SEA e-commerce sites web traffic increased amidst COVID-19: study

Singapore saw the most surge in web traffic in 2020 at 35%.

2020 has signified strong customer confidence in e-commerce retail despite mobility restrictions and mounting concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the latest research by e-commerce aggregator iPrice Group.

The study, done in collaboration with online behavior platform SimilarWeb and mobile marketing platform AppsFlyer, showed that the overall website traffic of online shopping platforms went up year over year across Southeast Asia (SEA) countries.

Such results can be seen the most in Singapore, which had a web traffic surge of 35% in 2020. This is followed by Philippines (21%), Vietnam (19%), Malaysia (17%), Thailand (15%), and Indonesia (6%).

However, web traffic of other e-commerce sites decreased also due to the impact of the pandemic. Sites offering cosmetic products showed an average web traffic decrease of 35% throughout the period, whilst fashion and electronics sites web traffic went down 14% across the six countries.

iPrice Group’s platform also found that SEA consumers spent an overall average of US$32 per order in 2020, 19% higher than the previous year. Singapore and Malaysia saw the highest average basket size of US$62 and US$41, respectively, in the same period.

“Whilst demand for essential goods is necessary, COVID-19 has broadened the online demand of SEA consumers for non-essential items such as fashion, electronics, health and beauty, and sports & outdoors that were seen through online spending instead,” the report stated.

Moreover, the study found out that two Singapore-based e-commerce companies, Shopee and Lazada, were the most-visited e-commerce platforms across SEA countries throughout the year. Shopee had a total average visit of over 281 million in 2020, whilst Lazada had over 137 million visits during the same period.