Table of Contents Introduction:2 Economic Data2 Evaluation of Market Potential3 E Commerce Industry Overview in Thailand:4 Demographic4 Internet Usage4 Internet5 Access to Internet5 E Commerce Business Models:11 Internet Retail:11 Intermediaries (3rd party market place):11 General and vertical classifieds:11 Lead Generation (Comparison Shopping):11 COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE (Top 10 E Commerce Website)12 Weloveshopping:12 Dealfish13 Tarad. com14 Pramool15 Notable E Commerce Startups:16 Priceza16 Lazada16 Challenges and Opportunities16
Performance of Thailand in SouthEast Asia Market:17 Conclusion18 Introduction: This e commerce report identifies opportunity and threats to online purchases and e commerce trends in Thailand. It reports consumer behavior towards online purchases and briefly analyzes e commerce industry in Thailand. E Commerce in Thailand remains a popular exchange channel because of rise in number of active internet users. In Thailand, the number of internet users estimated by www. internetstat. com shows it has 18. million users which accounts for 27% of the Thailand population in 2011. Facebook accounts for 10. 6 million users. This proves technology penetration level and plays big role in influencing lives of consumers in Thailand. The Major internet providers in Thailand like TOT Plc and True Corp are offering very competitive internet packages that ranges from Bt 500 to Bt 2,000 per month, which makes affordable to large numbers of Thai consumers. Also, there is a huge development in internet access for tablets and smart phones by major telecommunication service providers.
Large number of working age Thais are now using tablets and smart phones with internet packages and most of them uses applications which enables them to book flights and hotels, purchasing clothes and cosmetics. Most independent online retailers are set up to offer products to consumers but these independent online retailers mainly are C2C as the online retailing regulation in Thailand is very weak which allows individuals to easily sell their products online. The independent retailer only need to register in order to get online registration number that helps them to operate legally.
So with the identification number, any person can set up a online retailing website and sell goods without need to set up an actual company. The independent online retailers are sell their products through e market places and online shopping website like www. weloveshopping. com or www. pantipmarket. com. Products on these websites ranges from pet food, packaged foods, clothes and footwear, to electronic appliances and consumer electronics. Furthermore, they also provide services such as booking air ticket online or selling properties and insurance via the websites.
Economic Data Due to severe floods in 2011, the real growth was just 0. 1% in 2011, but the real growth is expected to increase by 6. 0% in year 2012 as a program of rehabilitation and reconstruction gets underway. With an increase in domestic consumption and fast paced recovery in manufacturing, the real growth increase to 3. 3% in second quarter of year 2012 as compared to previous three months. In the medium term, the expected growth rates can exceed the historical trends but it might deteriorate if the Europe’s debt crisis evolves. Inflation in year 2011 was 3. % and the prices are expected to increase by 3. 0% in year 2012.? Thailand would be investing US$11. 4 billion for water management measures in order to avoid a repeat of floods which had previously devastated the country’s economy in 2011. The government has also cleared USD 819 million for 246 flood management projects in first quarter of year 2012 and also plans to invest approx US$72 billion in infrastructure between year 2012-2017 which will help to enhance long term competitiveness of Thailand. Altogether, the public investment is expected to rise by 12. 1% in 2012.?
Unemployment in Thailand fell to just 0. 7% in 2011 and the same rate of unemployment is expected in 2012. Businesses are facing increasing difficulty to recruit both skilled as well as unskilled workers Evaluation of Market Potential Thailand is facing an increase competition in labour-intensive industries because of growing population at faster pace in neighbouring. To have competitive advantage, Thailand must improve its quality of education and also develop the necessary skills to improve the value-added chain. The growth of real GDP is expected to range from 4. 0% to 5. 0% in medium term.
The government is also trying to tackle the increasing differences in the income distribution to ease the political tensions. Government’s increased spending on flood-prevention programme and development of basic infrastructure should drive the economy, at least by the year 2013. Constructions Sectors, building material manufacturers and the banks are likely to benefit from the government spending plans. It is expected that potential output can rise from 3. 5% in 2011 to 5% in the medium term only if infrastructure is improved and if development potential in the lagging areas is tapped.
