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A new survey based on transactional data has revealed that mobile apps accounted for three-quarters of orders made Online in South-east Asia.
The study by Singapore-based e-commerce platform ‘ShopBack’ showed that of the 5 countries covered, Thailand displayed “the strongest preference towards making purchases via mobile app, followed by Indonesia & Philippines.” Mobile app purchases consistently exceeded that of desktop on a quarterly growth basis, the study showed.
Publishing the results Regional Head of Communication ShopBack Wu Ying Ying raises the question – with all these findings pointing to a mobile-first strategy to drive e-commerce growth in Southeast Asia, one may wonder if mobile is making desktop irrelevant in that space?
ShopBack does not think so. Writes Wu, “Grounded on evidence from our user interactions, we argue that desktop is & will remain an important channel for e-commerce merchants, especially those who are keen to drive higher-value purchases.”
She adds:
In fact, in terms of average basket size (average dollar value spent per order), we found that desktop purchases tend to be higher than that of mobile purchases. This finding is consistent across all countries, particularly in Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia.
We found that users generally perceived desktops to be safer and hence prefer to use their desktops when making large purchases. Over 60% of our users remarked that they practise omni-channel shopping— beginning their browsing journey on mobile and finally transacting on desktop— as they “feel safer” and prefer to pay on desktop. This is probably a manifestation of the prevalent perception gap in terms of cyber security amongst users.
On this front, our further investigations also revealed an underlying advantage of desktop as an online platform. Namely, desktop’s larger screen size allows for more information and content to be displayed in a multitude of ways. This appeared to be another key reason that has helped shift customers’ preference towards making higher value purchases on desktop.
Read Wu’s entire post here.
