Southeast Asian consumers favor e-commerce sites

Netease Technology News July 11, according to foreign media reports, UBS recently released a report shows that consumers in Southeast Asia increasingly favor e-commerce sites, the traditional physical store was a cold reception.

UBS report pointed out that in the populous Southeast Asia, the Internet penetration rate exceeded the expectations of many agencies, combined with the low-end smart phones and mobile Internet connection increased, the number of local Internet users will surge.

Despite the logistics system and credit card penetration is limited, this trend is still endangering the traditional retailers. The report noted that South-East Asian consumers visited e-commerce sites 41 times the number of visits to traditional retail outlets.

"The web platform has gained the upper hand," the authors of the report said. "It's time for the traditional retailer to get there."

Lazada, which mimics the Amazon model, has become popular in many markets, though there is a paucity of local changes that have shaken up the market with big discounts. The report also pointed out that China's e-commerce giant Alibaba and Japan's largest online retailer Rakuten also stepped up its layout in the region.

Although for now, online shopping accounts for only 2% of all retail sales in South East Asia, the market could reach $ 21.8 billion if the share rises to 5%. In China, e-commerce accounts for 8% of overall retail sales.

The report uses big data algorithms to analyze 10,000 of the most popular retail sites in different markets. The results showed that people visited e-commerce sites far higher than the number of visits to traditional retailers, the latter accounted for only 2.4% of the total number of retail visitors.

The report finds that the current situation in Southeast Asia is similar to that of China between 2006 and 2008. At that time, many Chinese consumers had computers with broadband connections, and their penetration rate in the Internet more than doubled, eventually leading to e-commerce companies.

Reported that the current number of netizens in Southeast Asia at about 199 million, much higher than the market research firm comScore estimates last year. comScore was estimated at 62 million.

UBS report predicts that the number of netizens in Southeast Asia will grow 48% within three years, reaching 294 million. In addition, the local Internet penetration rate will also increase from the current 32% to 48% in 2017. (Pooh)