Tag: Research Study

Singapore – As the Muslim tradition of Ramadan this year has been held twice in the mid of a pandemic, there has been an uprise of indexed traffic online, as well as sales pushed forward by online channels, new research from adtech Criteo shows.

According to the SEA-centric study, the online traffic surge was evident last 2 May, with a 26% increase in traffic and 21% increase in sales, respectively. Despite the uptick, the research noted that a notable dip was observed in the final week of the Ramadan period, with sales and traffic dropping below the baseline, which may be indicative of consumer’s caution in spending amid the ongoing economic downturn.

The large majority of SEA consumers used mobile apps when shopping during the Ramadan period, as mobile sales saw the largest lift throughout the Ramadan period this year, marking a 107% increase in sales at the end of the Ramadan period on 12 May. App sales also rose by 60%, earlier on 1 May. Meanwhile, desktop sales saw the smallest spike of 40% during the second week of Ramadan.

Criteo’s research data revealed that the growth in purchases this year have only been in two categories: fashion/luxury, and mass merchant products. Criteo also found that the fashion/luxury category outperformed mass merchants during Ramadan, with a 50% increase from baseline from 23 April to 5 May.

In 2019, however, top product categories were in health and beauty, electronics, toys, and games as well as home and living items. The trends observed this year are likely to be due to consumers not being able to commemorate Hari Raya in large social settings or house visitations, as a result of distancing measures.

Another distinct trend observed during Ramadan in previous years was a consistent rise in web traffic and sales for travel players. Before the COVID pandemic, prospective travelers usually searched travel websites during Ramadan, before making their bookings late in the month and after Ramadan, to make trips to celebrate Hari Raya with their family and friends. This was noticeably absent from this year’s data. 

“As a result of the ongoing COVID-19 restrictions across our region, worshippers had to adjust their observance of the holy month of Ramadan. With social distancing measures deterring gatherings in large groups, consumers are rethinking their buying patterns, regarding areas such as gift giving. It is key that marketers and brands understand these shifts and engage consumers with what they need the most, especially during important observances,” explained Taranjeet Singh, managing director for Southeast Asia and India at Criteo.

Hong Kong – Previous entrepreneurial experience is one key factor that can influence and spell out success for people planning a start-up launch, a big contrast to the common anecdotal impression that ‘college dropouts’ have successfully established their own companies, a new research article shows.

Through the research, data have pointed out that entrepreneurs with no prior experience tend to concentrate too much on one role, such as being the product developer and lose sight of other important things. On the other hand, experienced entrepreneurs tend to do a more balanced job.

Business ideas of experienced entrepreneurs were 12.7 percent more creative and 7.7 percent more profitable than inexperienced entrepreneurs when they were placed in that situation. Meanwhile, experienced entrepreneurs were 9.4 percent less innovative than inexperienced entrepreneurs when there was no tension between the two roles.

Furthermore, the study found that entrepreneurs with less experience tend to produce fewer ideas that were deemed novel when asked to assume the role of a businessperson, whereas experienced entrepreneurs were able to maintain their ability to generate creative ideas even when they were in salesman mode. On the other hand, inexperienced entrepreneurs produced fewer ideas that were deemed by experts to be commercially viable when they assume the role of an inventor while experienced entrepreneurs did not display any reduction in performance.

Research-Proponents-Enterpreneur-Background-Business-Success
The study’s research proponents namely: (left to right) Ying-yi Hong, Choh-Ming Li Professor of Management at the Business School of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong; Siran Zhan, Assistant Professor of Management at University of New South Wales College; and Marilyn Ang Uy, Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship in the Division of Strategy, Management, and Organization at Nanyang Business School

“Being an entrepreneur is a balancing act. Although entrepreneurs should seek to produce products which are both unique and useful as well as being commercially viable, doing so can be difficult. For example, an entrepreneur may channel their inner inventor to create highly unique products, but that’s no good if they don’t consider market demand. It is essential for entrepreneurs to achieve both goals simultaneously to succeed,” says Ying-yi Hong, Choh-Ming Li professor of management at CUHK Business School, and one of the proponents of the study.

The study was conducted alongside Siran Zhan at the University of New South Wales College and Prof. Marilyn Ang Uy at Nanyang Technological University.

“We expect experienced entrepreneurs to have developed a more holistic knowledge structure in which their inventor and businessperson roles are integrated. In contrast, novice entrepreneurs who lack prior entrepreneurial experience may see their two role identities as separate and disjointed. Thus, experienced entrepreneurs tend to be capable of processing a greater amount of information in a given instance and see the big picture, which novices tend to neglect,” Hong commented.

The study was conducted with the help of 108 entrepreneurs who were in the process of starting a new venture to participate in an experiment, 40 of which were experienced entrepreneurs who had started businesses before.

“These [business] situations would have stimulated them to reconcile their different demands and as a result they become better able to distribute their attention to the related tasks evenly. In doing so, experienced entrepreneurs develop a close association between their creative and business mindsets, such that the activation of one role would trigger the activation of the other. Therefore, an experienced entrepreneur can be an inventor and a salesperson at the same time in different situations,” the researchers concluded in a press statement.