WHETHER it be replenishing groceries and skin care supplies, investing in gadgets for a work-from-home setup, or taking advantage of promos and discounts on items for a newfound hobby, a year into the pandemic has brought more Filipinos to shopping online.
A recent survey, “How COVID-19 Impacted the Way Filipinos Shop,” was commissioned by ShopBack, a pre-shopping portal in Asia-Pacific.
With data collected from almost 2,000 ShopBack users, the survey showed that 88.4% of consumers usually know what they want to purchase prior to going online shopping. Based on the results, e-commerce will continue to thrive in the Philippines, with millennials as the biggest market.
In an e-mail to BusinessWorld, Country Manager of ShopBack Philippines Prashant Kala explained that ShopBack supports e-commerce platforms that “highlight their best deals by incentivizing users with cashback for each purchase made on the app.”
“Cashback is not a new trend per se but, what we wanted to do was to elevate the online shopping experience by partnering and housing all these e-commerce stores in one application and offer a reward system that will encourage users to keep on making online transactions because it’s convenient and also helps them save more money,” Mr. Kala said.
The survey found that major online sales had an impact on browsing behavior. It said 79.8% of respondents tend to spend more time browsing online during monthly sales such as the 11.11, and 12.12.
Mr. Kala noted that the top performing product categories include Mom and Baby, Health and Beauty, Tech and Electronics, Groceries and House Essentials, and Fashion.
“We have noticed a spike in baby essentials, and home and living products ever since the lockdown started,” he said.
Consumers tend to be loyal to a shopping platform but are platform-agnostic when it comes to lower prices or specific products. Around 92% of respondents indicated most of their online purchases were made at Shopee, Lazada, and Amazon citing cheaper products, convenient payment methods, and user-friendly platforms as reasons for their preference.
Meanwhile, 71.3% have made purchases on other online websites and official websites due to better discounts offered, wider product selections, and exclusive brand promotions; 58.3% of the participants have bought products directly from a brand’s social media platform.
With the survey results, Mr. Kala said that ShopBack plans to strengthen their app features to help users make better purchasing decisions.
“We’re looking into improving our price comparison feature so that users don’t have to go outside the ShopBack platform to check product deals on different sites,” he said. — Michelle Anne P. Soliman