and regions in Southeast Asia.
• Lazada: The leader in Southeast Asia’s e-commerce market, providing an online sales platform for many retailers.
• Qoo10: A Singaporean e-commerce platform originated from South Korea with a wide range of products.
• Carousell: Focus on C2C item transactions and help individual buyers and sellers communicate.
• EZbuy: A full-category shopping platform for Southeast Asia.
• eBay: A world-renowned online trading platform.
• ZALORA: An e-commerce platform focusing on fashion products.

Invitation code usage

Many e-commerce platforms in Singapore, such as Ant Financial, ShopBack, Shopee, Lazada, Qoo10 and Carousell, provide invitation codes to attract new users to register or participate in promotions.

Cooperation with Chinese e-commerce companies

Singapore has signed a free trade agreement with China, which provides convenience for cross-border e-commerce. Singapore has a high evaluation of China’s e-commerce market and believes that it has large scale, fast growth rate and strong technological innovation capabilities.

Patent application process

If Singaporean e-commerce companies want to apply for a patent, they must submit an application to the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) and go through preliminary examination, disclosure, search and substantive examination.

To sum up, Singapore’s e-commerce market is not only large in scale, but also covers a wide range of areas, with active technological innovation and close cooperation with Chinese e-commerce. It has broad prospects for future development.