Shopee identifies biggest e-commerce trends in 2020
Shopee, the leading e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia and Taiwan, identifies four major e-commerce trends in 2020 as the retail landscape drastically changed due to restricted movements of consumers on efforts to control the spread of the COVID19 pandemic.
Ruoshan Tao, head of marketing at Shopee Philippines, said year 2020 has changed the way people live, work, and shop. Brands and sellers across the region are stepping up their digitization efforts, with e-commerce becoming a key channel for them to sustain and grow their businesses.
At the same time, he said, consumers are increasingly going online to fulfill their everyday needs, in areas ranging from groceries to home appliances. As e-commerce takes on greater importance in people’s lives, Shopee will continue to make shopping even more social, engaging, and easy for everyone.”
In the Philippines, Shopee has identified 4 key trends for e-commerce in recent months.
First, brands and sellers are growing their e-commerce presence. Brands and sellers are venturing online to boost their online presence while exploring new strategies to reach and engage consumers.
Robust growth for Filipino sellers. As people shop for their home and essential needs online, brands, and sellers in the Gaming and Pet Care categories are seeing strong growth. In addition, Brands and sellers offering pet essentials and home appliances & accessories saw 40 times and 15 times more orders respectively than the same period last year.
Reaching customers with live streaming: Brands and sellers are actively exploring new ways to reach consumers. Shopee has observed that the number of Shopee Live streams from brands and sellers increased by 40 times. Homegrown SMEs have successfully boosted online visibility with Shopee Live. For example, Sirods Stuffed Toys has recorded a robust number of views for its streams by showcasing popular toys and collectibles to users in real-time, enabling it to engage customers more effectively.
The second trend is that Filipinos in the urban centers are relying on e-commerce to meet their everyday needs as people live, work, and play from home.
Consumers search and shop online for a wider variety of needs. Shopee has observed an increase in search and shopping activity in the past 3 months, especially for health and fashion products. This reflects an increasing reliance on e-commerce, which provides Filipinos with one-stop access to essentials, health products, and more.
Top searched keywords are face masks, dresses, power banks, and undergarments. Top products are mosquito incense, vitamins, and supplements, and cell phone cases.
Third is that shopping preferences evolve as consumers seek convenience on e-commerce. Shopping preferences are also changing in the Philippines as consumers look for convenience in e-commerce during this period.
Shopee has observed that online shopping activity has peaked on Tuesdays in recent months, showcasing the preference among Filipinos to shop earlier in the week. Adoption of cashless payments is growing as consumers value speed and reduce physical interactions.
Shopee further observed that users are increasingly using cashless options such as ShopeePay to pay for purchases in recent months.
Lastly, there is an increased social interaction and engagement among online shoppers.
E-commerce has also evolved into something more than just a way to shop — it’s also become a place where people come together to interact, read content, and connect with others. Shopee has seen greater use of its in-app engagement features in the past three months as Filipinos seek to stay connected online.
For instance, the Shopee Live Chat has seen an increase in social interactions on its platform. Over 1 million messages were sent daily on average as brands, sellers, and consumers interact with each other across the shopping journey.
For its In-app games, Shopee recorded 200 million plays for its in-app games over the past three months. This is driven by users logging in daily to earn rewards and try out new in-app games such as Shopee Farm and Shopee Throw.
“We want to make online shopping safe and convenient while staying true to our vision of delivering a social and engaging experience to our users. At the same time, we will continue to help both our sellers and buyers by providing them a seamless online shopping experience, especially during this COVID-19 crisis,” said Tao.