IT Blog

As an American heading a Singapore-based VC firm for a decade, I often see new tech trends emerging earlier or more strongly here in Asia than back home. And right now, social e-commerce looms large.

Social e-commerce is the business of selling goods online—in quantity—through people’s social networks. These networks can exist virtually (as on a mobile app) or in the physical world, among friends and neighbors, or both. The key is to use these groups for high-volume transactions, as opposed to just making intermittent small sales via online platforms. It’s a trick that Asian entrepreneurs are exploiting emphatically.

The surge began in China, where social e-commerce now accounts for over 13% of all online sales compared to just 4.3% in the U.S. Moreover, the volume gap is vast: over $360 billion in GMV (gross merchandise value) per annum versus $36 billion in the U.S.

Now growth is erupting across other parts of Asia, driven by two principal business models. One is the…