Fashion
Asian online shoppers research, locate, engage with and purchase products and services in entirely different ways in different markets, according to a new report.
For example, almost all consumers in Indonesia knowingly provide brands with wrong details, including name (93 per cent), phone number (94 per cent), and email address (95 per cent) when researching or shopping online
And the biggest driver of online-to-offline (O2O) conversions is with email in Singapore; SMS in Indonesia; chat apps in China; social media in Malaysia and Thailand and video ads in Hong Kong.
And 27 per cent of consumers in China and 10 per cent of consumers in Singapore unknowingly input wrong payment details, breaking the region’s eCommerce’s momentum.
Those are among many takes from The Digital Consumer View 2016 (Asia) report, released by global information services specialist Experian today, containing research from International Data Corporation (IDC), aimed at helping businesses better understand digital consumers in Asia.
The report reveals how consumer behaviour varies across the key Asian markets of Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Hong Kong, and China, based on surveys with over 1200 digital consumers.
Differences exist across channels (SMS, app notifications, email, social media, chat apps), devices (smartphone, feature phone, Wi-Fi/cellular tablet, wearable) and content (ads in email, ads in mobile apps, ads in social media, video ads on websites, and search ads). The findings highlight the complexity of reaching digital consumers in Asia across many channels, but also highlight how crucial that is, says Jeff Price, MD of Southeast Asia at Experian.
“While the region is fast-growing, consumer behaviour in each market has unique disparities. Businesses today cannot succeed without intelligent insights based on consumer data,” he advises.
“Asia is in the midst of a great digital revolution, with an explosion of smart devices, social media interactions and eCommerce transactions. While this evolution has greatly enabled and empowered both sides, it has also challenged businesses to be more effective and targeted in the way they communicate and market to this modern, digital-savvy consumer.
“For companies to keep up with digital consumer behaviours – how they act on information – it’s absolutely vital to adopt and leverage what their consumers are providing them with every day – invaluable data. Businesses slow to act on this data will see their competitive advantage erode.”
Key findings
Shiv Putcha, associate director, consumer mobility and telco strategy with IDC Asia Pacific, says businesses and brands cannot afford to ignore Asia’s multi-trillion-dollar digital commerce market. China alone is now the world’s largest retail market.
“The challenge lies in the fact that the region has extraordinary differences – language, economy, purchasing power – and consumer behaviours, especially with the digital generation. That uniqueness will not diminish over the next few years and may even increase, making it challenging for marketers not using data-driven insights to research, plan and execute effectively. The Digital Consumer View 2016 (Asia) will hopefully serve as a valuable guide to deciphering some of these key trends, mapping the path forward for brands and their connected consumers.”
Key Learnings for marketers in Asia
Asia comprises 49.6 percent of the world’s Internet users, according to Internet World Stats (2016), digital commerce in the Asia-Pacific (excluding Japan) region will rise to US$17 trillion by 2019, up from US$7 trillion in 2015 according to International Data Corporation (IDC). The combination of rising incomes, increased consumption, acceleration of internet use, and the proliferation of mobile broadband access continues to unlock tremendous opportunities for marketers across the continent.
