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Ecommerce Insights

aCommerce’s BRANDIQ reveals the Top 100 fastest growing Ecommerce categories after COVID-19 outbreak

May 10, 20210

New Growth Industries and Trends in Thailand After COVID-19

Bangkok (30 April 2021) — aCommerce, Southeast Asia’s leading End-to-End Ecommerce Platform and Solutions provider, reveals the BrandIQ Flash Insights report on the Top 100 fastest growing Ecommerce categories after the COVID-19 outbreak. The company launched BrandIQ in 2018 to help brands understand online shopper trends and apply data analytics to increase e-commerce sales.

BrandIQ is the first SaaS solution that assists retailers and brands in consolidating product and channel information and getting granular views on Seller’s activities, Brand’s Share of Shelf, Share of Categories, and Market Share comparison. The company calls the report Flash Insights as it provides a quick overview of trends that are growing in the Thai e-commerce landscape.

Because of the restrictions and COVID-19 preventive measures, Thai people have been avoiding visiting offline stores. They stay home and order goods from stores and retailers to fulfill their needs. This “new normal” way of living persuaded brands to start investing in online marketplaces to drive store visits, and BrandIQ’s Flash Insights reports confirm that Digital Vouchers saw a growth of +1,237% since last year in Thailand. In addition to driving sales, voucher programs present a solution for brands to optimize their inventory amid the COVID-19 crisis. Another trend that surged during the pandemic was cooking at home. As the coronavirus pandemic continues to cause disruptions, many Thais have settled into a routine that involves a lot more home cooking, increasing the demand for refrigerators and cookware. Online groceries also surged with Dairy & Chilled products growing 2,637% including Dry & Package goods growing 389% and breakfast cereals & Spreads growing 271%. This shift in behavior is not only because consumers working from home no longer stop for breakfast or coffee on their commute, but also because they feel unsafe going to restaurants. Last year’s report revealed a surge in the food supplement and furniture categories, and with many people in the country still working from home this year, the trend has continued. The pandemic highlighted the need for comfortable and productive spaces during quarantine whilst creating a growing demand for supplements as consumers prioritized wellness and health. Finally, the report also shows a significant increase in demand for Arts & Crafts for kids. This category includes activities and products which enable kids to learn while they are at home studying.

BrandIQ explains the overall increase across these categories due to the restrictions on out-of-home activities on the one hand, and retailers’ needs to sell their products on the other. As a result, the businesses had to adjust their strategies, and the changes in consumer behavior have accelerated the speed with which companies have to undergo a digital and e-commerce transformation.

“Granular data and analytics of your e-commerce business is important for brands, but getting access to real-time data on your competitors’ sales, promotions, and orders is a game-changer,” said Paul Srivorakul, Group CEO of aCommerce.

“Providing brands with end-to-end data is important in optimizing their e-commerce business and automating processes that help save costs and grow sales. For example, when a particular brand or product starts selling well, our system immediately alerts marketing to increase advertising spend, then triggers customer service to increase support, then contacts the supplier to place a larger order, and alerts logistics to prepare for an increase in orders.”, he added.

aCommerce’s vision has always been to enable brands and retailers to innovate and successfully execute their e-commerce vision for Southeast Asia. The company has also added regional platforms such as Shopee and Lazada, including local marketplaces such as Tokopedia in Indonesia, Qoo10 in Singapore, and soon Sendo and Tiki in Vietnam. 

About aCommerce

Headquartered in Thailand, aCommerce is the largest e-commerce enabler in Southeast Asia with operations also in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Fortune 500 clients such as Samsung, Unilever, Nestlé, L’Oréal, Philips, Adidas, Mars, and many more trust us as their partner for the entire digital commerce journey. Founded in June 2013, aCommerce provides the full end-to-end suite of eCommerce technologies and solutions including Omni-channel retail, performance marketing, unified data analytics, channel management, webstore development and operations, content production, warehousing, order fulfillment, delivery, and localized customer care. Coupled with our “EcommerceIQ” software suite which strengthens, connects, and unifies all Ecommerce data under one end-to-end cloud platform we enable brands and retailers to connect, engage, and transact with their customers anywhere, any time, and in any way. For more information, please visit www.acommerce.asia.

