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A new report highlights the similarities and differences in online buying patterns in Southeast Asia’s e-commerce market, tracking mobile usage, conversion rate, basket size, and preferred payment method in six countries, including the Philippines.
The white paper, entitled “State of eCommerce in Southeast Asia 2017,” published recently by iPrice, an online shopping aggregator, leveraged the company’s proprietary data from over 1,000 e-commerce players operating in the six largest Southeast Asian markets to unveil the online shopping habits of their citizens.
Aside from merchants from the Philippines, the report by the Kuala Lumpurbased firm also covers Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.
According to the paper, e-commerce in Southeast Asia in 2017 achieved a gross merchandise value of over $10 billion, up from $5.5 billion in 2015, with a stunning 41% compound annual growth rate over the past couple of years.
A major finding is that the share of mobile e-commerce traffic increased by an average of 19% over the past 12 month. The report said the increase was steepest in Vietnam (+26%) and slowest in Philippines (+15%), with Indonesia leading the pack with an 87% share of mobile traffic.
“SEA eCommerce is a
mobile-first economy, leapfrogging all the Western economies when it comes to the importance of Mobile commerce in the traffic generated by each eCommerce operator,” said the paper.
Improving the conversion rate-the percentage of website visits that turn into a product purchase-can have a dramatic effect on the profitability of a business, the report also found.
Vietnam merchants are leading the way with a conversion rate 30% higher than the average. Singapore displays the second highest conversion rate, closely tied with Indonesia. The Philippines and Thailand are tied in last place.