Thailand is already experiencing a shift in retail buying habits in urban areas. Buddhist temples and mosques serves as centre of community life in rural Thai areas, but large cities like Bangkok have experienced a retail “revolution” which has witness large department malls – and also more recently hypermarkets – which now emerges as primary focus for social as well as community life. The following is the statistical summary of Thailand’s economy. Statistical Summary| | | | | | 2008| 2009| 2010| 2011| Inflation (% change)| 5. 50| -0. 80| 3. 0| 3. 80| Exchange rate (per US$)| 33. 36| 34. 33| 31. 73| 30. 49| Lending rate| 7. 00| 6. 00| 5. 90| 6. 90| GDP (% real growth)| 2. 50| -2. 30| 7. 80| 0. 10| GDP (national currency millions)| 90,80,466. 00| 90,41,551. 00| 1,01,04,821. 00| 1,05,40,134. 00| GDP (US$ millions)| 2,72,156. 90| 2,63,367. 70| 3,18,473. 50| 3,45,670. 30| E Commerce Industry Overview in Thailand: Headlines: * Thailand consumers e-commerce market is worth 85 Billion baht in 2012. * Low investment capital and growing number of internet users help push up growth of this ? hannel * Store-based retailers increasingly expand into internet retailing to target wider groups of consumers * No clear leader in 2011 as internet retailing is highly fragmented * Internet retailing is projected to maintain a healthy constant value CAGR of 6% over the ? forecast period Demographic Demographic Profile of Online Visitors in Thailand February 2012 Total Thailand – Visitors Age 15+ Home/Work LocationsSource: comScore MMX| | % Composition Visitors| % Composition Minutes| Average Hours per Visitor| All Males| 50. 7%| 51. %| 28. 6| All Females| 49. 3%| 48. 5%| 27. 7| Persons Age:| | | | Age: 15-24| 45. 2%| 50. 9%| 31. 7| Age: 25-34| 29. 5%| 27. 3%| 26. 0| Age: 35-44| 14. 3%| 12. 9%| 25. 4| Age: 45-54| 6. 9%| 5. 3%| 21. 9| Age: 55+| 4. 2%| 3. 6%| 24. 4| | | | | Internet Usage Thailand has a completely liberalised communication, technology and media market, with a very competitive and dynamic mobile sector. Tariff wars between telecom operators have greatly contributed to increase in household possession of hand phones. Total Online Population (000’s) in 2011:| 18,310|
Percentage of Population Online in 2011:| 27. 4%| Social Networking Leads as Thailand’s Most-Engaging Online Activity, While Portals and Entertainment Sites See Most Expansive Audience Reach As per comScore report, Social Networking represented the most-engaging online activity in Thailand, accounting for 29. 8 percent of total time spent online in February, while Portals and Entertainment content reached the largest percentage of online visitors with 98 percent of the country’s web population visiting these categories during the month. Google Sites, Microsoft Sites and Facebook. om Lead as Top Online Destinations In February 2012, Thailand’s online population, defined as people age 6 and older that accessed the Internet from a home or work computer in the past 30 days, reached nearly 9. 8 million visitors with an average visitor spending 27. 4 hours online during the month, consuming an average of 2,845 pages of content. Google Sites, which includes Google Search and other Google-owned entities such as YouTube. com, led as the top Internet property in Thailand with 9. 3 million visitors in February, representing 95. 7 percent of the total online population.
