Clothing shoppers prefer stores

Shopping in-store is still the dominant means of buying apparel in Asia-Pacific, according to the latest study from research company YouGov.

A poll of 9037 people across the region in December reveals that more than 79 per cent have shopped in a physical store in the past year. This is particularly prevalent for Hong Kong, Australia and Malaysia, where the figures were 88, 85 and 84 per cent respectively.

Local markets and street vendors attracted 28 per cent of consumers in APAC. They were the most popular in Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia, where 41, 38 and 36 per cent of respondents respectively bought apparel.

Websites turned out the second most popular way to buy apparel. Over the past year, 45 per cent of APAC respondents went online to shop for clothing and accessories, while in China the figure was 75 per cent.

As yet, apps have not broken into the mainstream, being used for clothing purchases by only 15 per cent of those polled. Apps were most popular in Indonesia, China and Singapore (19, 18 and 18 per cent respectively).

YouGov says young people are more than six times as likely to have shopped via an app than older generations, and more than twice as likely to have shopped using a website in the past year.

Between the ages of 16 and 24, 51 per cent shopped using a website over the past year and 19 per cent used an app. By contrast, just 24 per cent of respondents 55 years and older shopped using a website and only 3 per cent via an app.

Conversely, shopping in-store is most popular with older generations – 90 per cent of those 55 and older have shopped in store compared to 75 per cent of 16- to 24-year-olds. Yet local markets and street vendors seem to buck the trend, being more popular with young people (35 per cent in the 16 to 24 age bracket buy from markets compared with 23 per cent of over 55s.

The most popular reason for shopping online is that it is quicker than going into a store, with more than half of online and app shoppers says prices are also an advantage.

However, 78 per cent of buyers like to try out apparel before they buy it, 73 per cent want to check the quality first, and 56 per cent simply enjoy shopping around.