Magazines Archives - 2012 July

Multi-channel Retailing
Story 3 - Focus

Singapore: Singapore retailers geared for e-commerce & m-commerce growth

While the figures remain modest, the boom in e-commerce and m-commerce in Singapore has caught the attention of retailers and payment-solution providers in the city-state. Jolene Klassen reports.

A Multi-channel Retailing bout one in six online Singaporean shoppers collectively visited over 50,000 blogshops last year, generating more than US$72-million worth of transactions, states the local arm of e-commerce portal LiveJournal.

A separate report conducted by Nielsen for global e-commerce payments platform PayPal, titled PayPal Online and Mobile Shopping Insights 2011, also revealed that Singapore's online commerce market grew 30% to S$1.4 billion (US$1.1 billion) last year, from S$1.1 billion in 2010.

GAccording to the report, another indication of the uptake in e-commerce here is that over half the online spend was on domestic websites, "dispelling the myth that the bulk of online dollars goes overseas".

"These massive market growth figures were driven by a significant jump in Singapore's online commerce population. In 2011, there were over 1.8 million people shopping online in Singapore, an increase of 51% from 2010," observes Elias Ghanem, managing director of PayPal Southeast Asia and India.

The "healthy growth" in online spend, he continues, can also be attributed to a range of factors, among them a growing number of retailers beginning to step up either their online presence or their current online offerings, as well as more major international retailers marketing directly to locals here.

As a result, multi-channel retailing is beginning to gain traction in the city-state, reveals Burghardt Grobel, the Asia-Pacific vice-president at global multi-channel platform provider, hybris.

Malaysia: Mobile shopping takes off in Malaysia

The explosive growth in smartphone and tablet uptake in Malaysia offers substantial potential to retailers looking for new revenue streams, reports Eu Hooi Khaw in Kuala Lumpur.

Malaysians are spending via their tablets and smartphones, and mobile shopping has taken off at a steep tangent. In the past two years, there has been a four-fold increase in mobile commerce in Malaysia, with a 370% rise in spending from RM101 million (US$32 million) in 2010 to RM467 million last year, according to a new study recently released by PayPal.

In comparison, e-commerce grew only 9%, from RM1.8 billion in 2010 to RM2 billion in 2011.

Malaysians spent RM337 million through their smartphones last year, which is almost three-quarters of the total mobile commerce market, while RM108 million was spent through tablets.

The top three mobile spending categories in 2011 were movie tickets, fashion & accessories, and books. The top three places where Malaysians make their mobile purchases were at home, offices/workspace and educational institutions.

Mobile commerce in Malaysia is set to grow further, as the study, which was conducted by The Nielsen Company, predicts that it will reach RM3.43 billion in 2015 or 60% of the total online shopping market, up from the current 40%.

Males (60%) and females (40%) above the age of 18 years participated in the survey, with 64% of them earning more than RM4,000 per month.

Philippine: Philippine retailers must catch up with its tech-savvy consumers

The days of consumers going only to brick-and-mortar establishments such as shopping malls, grocery shops, department stores and discount outlets to purchase what they want and need are long gone — and they will never come back again. Tina Arceo-Dumlao explains why.

The days of consumers going only to brick-and-mortar establishments will never come back again. That is because, more than ever, as mobile devices become more affordable and ubiquitous and access to the Internet becomes easier, consumers are turning to cyberspace not only to make an actual purchase, but also to help them make that crucial buying decision.

Economically advanced countries such as the US, France and Germany were the first to experience the unmistakable and irreversible change in consumer behaviour, but the technology-savvy consumers in South-east Asia, including the Philippines, are promising to catch up real soon.

According to the latest MasterCard Worldwide Online Shopping Survey released in February this year, "the gap in online shopping between established and growth markets is narrowing in the Asia-Pacific, largely due to increased enthusiasm for mobile shopping in South-east Asian markets".

The survey, which was conducted across 25 markets between December 2011 and February 2012 and involved over 7,000 respondents, showed that Thailand leads the Asia-Pacific in terms of online shopping and likelihood to make an online purchase in the next six months.

The data show that 80% of Thai respondents have made a purchase online and almost all of them said that they were likely to make an online purchase within the year. But the Philippines showed the highest increase in citizens making an online purchase at 15%, matching Indonesia's 15% and beating Thailand's 13% and Australia's 10%.

The increase, however, was not enough to catapult the Philippines to the top of the list of countries with the highest proportion of online shoppers, as only 41% of Filipinos are estimated to be shopping online, far off the high 80% in Thailand and China, and the 67% in Malaysia.

India: India's nascent urbanites take to e-commerce and m-commerce easily

Significant opportunities abound for retailers in the explosive arenas of e-commerce and, more recently, mobile commerce in India with its young, upwardly mobile and tech-savvy urban market. Jayanthi Iyengar finds out more.

The buzz can almost be cacophonic ... A 120-million Internet user base has emerged in India, likely to triple by 2014 to 300 million and overtake the US, which has around 250 million users.

About 27 million of the 120 million Internet users (aged over 15 years), accessed online stores by end-2011. This is up from 23 million the previous year, reflecting an 18% growth.

A nascent urban market is growing, capable of accommodating many more e-commerce players. And an estimated US$425-billion rural market is waiting to be exploited.

The writing on the wall is clear. Opportunities not only abound in India, but it also scores over other countries like the US, primarily because it is virgin soil — waiting to be exploited.

Understandably, global e-commerce giants such as Amazon, eBay, Google and Facebook are all sharpening their knives, even while existing ones consolidate their position either through acquisitions or venture funding.

Among those who received venture funding this year are Mumbai-based digital ad startup Komli Media (US$39 million) and Quikr, which is reputedly India's largest online classifieds platform (US$32 million). Flipkart Online Services Pvt Ltd, which runs the e- commerce site flipkart. com, chose acquisitions to grow its business last year and acquired Mallers Inc (Mime360) and Letsbuy.

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