Microsoft Sites followed with 9. 0 million visitors (92. 6 percent reach), followed by Facebook. com with 8. 6 million visitors (88. 4 percent reach). Internet Access to Internet Mode of payment The most preferred form of payment among Thai online consumers is debit card with accounts for 46%. Credit card accounts for 41%, Electronic payment 7%. Top Online Destination Top Properties in Thailand by Total Unique Visitors (000) February 2012 Total Thailand – Visitors Age 6+ Home/Work LocationsSource: comScore MMX| | Total Unique Visitors (000)| % Reach| Total Internet : Total Audience| 9,755| 100. %| Google Sites| 9,334| 95. 7%| Microsoft Sites| 9,037| 92. 6%| Facebook. com| 8,622| 88. 4%| MIH Limited| 4,920| 50. 4%| Internet Marketing Co. , Ltd| 4,399| 45. 1%| Bundit Center Co. Ltd. | 4,161| 42. 7%| TRUE Corporation Public Co. Ltd. | 3,896| 39. 9%| Wikimedia Foundation Sites| 3,625| 37. 2%| Mono Group| 3,500| 35. 9%| iG| 3,432| 35. 2%| Yahoo! Sites| 3,351| 34. 4%| Dek-D Interactive| 3,206| 32. 9%| Nation Multimedia Group| 3,097| 31. 7%| Federated Media Publishing| 2,636| 27. 0%| Apple Inc. | 2,284| 23. 4%| In Thailand, Social Networking Accounts for 30 % of Time Spent Online.
Analysis of top content categories found that Portals and Entertainment sites in Thailand led the market penetration wise, with each reaching 98 % of internet users. Social Networking reached 96% of internet users, while 9 of every 10 consumers visited a Search engine site. While looking at the top online categories by user engagement, Social Networking led all other categories with 29. 8 % of all time spent online, followed by Entertainment websites, which accounted for 13. 9 %. Portals ranked third, accounting for 11. 1 % , while Instant Messengers (5. 2 %) and Email (3. %) rounded out the top five. Online Activities Top Content Categories in Thailand by Percent Reach of Unique Visitors and Share of Total Online Minutes February 2012 Total Thailand – Visitors Age 6+ Home/Work LocationsSource: comScore MMX| Top Categories by Percent Reach| % Reach of Unique Visitors| Top Categories by Share of Time Spent| Share of Total Online Minutes| Portals| 98. 0%| Social Networking| 29. 8%| Entertainment| 98. 0%| Entertainment| 13. 9%| Social Networking| 96. 0%| Portals| 11. 1%| Search/Navigation| 91. 8%| Instant Messengers| 5. 2%|
Directories/Resources| 76. 2%| e-mail| 3. 9%| Technology| 74. 3%| Games| 2. 5%| News/Information| 71. 3%| Search/Navigation| 2. 0%| Blogs| 68. 6%| Online Gaming| 1. 5%| Thailand’s Young Online Market – 3 in 4 Web Users Under the Age of 35 Thailand has got one of the youngest online markets globally. The younger internet users in Thailand accounted for a high percentage of the web population and also have a great share of time spent online. In February, 74. 7 % of total internet users in Thailand were under age of 35, with internet users age of 15-24 accounting for 45. % of visitors and those age between 25-34 representing 29. 5 %. Users age between 15-24 accounted for more than half of all online minutes (50. 9 %) as visitors in this age group averaged 31. 7 hours online in February. Visitors age 25-34 averaged 26 hours online, while those in the 35-44 age segment averaged 25. 4 hours during the month. Online Shopping: Books are the most popular products that Thai user order from internet which represents 34. 7% of online sales with the next being reservation services online at 31. 3% and 26. 7% for buying clothes.
And the percentage of orders for cosmetics, electrical appliances and toys is also increasing. Web surfing method For web surfing method, Thai Internet users tends to go direct to Homepage or bookmark (48%)while using search search engine like google (38%) is second preference. Mobile Penetration and Mobile internet users: Mobile users in Thailand is 71. 8 million which is more than 100%+ penetration. Out of 71. 8 million users mobile internet users are 6. 6 million. Notable statistics is 72% of mobile users are below 24. Top Factors Affecting Propensity of Online Shopping 7% of the Thailand’s online shoppers regarded secure payment facilities and price as important factors affecting their tendency to shop online. It was followed by convenient payment methods (85%). For those who made opportunistic purchases online, they attributed this to the low prices/ substantial discounts they found (74%). Other factors included the availability of unique items available only online (48%) and advertisements and promotions (33%). Source: “Online Shopping Survey” (2009), MasterCard Worldwide Major Reasons for not making online Purchases in Thailand:
One of the major reason which resists Thai consumers to make online purchases is the security concerns while making the payment through debit or credit card. Another reason is that the consumer prefers to look at the physical product. And the additional delivery charges related to online purchases as most of the thai consumers are price sensitive. Trends: * Of total value of non-store retailing, online retailing accounts for an approximate 18% share. Online retailing continues to have healthy growth, driven by increasing numbers of active internet users in Thailand and also increasing numbers of online retailers.
