The pandemic has reduced women’s success in e-commerce in the Philippines, according to a report released by the World Bank Group’s private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC).
The report noted that after the pandemic, the gross merchandise value (GMV) of women-owned businesses in the Philippines declined to 79 percent of men-owned firms from 106 percent pre-pandemic.
IFC said reversing this trend will be key to ensuring that women can compete in the digital economy after Covid-19. It noted that women in the region could help e-commerce grow by another $280 billion in Southeast Asia between 2025 and 2030.
“E-commerce in Southeast Asia is thriving. Since 2015, the market has tripled in size, and it is expected to triple again. In this research, IFC shows that this growth could be even higher if we invest in women entrepreneurs on e-commerce platforms,” IFC Vice President for Asia and Pacific Alfonso Garcia Mora said in a statement.
The report, IFC said, used data from e-commerce company Lazada and is considered as the first large-scale, sex-disaggregated mapping of e-commerce vendors in the region.
IFC said the growth by over $280 billion between 2025-2030 can only be achieved by increasing the number of women selling on online platforms and by providing them with better training and financial support.
In the study, Filipina sellers on Lazada’s platform owned two thirds of businesses. During the pandemic, more women-owned businesses in the Philippines started selling on the Lazada marketplace.
This increased the share of women-owned businesses to 66 percent on the platform during the pandemic from only 60 percent. However, the GMV of women’s businesses declined compared to the men during the pandemic.
“The decrease in average women’s GMV relative to men’s in both Indonesia and Philippines is consistent with an increasing body of evidence showing how Covid-19 has disproportionately and negatively impacted women entrepreneurs,” IFC said.
“Given the relatively high share of women-owned microenterprises active in Lazada Philippines, it is clear that supporting WO businesses to regain parity or surpass men’s GMV is crucial for the growth of e-commerce in the Philippines,” it added.
In order to help more women take part in e-commerce in the region, IFC said there is a need to expand financial services to them through agent banking, mobile banking, e-money, and fintech services.
This is crucial in countries like the Philippines where women were more reliant on personal savings for start-up finance whereas women in countries like Indonesia receive a start-up loan from a bank or financial institution or a loan from family or friends.
However, IFC noted that women entrepreneurs on Lazada in the Philippines have obtained insurance coverage more often than men. “These higher-than-average findings for WO businesses may indicate that the women selling on e-commerce platforms are more financially sophisticated than the market as a whole,” IFC said.
“E-commerce penetration is still quite low in the Philippines and as a result, there is more than enough room for healthy competition. In fact, it’s the growth of the industry that is going to help the platforms operating within it to grow. It is similar to the popular saying ‘A rising tide will lift all boats,’” said Ray Alimurung, CEO of Lazada Philippines.
The report was undertaken as part of Digital2Equal, an IFC-led initiative carried out in partnership with the European Commission, which brings together 17 leading technology companies (including Airbnb, Didi Chuxing, Facebook, Google, Grab, Lazada, LinkedIn and Uber) to make time-bound commitments to addressing gender gaps on their platforms.
IFC said the research was conducted with the global consulting firm, Kantar Public. Additional funding was provided by the Umbrella Fund for Gender Equality.