Ditching search engines, Southeast Asians look for products on eCommerce sites — report

SINGAPORE — A new report released by Lazada reveals a shift on the behavior of Southeast Asian (SEA) consumers during the pandemic, with a number of them migrating from search engine sites to eCommerce marketplaces when looking for products.

The study was shown via Lazada's report "Transforming Southeast Asia: From Discovery to Delivery" during the LazMall Brands Future Forum (BFF) 2022 held here at Resorts World Sentosa, Thursday.

Around 57% of SEA shoppers search for products directly on eCommerce marketplaces, shifting away from commonly-used search engines, the study found. That said, eCommerce user penetration is expected to reach 413 million users by 2025.

"eCommerce marketplaces like Lazada have surpassed social media and search engines to become the discovery channel of choice," said James Dong, Lazada Group's chief executive officer, during his keynote speech.

"The behavior and mindset change during the past two years have driven more high-quality consumers who are looking for high-quality authentic products, and high-quality experiences, to come to LazMall," Dong added.

This shift, Lazada said, highlights the importance of eCommerce marketing solutions and the digitalization of businesses to remain resilient and relevant amid rising global interest rates and inflationary pressures.

LazMall was launched by Lazada in 2018, which "only sells authentic and and original branded products."

James Chang, company chief business officer, and Brigitte Daubry, the chief customer officer, shared that LazMall remains a key offering which Lazada will continue to grow and invest in  to uplift customer experience, engagement and retention.

As it is, the online industry underwent tremendous growth from 2019-2021. That expansion picked up pace during the COVID-19 pandemic, a time when many shoppers opted (or were forced) to remain indoors while doing their purchases.

Chang said Lazada remains confident as buyers resumed their post-pandemic lifestyles while continuing to embrace online shopping. Lazada's study revealed that around "8 out of 10" consumers continue to shop online for ease and convenience despite a lower average spend per user compared to the past two years.

The report also showed that search-led discovery and product recommendations aided shoppers in their decision-making process, with:

• 94% of shoppers using the search function to discover products on Lazada
• 94% actually purchasing the products they found through search
• 71% of shoppers purchasing as a result of Lazada's "recommendations" feature

Lazada's technology is currently powered by Alibaba's cloud infrastructure to bring to consumers the former's offerings: from consumer engagement, seller empowerment and partner integration.

Winners of the BFF 2022 Awards were also unveiled at the hybrid event, which serve to recognize and honor top performing and innovative global and Southeast Asian brands on LazMall.

Editor's note: The trip to Singapore was hosted by Lazada to promote LazMall's Brands Future Forum (BFF) 2022. At no stage does the host organization have a say on the stories generated from the coverage, interviews conducted, publication date and story treatment. Content is produced solely by Philstar.com following editorial guidelines.