The growing numbers of internet stations in shopping malls helps to stimulate numbers of users, particularly teenagers and the younger generation. A larger numbers of consumers are now able to afford the broadband services, from lower pricing from providers like TOT or True. Broadband packages in Thailand range from as low as Bt100 to Bt2,000 per month. * There are an increased number of internet users and the internet is increasingly becoming the key channel in business operation at financial institutions, business institutions, private operators and government organisations.
Online Booking, e-learning and Internet Banking are increasingly being used by a huge number of Thai consumers, for their convenience and economy. The online transactions for airline tickets, hotel reservations and concert tickets are getting increasingly popular. * Consumer electronics accounts for most of online retailing value. For consumer electronics, Male consumers are the core target and consumer electronics purchased online accounts for more than a 40% of total value of online retailing due to higher price points per unit when compared to other types of internet retailing.
Most products sold online available in store-based outlets and in some case when the products are not available for testing, there are many internet sites which offers reviews on products. Many store-based retailers like Power Buy have started online retailing so as not to lose customers through online retailers which may be offering cheaper prices but offer no physical shops where consumers can check the products they want to buy and test them. * There are huge concerns among Thai consumer over the security of online payment systems, delivery time and product quality deter consumers from buying the products from online.
Stories of bad experiences from unscrupulous online retailers prevent the market base of internet retailing as a whole from becoming strong. Many of the internet retailers are independent and they mostly rely on bank transfers as the way track the payment from consumers. Also, many branded retailers employ the same strategy rather than using developed security payments for credit cards. E Commerce Business Models: Internet Retail: Direct selling is when the manufacturer or retailer sells directly to the consumer or business customer.
Through E Commerce manufacturers can bypass intermediaries and sell directly to consumer or business customers via their own website. Tesco Lotus in Thailand is example of Internet Retail selling their in-house brands. Intermediaries (3rd party market place): Intermediaries are market-makers: Intermediaries bring various buyers and sellers together and help to facilitate smooth transactions. They play a frequent role in business-to-business (B2B), business-to-consumer (B2C), or consumer-to-consumer (C2C) markets. Usually the intermediaries charges a fee or commission for each transaction it enables.
The formula for fees can vary. Weloveshopping in Thailand is example of 3rd party market place. General and vertical classifieds: General and vertical classifieds are form of online advertising. Advertisements are grouped into different categories or classes like “for sale—telephones” and “services—plumbing” hence termed as classifieds. 88db is an example of general and vertical classifieds. Lead Generation (Comparison Shopping): Lead Generation (which is also known as comparison shopping, price engine or shopping comparison) allows individuals to check different lists of prices for a particular products.
Most lead generation websites do not sell products themselves, but source prices from retailers from whom users can buy. Hotelthailand. com is example of lead generation. COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE (Top 10 E Commerce Website) * The largest online shopping website in Thailand, www. weloveshopping. com, was launched by True Corporation PCL, as the leading IT service provider in Thailand, in 2006. Since then, more than 100,000 retailers joined this website, which offers over 1,000,000 products and services to Thai consumers. The huge number of online outlets participating in www. weloveshopping. om reflects the highly fragmented market of internet retailing in Thailand. Products sold are from categories including food and beverages, clothing and footwear, sports goods, consumer electronics, IT products and concert tickets. Consumers can also use the website to pay utility bills, insurance premiums and school fees, etc. Payments can be made with credit cards and internet banking transfers, or via mobile phones with True Move’s True Money Service. * www. weloveshopping . com being the dominant player in E Commerce, others include dealfish, tarad, pantipmarket, pramool, priceza, 88db, lazathai, thaisecondhand, inwshop. (Sources: http://shopping. truehits. net) Weloveshopping: Weloveshopping. com, the country’s biggest shopping website, forecasts the segment will expand by 20% this year thanks to changes in consumer behaviour and the growing online population. Monsinee Nakapanant, general manager for the convergence web portal business True Corporation, which operates Weloveshopping. com, said Thai consumers are more familiar and educated about purchasing online. “Consumers used to seek product information online before making a purchase.
