Online shopping in Singapore

Interesting facts about the shopping habits of Singaporean internet users

Although there is no denying that online shopping has brought much convenience to people’s lives, the issue poses a great challenge for retailers as there is a number of points to consider. What kind of devices do Singaporeans use to shop online? How much money do they spend? How does the shopping activity change across the year? Is online shopping more popular among men or women? To look for answers, Picodi.com analysed last year’s data and presented the results in this report.

Smartphones far behind

Although mobile commerce is booming globally, it turns out Singaporeans still prefer desktops over smartphones. According to our internal data, 1 out of 3 transactions was made with the use of a mobile device last year.

What is more, Singaporeans tend to spend less when using smartphones. When they did shopping with the use of a phone, the average order value was S$96. It’s about S$8 less than when using desktops (S$104) and S$25 less when using tablets. iOS users spend more than Android users —S$101 vs S$93 on average.

The important question is who shops online more — men or women? Our data shows that there were more purchases made by Singaporean women than those made by men, 57% and 43% respectively.

Unsurprisingly, it’s the young generation that prefers online shopping. Almost half of all online shoppers (46%) are people between the ages o 25 and 34. They’re followed by people aged 35-44 (22%) and 18-24% (17%). The remaining 15% are consumers who are over 45 years old.

Busy end of the year

According to our research, the average order value of a Singaporean shopper is the highest in August (S$210), followed by September and July (S$189 and S$151 accordingly).

Compared to that, the average order value of a moderate S$125 in November might come as a surprise. After all, that’s when Black Friday and 11.11 take place. The answer is rather easy. Even though their baskets are smaller during that time, Singaporeans shop in a number of different online stores and place more orders. So if you look at the shopping activity, it turns out November has the highest number of transactions — 16.9% of all the transactions made during the year.

The second busiest month when it comes to the number of transactions was October (10%), followed by December (8.6%). The lowest number of transactions was noted in August (5.6%).

If we look at the activity of Singaporean consumers across the week, it turns out that mobile users are the most active on Sunday. On the other hand, shopping on computers increased during the whole weekend. Singaporeans definitely prefer to shop in the afternoon and evening. The peak of sales made on computer occurred between 12 PM and 6 PM and the mobile shopping activity increased between 6 PM and 12 AM.

The most popular categories for online shopping among Singaporeans were: food on delivery, clothing, grocery, travel and home & garden.

Online shoppers around the world

We analysed data from 35 countries and compared the devices people use to shop online and the average order value. Singapore, with 35% of orders made on mobile devices, is among the countries where desktop shopping takes the lead. Peru tops the ranking with 76% of online purchases made with the use of smartphones. Close behind are Nigeria and Thailand (62% and 56%).

When it comes to the average order value, Singaporeans with their US$75 (S$102) rank lower than the world’s average, which is US$79. Emiratis spent the most money per order — astonishing US$218. And it looks like Hungarians and Turks don’t like to spend a lot in one go. They are at the bottom of the ranking with US$32 and US$38 respectively.

Online shopping in numbers:

• 1 out of 3 transactions was made on a mobile device last year,
• there were more purchases made by women than by men (57% vs 43%),
• almost half of all online shoppers (46%) are people between the ages of 25 and 34,
• the average order value in Singapore is the highest in August (S$210),
• the highest number of transactions was noted in November — 16.9% of all annual transactions,
• food on delivery, clothing and grocery are the top 3 categories for online shopping

Shopee, Lazada, Taobao, Aliexpress and Wish are the most popular marketplaces in Singapore, however, not many users know that shopping in those places can be made even better with cashback. All you have to do is activate it in Picodi before each purchase.

Methodology

This report uses the internal data of a global e-commerce platform Picodi.com for 2018. For currency conversion, we used the average exchange rate for March 2019.

Public Use

Are you willing to share the information and infographics about shopping online in Singapore with your readers? Feel free to use all the data and infographics presented in this report for both commercial and non-commercial purposes as long as you indicate the author of the research (Picodi.com) with a link to this subpage.