Brisk online sales for retailers on Valentine’s Day
KUCHING: Retailers stand to gain from an increase in online spending for Valentine’s Day. According to Bruce Lim, 11street’s vice president of merchandising, with Valentine’s Day around the corner, consumers are proactively searching for “the perfect gift” or love-related products for their significant other.
“Between February 1 to 9, we saw a significant increase in sales for Valentine’s Day related items for the three top categories – Hobbies which also includes sales of flowers ( 40 per cent), Sports and Cosmetics ( 17 per cent), and Fragrances ( 14 per cent),” Lim told The Borneo Post yesterday.
“Apart from this, we also see a surge of over 2,000 per cent in flower sales from February 1 to 9, as compared to the period of January 14 to 22, in which there was less than 10 transactions.”
This comes from 11street’s pool of more than 9.6 million products from 29,000 sellers on its e-commerce platform, allowing consumers to find everything under one roof.”
Last year, online e-commerce player Alibaba in China saw record sales worth US$ 15 billion, dwarfing America’s Cyber Monday and Black Friday figures.
Singles’ Day celebrated in China on November 11 was invented as a counter to Valentine’s Day according to the People’s Daily.
Meanwhile, according to a nationwide survey conducted by 11street, 83 per cent of consumers surveyed have shopped online before, with one female shopper for every 0.73 male shopper.
“Online shopping has an array of benefits ranging from competitive prices, exclusive products and even a guaranteed return policy,” highlighted Hoseok Kim, chief executive officer of 11street.
“With almost 60 per cent of Malaysians shopping online once a month, it can be safely assumed that consumers are becoming more and more comfortable with online shopping.
“This number will continue to grow.”
The e-commerce market, especially in Malaysia, is bullish with non-online shoppers expected to hop aboard the online shopping bandwagon as a measure to save cost, enjoy the ease of having a wide variety of product categories at their fingertips, and keep up with the trend.
While shopping has always been synonym with women, 11street’s survey revealed men will be two times more likely to shop online.
Connectivity will enable convenience especially for the busy consumers.
The survey also highlighted that married couples are two times more likely to shop online as compared to singles.
“The sudden spike in married couples looking online to fulfill their shopping needs is due to the vast product offerings that can be found on an e-marketplace.
“From fancy meal vouchers, accessories and jewellery, those anniversary and birthday present shopping is going to be a breeze!”