But now consumers seek information and then make a purchase online right away,” she said. She believes social networking and daily deal sites are paving the way for Thai consumers to become more familiar with e-commerce on other platforms. “Online shop owners are developing their sites to be more Facebook-friendly,” she said. Internet access via mobile phone has also soared. Weloveshopping. com recently launched a shopping application for smartphones. It is said to offer consumers access to 270,000 online shops and more than 7. million products via iPhone and Android mobile phones. It also offers clients a cross-platform online shop that enables sellers to reach consumers via PC and smartphone. She said the website planned to launch mobile services to allow people to conduct consumer-to-consumer (C2C) electronic transactions, to enhance its existing e-commerce platform. It will also offer more services to its online merchants, such as providing e-commerce integration to merchants’ back-end systems and developing more market segments. “The market is expanding and more players are coming in.
This year will see more heavy competition because giant retailers like Central and The Mall plan to come in, and the large competitor – Tarad. com – has been improving its business and platform after getting investment from a Japanese firm. So, we have to adjust our services to handle the coming competition,” Monsinee said. Weloveshopping. com will offer the integration of an e-commerce platform with merchants’ back-end systems, to facilitate the flow of online transactions from the front end, at online marketplace, to the back-end stock and inventory systems.
It will also offer website customisation to suit the type of business of each merchant. “We will also develop new market segments for new types of products, such as ‘Brand’ for brand-name products and ‘Trend & Design’ for trendy and design products. There will be more products and more businesses online this year,” Monsinee said. Moreover, she said Weloveshopping. com would also offer a so-called “WeTrust” system as a guarantee, to help build consumer confidence in e-commerce transactions. Under the WeTrust concept, Weloveshopping. com will hold on to customers’ payments for 7 days before sending the money to merchants.
If, in that time, the customer complains about the product bought from the website, the money will be refunded. She said the success factor at Weloveshopping. com was the support of online payments powered by True Money. This provided a wide range of payment channels for people buying online, including mobile payment, ATMs, bank accounts, credit cards, debit cards and True’s mobile wallet system. “We offer total services for e-commerce, supporting both merchants and buyers. That is the key success factor for us,” Monsinee said. Dealfish Dealfish. co. h is the locally focused person-to-person (P2P) community marketplace connecting buyers and sellers by location in Thailand. By leading with location-focused navigation, Dealfish is able to more accurately connect individuals to the things they are looking for while delivering a more targeted audience to people and businesses wanting to sell their goods and services. “Someone who is in Lampang wants to sell a sofa, and of course the buyer wants to see the sofa, it’s easy if he is in Chiang Mai, but it doesn’t make sense to sell to a buyer in Had Yai,” said the managing director.
On the front page of dealfish. co. th, buyers can easily find products and services based on provinces and categories, including real estate, electronics, fashion, and more. The P2P marketplace is the step one of e-commerce, where the company has also expanded the market by leading visitors further to www. shopping. co. th. Tiwa said everyone had the same needs _ trust, ease and immediate. Buyers wanted abundance of choices, the right things at great deals, while sellers wanted a large audience, low fees, qualified leads and both parties prefer easy communication. Here is the right place for individuals, and for SMEs that don’t have enough budget to advertise in a newspaper. This can be a channel for them, which is free. It makes it easy for them to reach buyers. ” A handbag maker in Lampang who has a shop in the province and also offers products now has another channel to reach more buyers with the Dealfish site. A refrigerated truck business who offers services between Nong Kai and Laos could get more customers after it posts its details on the website.
