Online shopping soars; e-payment to grow exponentially

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Grocery shopping online in the Philippines continues to soar amid strict lockdowns that limit mobility.

The country is also poised for continued hypergrowth in mobile payments over the next five years.

These are the findings of two separate surveys comparing the online shopping behavior of consumers in Southeast Asia.

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iPrice Group, Southeast Asia’s leading online shopping aggregator, said in April when new coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases surged and strict lockdowns were imposed, online groceries’ web visits were 78 percent more than the web visits in February
In August, when the Delta variant started spreading and daily COVID-19 cases are breaking records, the online grocery sites reached the highest number of web visits this year (1.4 million), increasing by 21 percent compared to the previous month and 89 percent compared to February.

iPrice said between April and August, the online groceries’ web traffic stayed at above 1.1 million visits since the number of daily cases has not quite gone back to the same rate in the earlier months of the year.

iPrice said grocery items in the country are the least expensive compared to other countries’ items.

Citing data from Numbeo, iPrice said a full range of market items — from dairy to fruits and vegetables to alcohol — in the Philippines cost an average of P2,437 compared to Vietnam’s, P2,687; Malaysia, P3,054.10; Indonesia, P3,170.02; Thailand, P3,442.25 and; Singapore P5,561.29.

Grocery items in Malaysia and Indonesia are fairly inexpensive as well, but items like beer, wine, and cigarettes are heavily taxed, which makes these items more than twice as expensive as the same items in the Philippines.

The top two countries with the most expensive cost of living also have the most expensive grocery items. Singapore’s items are more than two times as much as the Philippines’ items while Thailand’s are 41 percent more expensive.

Meanwhile, Vesta, the end-to-end transaction guarantee platform for online purchases, in its Vesta Online Payment Sentiments survey said Southeast Asia is the fastest-growing mobile wallet market globally, with Indonesia and the Philippines poised for continued hypergrowth in mobile payments over the next five years.

Vesta said six in 10 of those surveyed in these two countries indicated they prefer to pay using e-wallets, attributed to a large unbanked population and low credit card penetration.

However, of those who have encountered payment problems with e-wallets in the last 12 months, one in 10 of respondents from the two countries faced declined payment without a valid reason, resulting in revenue loss for merchants. Identified as a top pain point among online shoppers, one in five (20 percent) experienced payment friction through multiple verification and authentication.

“In burgeoning e-commerce and m-commerce markets like Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines, merchants and customers are increasingly vulnerable to false declines, fraud and poor payment experiences. Our survey has revealed that safety and security remains a top concern among online shoppers and there is an unspoken expectation of merchants to put in place the right solutions. Unsurprisingly, shoppers also see the hassle of multiple verification and authentication as a top payment problem. Overall, the results of this survey indicate an obvious and urgent need for sophisticated solutions that offer a better protection against fraud, drive higher approvals while enabling a seamless consumer payment experience,” said Shabab Muhaddes, Vesta general manager for Asia Pacific.

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