An example of a marketing campaign ran by Shopee
E-commerce saw a surge in transactions in both essential and discretionary items in the past few months in Singapore, as the COVID-19 pandemic forced most people to stay at home, according to a joint study by iPrice Group and Similar Web.
Driven by high-value online orders nationwide, Singaporeans spent an average of S$113 (US$83) during the January-June 2020 period.
The average basket size increased by 51 per cent when compared to the same period last year, the study finds.
Also Read: How Shopee uses AI, data to build a marketing strategy that suits changes in user behaviour
Given the current situation in the island state, iPrice and SimilarWeb also updated the Map of E-commerce report to shed light on the biggest developments from the top e-commerce platforms in Singapore.
Data reveals that e-commerce platforms in Singapore experienced a two-digit growth (23 per cent) in total web visits (desktop and mobile web) throughout the first half of 2020.
This signifies a strong consumer confidence in e-commerce retail and further growth in the digital economy.
Based on the overall e-commerce traffic in Singapore, five of the top e-commerce players that emerged are Shopee, Lazada, Qoo10, Amazon and EZBuy.
Shopee led the pack
Shopee was the most visited platform in the city-state as of Q2 2020. The e-commerce firm saw a tremendous increase of 82 per cent from Q1 to Q2 2020, garnering nearly an additional five million in average visitors in Q2 2020 alone.
The surge was potentially driven by Shopee’s constant marketing initiatives to promote and help value-driven shoppers during the circuit breaker period. These initiatives included ‘shop from home’, ‘4.4 flash sale’, ‘super mart month’, ‘6.6-7.7 great Shopee Sale’.
Lazada played emerged second with a per cent rise in traffic when compared to Q1 2020, recording an average of 8.5 million visitors as of Q2 2020.
The Alibaba-owned firm retained a strong presence in Singapore as the platform acquired 23 per cent of the web market share, indicating its healthy growth in winning both customers and merchants.
Lazada also aims to stand out from its competitor through its strong brand connections in engaging livestreams. Moreover, it assisted more brick-and-mortar stores to be part of its online platform.
Its online supermarket delivery business, Redmart, reported a 4x jump in sales since Singapore implemented movement restrictions in early April.
Also Read: Alibaba-backed Lazada acquires online grocer RedMart
Additionally, among the most important initiatives to support future business strategies was the recent appointment of Lazada’s new CEO as the company aims to double down on tech investments in each market.
Given Lazada’s growth in numbers, its Group CMO, Mary Zhou, believes Lazada’s Super Brand Day (SBD) promotions are 2nd only to its 11.11 sales day, where 26 brands recorded sales of over $1 million across the region in 24 hours.
Dark horses
Qoo10 is another home-grown company that experienced string growth amidst the pandemic.
As the top-3 e-commerce players successfully maintained their positions in Singapore, a surprising element emerges in the form of an international e-commerce giant Amazon. With its strengthening presence in the market since Q4 2019, Amazon seems to be penetrating Singapore successfully.
Amazon was thriving during COVID-19 as it was the forth most visited e-commerce platform in H1 2020. Its traffic surged to an average of 3.6 million from 2.8 million.
Also Read: Is China the new global e-commerce leader?
Its strong performance could probably be attributed to the closure of many of its international retail stores not available in the city-state, providing consumers with a variety of options across the globe.
Given its constant growth and maturity in the e-commerce sector, Amazon may catch up fast especially with its innovations to increase its market share in the upcoming quarters.
Securing the fifth position as the most visited e-commerce platform, EZBuy had garnered over 63 per cent increase of monthly visits from Q1 to Q2 2020.
Specialised in bringing wide varieties of consumer products from overseas, the company recorded 1.68 million in average visitors as of Q2 2020.
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Image Credit: Shopee
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