How TikTok and Shopee Split the Southeast Asian Gen Z Wallet

Southeast Asia's e-commerce platforms generated a combined gross merchandise value (GMV) that grew 22% in 2025, according to Cube's Tradewinds dataset, which tracks Shopee, Lazada and TikTok Shop across the region's six core markets. Behind that growth sits a generational divide in how consumers actually shop, one that is reshaping how CPG brands need to think about discovery, conversion and channel investment.

A Kantar Profiles study commissioned by Shopee, surveying more than 2,400 Gen Z consumers across Southeast Asia, found that nearly 70% of Gen Z shoppers treat e-commerce platforms as their primary entry point for researching purchases, and 73% ultimately complete transactions there. Notably, 56% of those who begin their research on social commerce platforms return to e-commerce apps to finalize the purchase. Eight in ten Gen Z respondents said they specifically seek out engaging, entertaining shopping experiences, a preference that has pushed Shopee, Lazada and TikTok to treat livestreaming as core infrastructure rather than a marketing add-on.

A separate KPMG study of 7,000 consumers across 14 Asia-Pacific markets found that Gen Z ranked social commerce (63%) and livestreaming commerce (57%) as important to their overall shopping experience, with social commerce emerging as the most popular retail technology format among Gen Z respondents in China, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines specifically.

TikTok Shop's platform GMV in Southeast Asia roughly doubled to $45.6 billion in 2025, according to Momentum Works data cited by Digital in Asia, growing at a 40% to 55% year-over-year rate that outpaces Shopee's still-substantial 28% growth. Shopee remains the larger platform by GMV, holding an estimated 52% to 59% share of combined platform GMV across the region depending on methodology, with TikTok Shop's share estimated between 18% and 31%.

The clearest example of TikTok Shop's momentum is Vietnam, where Shopee and TikTok Shop together accounted for 97% of the country's online platform GMV in 2025, according to data from Metric cited by Cimigo. TikTok Shop's GMV in Vietnam grew 148% year-over-year in the first half of 2025 to reach $3.57 billion and a 42% share, narrowing the gap with Shopee's $4.47 billion and 55% share, even as Shopee's own GMV declined 6% year-over-year in the same period.

The two platforms are not simply competing head to head on identical transactions. TikTok Shop's average order value sits between $4.50 and $6.00, compared with $13 to $15 on Shopee, according to Digital in Asia's analysis. That gap suggests TikTok Shop is functioning less as a direct replacement for traditional e-commerce and more as an on-ramp for first-time digital buyers and smaller, impulse-driven purchases, a distinction that matters for how CPG brands price and package products for each channel.

Thailand illustrates how deeply social platforms have embedded themselves in everyday shopping behavior. TikTok Shop's user penetration in the country reached 51% by mid-2025, trailing Shopee's 75% and Lazada's 67%, while 51% of Thai internet users reported shopping directly on social platforms. Analysts attribute part of TikTok's rapid rise in Thailand to a government-backed "SME Thailand Plan," launched in late 2024, which used influencer livestream subsidies and platform traffic support to help roughly 8,000 local small and medium enterprises generate an estimated 236 million baht in revenue.

The data suggests Southeast Asian Gen Z consumers are not simply moving spend from one platform to another, they are running two distinct shopping processes in parallel: a research-and-discovery loop increasingly powered by short-form video and livestreaming, and a transaction layer that, for larger or considered purchases, often still defaults back to established e-commerce infrastructure. For CPG brands, that means livestream and short-form content investment functions primarily as a discovery and trust-building layer rather than a guaranteed checkout replacement, particularly for categories above TikTok Shop's typical basket size. Brands treating TikTok Shop and Shopee Live as interchangeable channels risk misreading what each platform is actually built to do within the Gen Z purchase journey.

Sources: Cube, "Shopee, Lazada, and TikTok Shop in Southeast Asia: What the Data Shows in 2026." Digital in Asia, "Shopee vs TikTok Shop: A 2026 Comparison of the Platform War Reshaping Southeast Asia's Ecommerce." Cimigo, "TikTok vs. Shopee: Gen Z and Millennial e-commerce showdown." The Edge Singapore / Yahoo Finance, "Gen Zs in Southeast Asia prefer e-commerce platforms for discovery and research: Shopee," citing Kantar Profiles survey, March 2024. CNBC, "Gen Z's shopping decisions are heavily driven by TikTok and influencers, report finds," citing KPMG, July 2024. China Digital Retail Report, "TikTok Shop Watch #6: Southeast Asia 2026 Update."