Christmas is busiest shopping season in SEA

Black Friday and Singles’ Day may be the new kids on the block, but for Southeast Asia, Christmas is where it’s at, representing the majority of online engagement about holiday shopping.

A new report from Meltwater titled “Ecommerce in SEA: Super- charging Holiday Sales Through Social Media” analyzed consumer sentiment during the year-end shopping period last year to help e-commerce companies better reach their audiences.

The report found that Christmas shopping pulled in 56.6 percent of chatter, while Black Friday represented 22.5 percent of buzz. Fast-growing Singles’ Day-–a shopping holiday started by internet company Alibaba in 2009-–is credited with kicking off the nearly twomonth shopping period, and accounted for 20.9 percent of social media conversations.

Within the region, Indonesia drove the highest volume of conversations (57 percent), which isn’t surprising considering the country’s increased internet penetration and smartphone usage in recent years. Philippines and Malaysia represented 30 percent and 12 percent, respectively, while Singapore brought in one percent of the buzz.

While the top brands varied from country to country, it’s clear that the marketplace model emerged the real winner. In Singapore, Amazon dominated social media with 51 percent of online conversations, Shopee led the buzz in Indonesia, Qoo10 was the most talked about in the Philippines, and Lazada emerged triumphant in Malaysia.

“The common thread between the winning brands-–whether that is Lazada, Amazon or Shopee–-lies in their early planning and ability to start campaigns earlier,” Mimrah Mahmood, regional director for media solutions of Meltwater Asia Pacific said. /