KUALA LUMPUR – OMD Malaysia, in partnership with Media Prima Group, unveiled a landmark study in unraveling the new consumer truths on e-commerce and online shopping. The survey, conducted among 500 online respondents aged 17-54, takes a look at online shoppers in Malaysia.
Digitization of everything is an inevitable truth. In the age of technology advancement, all industries including the retail landscape have changed tremendously. The rise of e-commerce is heralding new realities for brands and marketers alike.
5 key characteristics of the online shopping that will shape the retail in the future:
It is an intense battlefield of price, deal and value. Online shoppers are constantly on the hunt for the best ever deal and value-optimizing opportunities. 65% shop around for the best deal and 38% said they will wait for sales before buying. The convenience of e-shops encouraged comparison across merchants and sites to quest for the most value for money option. The fact that as high as 42% of consumers look for the best price first has automatically eliminated brands that are not into the price game. A huge challenge to brands because online shopping inculcates loyalty not to the brand but to the price.
“Business hours” is a term of the past. Although desktop is still the main screen, as high as 65% of the online shoppers shop through mobile phones and 26% through tablets. Internet accessibility allows shoppers to shop at one’s own comfort without worrying about “end-of-business-day”. When the bricks and mortar are preparing to close at 9pm, more than 40% of online shoppers have just gotten into the mood to shop! Consumer journey or path to purchase is so fluid that it is not confined by time nor space anymore, it is quite impossible to pinpoint when and where purchases will happen, hence a huge challenge to traditional business and advertising model.
It is not just trade, but treat. Quite the contrary to traditional business’s belief, when it comes to online, it is not all about selling and buying. 57% of online shoppers agreed that online shopping is leisure activity. One out of three online purchases started off as random browsing and 37% said they tend to shop even more when they were bored. While we can’t exactly pinpoint the consumer journey, we certainly know online shopping and purchases does not need to be triggered by product needs.
Customers are king, online. Thanks to the easy access to reviews and feedbacks online, brands are no longer defined by what they say they are on the advertisements, but by what customers say they are through user experiences. Our study revealed that at least ½ of the customers are going to leave a review, or share on chat groups, or post on social media about the good and bad of a product. The danger is not all of these comments are within brands’ control. Brands risk losing one current and many prospective customers with unsatisfied customers. Social media and PR management are one of the key resources that brands need to invest in alongside e-commerce.
Online customers leave digital footprint. Gone are the days when brands need the customers to fill in form or survey to collect their information. With e-commerce, detailed information about customers’ online behavior is at brands’ finger tips. With data management platform to distill audience understanding, programmatic will be able to reach the precise audience with the most relevant, and personalized message and creative. Targeting has never gotten so effective before.
“As commerce shifts online and clicks replace cash registers, these e-commerce trends will bring huge impact not only to the retailers, but to the advertising industry as well. Consumers and path to purchase change and transform, it has become so complex that it’s beyond human’s capability to reach them effectively. OMD has hence built a strong technology and performance-led capability in programmatic and data management platform to cater to the needs,” said Margaret Lim, Managing Director of OMD Malaysia.
This study is part of the “Tomorrow Now!” Thought Leadership series for 2016.
