A marketplace in Asia is not a sales channel, it is a decision about positioning. Tmall, Lazada and Shopee serve different customers, different price logics and different expectations of imagery and service. Treat them as interchangeable shelf space and you will sell on all three while standing for something on none of them. I went through such a launch myself and describe here what held up and what I would do differently today.
- Tmall demands brand building and rewards it, Shopee demands price and frequency, Lazada sits in between.
- The choice follows the price position of the brand, not the market volume of the platform.
- A marketplace in Asia needs its own goods and its own content, not a translated European campaign.
- Without a local team or a reliable partner, the launch stays an expensive exercise.
Table of contents
Why the choice of marketplace in Asia depends on more than volume
The obvious approach is the wrong one: first look at where most of the users are, then open there. Volume says nothing about whether your own price position can be defended in that place. A marketplace in Asia with wide reach and low price expectations produces revenue and damages the position you built up laboriously in Europe at the same time. How fast the region as a whole is growing is shown by the e-Conomy SEA report by Google, Temasek and Bain.
The better question is therefore: in which environment do my goods sit next to products I actually want to be compared with? The comparison happens on the results list, whether you plan it or not.
Three platforms, three logics
Tmall Global
The most demanding marketplace in Asia for European brands, and at the same time the only one where brand building is visibly rewarded. The flagship store works like a floor space of your own: your own design, your own presence, your own content. The price for that is high requirements for documentation, service hours and content production, plus an investment horizon that does not end after one season.
Lazada
Stronger in the upper middle segment of Southeast Asia, with customers who know brands and search for them. LazMall visibly separates brand sellers from the open market, which makes price discipline easier. For brands with European price levels this is often the most realistic first marketplace in Asia, because the effort is lower than on Tmall and the positioning still holds.
Shopee
The widest reach, the highest frequency and the toughest price mechanics. Campaign days set the rhythm, and anyone who does not play along is simply not seen. As a marketplace in Asia, Shopee works well for entry ranges, volume articles and clearance, and hardly at all for building a premium position.
What has to be settled before the first marketplace in Asia
First the goods. European fits, size runs and seasonal cuts rarely work unchanged. Second the price: it has to be fixed before the launch and protected against the campaign mechanics of the platform, otherwise the platform takes over price leadership. Third the content, which has to be produced locally, because visual language and copy conventions differ considerably. The mistakes European brands make again and again are collected in the lessons from Southeast Asia.
Fourth, the question of how the new channel relates to the existing business. A marketplace in Asia changes the channel mix and with it the negotiating position towards partners who have carried the brand so far.
And fifth, the way back for the goods. Returns, customs, warehousing and service hours determine the margin more than the selling price does, and they can hardly be improved afterwards. Anyone who opens this calculation only after the launch often discovers that the seemingly profitable channel is in fact being co-financed by headquarters.
What I learned launching on Tmall
In 2017 I accompanied the launch and the subsequent relaunch of dm drogerie markt in China from Taipei. I was employed as Creative Director at Oddity at the time, and that is where concept and execution sat. Web2Asia came in as an Alibaba-certified partner and covered implementation and customer service. This division of labour is typical for a marketplace in Asia: the brand brings attitude and assortment, the agency concept and execution, the certified partner the technical connection and day-to-day operations.
Two things stayed with me. First, a German brand cannot be translated into China, it has to be told again from the beginning. Origin carries weight, but only when it is explained, and imagery that reads as factual in Europe quickly looks empty there. Second, a certified partner does not replace brand leadership. He knows the mechanics of the platform, makes them run and carries customer service, but how the brand appears is decided before that.
The rest was distance, not the geographical kind but the one between approval and market rhythm. Tmall runs in campaign cycles that do not wait for a European sign-off loop. Anyone who means the channel seriously needs people on the ground who are allowed to decide.
The honest sequence
First define the positioning, then choose the platform, then cut the assortment. This order sounds self-evident and is still reversed almost every time, because a partner offers capacity or a platform advertises conditions. A marketplace in Asia that is opened out of an opportunity produces revenue in the first year and, in the second, the question of why the brand looks cheaper there than at home.
I would approach it today with less floor space and more preparation: a tighter assortment, a clear price line and a team on the ground that is allowed to decide. Further articles on this are in the Fashion & Retail section.