According to the iPrice Group, the Philippines’ online shopping sites experienced a 21% surge of web visits in 2020 based on their Map of E-commerce Yearend 2020 report. The country had the second-highest surge in Southeast Asia, placing behind Singapore with 35%.
iPrice Group is a meta-search website operating in seven countries across Southeast Asia, specifically in the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Hong Kong.
Across all countries in Southeast Asia, their yearend report revealed that online shopping platforms’ overall website traffic grew positively across all countries year-over-year. As per iPrice, it remarks that online shopping has been more in-demand than ever due to the pandemic. iPrice has studied how pandemic has affected the online economy so far.
Electronics sites also experienced quite a surge at the beginning of the pandemic year. In the first half of the year, iPrice’s previous report revealed that these sites’ traffic rose by 59% compared to 2019. Though, in the succeeding months afterward, these sites’ traffic also started to decline dramatically. The web visits of tech e-commerce sites declined by 83%, comparing Q1 with Q4.
On the other hand, fashion sites and products are gaining back their momentum. At the start of 2020, fashion sites were declining across Southeast Asia. However, at the end of the year, Filipinos spent the most on fashion products, with an average basket size of USD 40 or PHP 1,947. Fashion e-commerce sites experienced an 18% surge of web visits as well, comparing Q1 with Q4.
iPrice predicts that demand and purchase of fashion items may potentially decline again. In terms of the average basket size, there is a minimal difference between 2020 and 2019. There was just a 4% or a USD 1 or PHP 49 decrease in the amount spent in 2020. Even though web visits rose higher in 2020, the amount spent online remained almost the same.
Meanwhile, although the Philippines’ average online spending remained somewhat the same, Southeast Asia as a whole saw an increase. iPrice Group’s platform found that consumers in Southeast Asia spent an overall average of USD 32 or PHP 1,557 per order in 2020, which was 19% higher than in 2019. The country’s average spending is USD 11 or PHP 538 lower than the entire region. iPrice noted that this could be attributed to costs of living and other pandemic factors, including shorter lockdowns or government-provided financial support in other countries.
The increase in the region’s average spend could be attributed to countries like Singapore and Malaysia, which saw the highest average basket size of USD 61 or PHP 2,969 and USD 41 or PHP 1,995 respectively in 2020.