Today there are some 4,000 active sellers on the website, the basic service is offered free of charge and the company will release “freemium” model with a service fee to the power sellers who want added value functionality in August or September. Dealfish has some 55,000 daily visitors, ranked the third in the market, and it aims to be number one by this year. E-commerce in Thailand is at a very early stage, there is no dominate player and this is where Sanook sees the opportunity. The company estimated that the value of the e-commerce market this year will increase by 50% over 2011.
Tarad. com TARAD Dot Com Co. , Ltd. provides e-Marketplace, e-Commerce, merchant, advertising, e-Business education, and e-Marketing consultation services in Thailand. It offers C2C, B2C, and B2B E-Marketplace, as well as e-Auction solutions; event and exhibition solutions; E-Store Front solutions to create storefronts and Web sites; E-Payment Gateway solutions, such as credit card payment, mobile payment, convenient StorePayment, and top up services; and application development solutions, including systems integration, support, training, and consulting.
The company also provides Internet infrastructure solutions, such as dedicated servers, co-location, and hosting for customers to host various applications or information, including domain registration and server administration; and E-Business education solutions through books, printing and publishing, and seminars and training.
In addition, TARAD Dot Com offers interactive and search engine advertising solutions to create and manage advertising in the form of sponsorship of search engine marketing, multi-channel newsletters, and commercial opt-in communication on various channels, including Website, rich media advertising, email, SMS, and MMS, as well as interactive advertising games and direct promotions. The company was founded in 1999 and is based in Bangkok, Thailand. As of September 30, 2009, TARAD Dot Com Co. , Ltd. operates as a subsidiary of Rakuten, Inc.
Pramool Pramool. com is Thai’s online marketplace, enabling trade only on a local basis that free service Thai online auction. Pramool. com has 13 years old, it is ranked #15,723 on the Internet. Pramool. com is estimated to earn at least $905 USD per day from advertising revenues, worth of pramool. com: $4,590,484 USD. The average page load time to be 7. 14 seconds. Pramool. com has a page rank of 5/10. Unique visitors per day approximately 18,718, which produce a total of 235,020 pageviews. Pramool. om created platform for the sale of goods and services by a passionate community of individuals and businesses. Pramool. com offer many of used items in auction and classified categories such as books, computers, camera and photo, collectibles, communications, electronic, fashion, etc. by bid or sell online auction. Its competitors are www. thaionlinemarket. com and www. be2hand. com. Notable E Commerce Startups: Priceza Price comparison sites are quite a proven internet business model. Thailand has its own version of price comparison site.
It’s called Priceza. com, and recently it is gaining a lot of traction too, and claims to have over 1. 2 million unique visitors per month. The startup was founded in January 2010 by a group of computer science engineers. And back then, co-founder Thanawat Malabuppha said that there were a lot of ecommerce sites popping up in Thailand. In one of the interview he said “Many small businesses set up online shops easier than ever with ecommerce website packages. More and more online shops opened daily and we saw that the pain of consumers arise.
There are too many options for them to compare prices and products easily. From that starting point, we decided to help Thai consumers to shop online easier and we [set out] to provide the most useful information to help them make more informed online and offline shopping decisions”. The Priceza team is just 10 people so far, so on average each employee is accountable for 120,000 unique visitors each which is quite a big deal considering Priceza is website built for Thais only. Lazada Lazada claims that it is now the fastest growing online department store in the region.
It launched in March 2012 to much fanfare in Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines. It later opened in Malaysia and Vietnam. JP Morgan Asset Management has confirmed in a press release that it has invested in Lazada, Rocket Internet’s Amazon clone that has about 1,000 employees and operates in 5 countries in Southeast Asia. Sources have told TheNextWeb that the investment is worth “upwards of USD 50M”, possibly even as high as USD100M. Challenges and Opportunities * E Commerce is likely to maintain positive growth in Thailand over the forecast period.
