Singapore – Despite many consumers now reducing their budget for shopping and fearing shopping in-store due to pandemic concerns, about 93% of Southeast Asian consumers say that they will shop more across digital commerce sites this festive season, new insights from marketing technology company InMobi shows.
According to the report, about 39% of respondents have said that this is the first time that they will be trying out online shopping.
A positive sentiment is evident across online shoppers in the region, saying they want to learn about a product (39%) and explore product categories (71%), as well as making a purchase (69%). Some 24% of respondents declared that they would spend more on online shopping for the holiday season, while 47% planned to reduce their budget for in-person shopping.
“Despite a tough 2021, Southeast Asians are still gearing up for the year-end holiday shopping season, which has traditionally been the most active period for e-commerce sales in the region. More shoppers than ever are going online and spending more money online, most using their mobile phones to explore, discover and purchase. The time is right for brands and marketers to leverage mobile-first marketing to attract the interest of the connected festive shopper this year,” said Rishi Bedi, vice president and general manager for Southeast Asia, Japan and Korea at InMobi.
However, nearly 64% of consumers are still ‘undecided’ or are ‘completely unplanned’ on their online shopping experience, giving brands the opportunity to capture this market.
The report also noted that there are three key buyer personas that are emerging across Southeast Asian consumers for the holiday season, namely bargain hunters (64% of respondents), category explorers (26% of respondents) and brand lovers (10% of respondents).
In terms of spending, some 51% of Indonesians planned to spend over IDR 500,000 for their online shopping, while one in five Singaporeans will spend more than S$1000, with the average Filipino family shelling out ₱7627 for the festive season.
Meanwhile, clothing and accessories, groceries, gadgets, and home appliances emerged as the most in-demand product categories across Indonesia, Singapore, and the Philippines.
“Since 2020, the consumer shift towards mobile shopping has meant a surge in the adoption of InMobi’s shoppable media and online to online/offline commerce solutions by brands for maximizing ROI. These solutions, along with our unique deterministic audience targeting on programmatic, will play an even more significant role for brands in this online festive season,” Bedi concluded.