Computer usage will increase as populations are becoming more familiar with internet usage and online shopping. As the internet becomes widely available everywhere, there will be increase in number of internet users. Currently, there are many office buildings, hotels and offices providing free access to the internet. An increasing larger number of the population owns smart phones and are constantly connected to internet. * It is expected that more and more store-based retailers will be expanding its activity into internet retailing.
Increasing numbers of busy consumers living a very hectic lifestyles which leaves them with very less time to shop in stores, so internet retailing by store-based retailers means the retailer is able to target a wider group. Internet retailing is very cost effective to set up when compared to the investment required for new physical store set up. * In order to ensure growth for E Commerce industry, internet retailers must improve their logistics, product quality and online payment system to increase more confidence among consumers.
As consumers become more familiar with transactions online with increased usage, they would be more comfortable with internet retailing. * The government can play a major role successful development of E Commerce in Thailand and E Commerce would benefit greatly. Apart from improving and controlling the security of online transactions, increased government investment in IT education programs and computers in schools and universities, as well as in the expansion of broadband networks across the country will increase the number of users, in terms of both consumers and retailers.
Performance of Thailand in SouthEast Asia Market: Thailand Leads Southeast Asia’s Growth in Online and Mobile Purchasing; Survey Finds Rise of Mobile Shopping in Emerging Markets. Singapore, 11 April 2012 – The gap in online shopping between established and growth markets is narrowing in Asia/Pacific largely due to increased enthusiasm for mobile shopping in South East Asia markets, according to the latest MasterCard Worldwide Online Shopping Survey.
The survey, which serves as a benchmark that measures consumers’ propensity to shop online, was conducted across 25 markets between 5 December 2011 and 6 February 2012. The report for the Asia/ Pacific[1]region included interviews with 7,373 respondents from 14 markets who were asked questions about their online shopping habits. The survey and its accompanying reports do not represent MasterCard’s financial performance.
In terms of online shopping and purchase intent, the results show that once again, the gap is closing for online shopping in Asia/ Pacific markets between the “mature” and “emerging” markets. Thailand leads the pack both in terms of online shopping (80%) and likelihood to make an online purchase in the next six months (93%), alongside China. Korea (84%) and Malaysia (79%) also show high intent to purchase over the next six months, with Vietnam also showing similarly high intent to purchase (87%) despite a low percentage of people using the internet for online shopping (61%).
Overall, big increases occurred in Thailand (+13%), Australia (+10%), Indonesia (+15%), New Zealand (+9) and the Philippines (+15) in terms of online shopping, with declines recorded in India (-14%), Singapore (-10%), and Korea (-17%); although the latter still had high intent to purchase (84%). In keeping with the Southeast Asian theme of growth in this space, Vietnam, which was introduced into the study this year, boasts an index score comparable to Malaysia and Indonesia. Conclusion E Commerce performance is expected grow.
The urbanization effect and increasing computer literacy will help to boost online retailing in the country. Nonetheless, internet sales in Thailand will remain fragmented, as although consumers would like to shop online for some products, they are more keen to see the product and test them first Also, in most cases, the price of products, for example beauty and personal care and packaged food products offered via online retailers, is barely different compared to traditional retail channels.
If the price gap is very high, that might be due to the independent online retailers selling their products at a lower price; however, consumers might expect poorer quality products. Over the forecast period, E Commerce is expected to improve in terms of service and transaction security to instill more confidence among the online buyers. The major store-based brands like Tesco Lotus, Big C, Central and Tops will continue to put more effort to encourage consumers to make orders online.
Promotions might be applied more to sales via the online channel. The internet retailing is quite cost control and effective when compared with store based channels. Sources: http://shopping. truehits. net http://www. slideshare. net/truehits/thailand-internet-snapshot-2011-by-truehitsnet-statistics http://web. ebscohost. com. ezlibproxy1. ntu. edu. sg/bsi/pdfviewer/pdfviewer? sid=657e2a2e-d7f7-4c02-9366-e0bb6b13e840%40sessionmgr12&vid=4&hid=13