Ecommerce Insights

How Indonesian React to Work from Home Policy

April 9, 20200

WFH: IS WORKING FROM HOME A NEW NORM?

On March 11, the World Health Organization (WHO) officially declares the latest evolving novel coronavirus or COVID-19 as a global pandemic.

Earlier on March 2, Indonesian authorities had identified the first case within the borders, resulting in the Government’s responding policy to rapidly evolve whilst recommending “work from home (WFH)” policy along with other preventive measures such as temporary cease of business, taking leave, travel restriction, etc.

As of March 31, with the number of positive cases has reached 1,528 and the total death toll of 136, President Jokowi has declared COVID-19 a health emergency and imposes large-scale social restrictions.

From the previous BrandIQ report, we discussed how the COVID-19 situation shines the light on certain Ecommerce categories such as Health & Homecare, Groceries, etc. Southeast Asia shopping behavior has been shifting fast during the virus outbreak and staying home seemed to be the only way to get around it.

With WFH policy seems to be encouraged and enforced in Indonesia, we will walk you through the preparation of Indonesians we saw from their shopping habit.

ADAPTATION: INDONESIANS ARE GETTING REALLY GOOD ON WORK-LIFE BALANCE.

We use BrandIQ as a tool to collect data from 1st November 2019 – 26ht March 2020 on top categories related to work-life balance essentials to WFH. The variables include 11.11, 12.12 sales campaigns to display growth during the WFH period. However, Lazada Birthday on 27th March 2020 is excluded to reflect customer purchase behavior without steep discount influence.

Laptop is definitely not an everyday purchase; in fact, some might only buy a new one every half a decade. Nevertheless, growth in February purchase is fascinatingly reflective of the preparation of WFH policy. As essential as a laptop is for everyday operations, nevertheless, not every firm or business offers a laptop as personal equipment. One of our assumptions is small businesses making purchases for their employees to smoothen out the operation and maintain efficiency.

COVID-19 makes people read!! Yes! We finally crack the code on how to make people take up reading. Books sold massively in consecutive months. Staying home left us with not much to do so most of us find a way to occupy ourselves. Some buy recipe books, some read novels, and for those who can’t seem to relax with more time on their hands may have bought books for self-development in order to brush up new skills or further their careers.

Month-on-Month growth of categories related to WFH (period 1st Nov 19 – 26th Mar 20).

Working from home means you also have extra 2-3 hours a day. Yes, that is your daily commuting time from home-work-home if you live in the Greater Jakarta Area. This actually provides one essential life element, work-life balance, which we doubt Jakartans ever enjoy much. Some spend their leisure time shopping, some play games; and it seems to us that Indonesian loves to do both. Digital Games & Software and Digital Shopping Voucher have positive growth for consecutive months. Games top-up in March have dropped 100% Month-on-Month but this number is irrelevant when huge growth in February, 6900%, is the denominator. Online Game Top-up is a big thing.

Ultimately, working from home means you have to stay home. With the tropical climate in Indonesia, Air-conditioner has become a necessity. Most of the time, Indonesians can get away with the daylight heat because the office has an air-conditioning system or escape to the malls on weekends. COVID-19 eliminates our options and forces us to be at home on a wet-hot summer day. We see the growth from February and March for those who need a replacement for newer models or never had one installed.

BrandIQ is the first Ecommerce Analytics Platform to launch in Southeast Asia. The platform covers data collection from top regional marketplaces, spread over 6 countries.

STEREOTYPE: MEN CARE LESS ABOUT SKIN WHEN STAYING HOME.

BrandIQ also found distinct behavior between women vs men during WFH. The chart below displays the sales index of Skincare categories on both genders. We clearly see a trend of panic buying in February where everyone foresees the inevitable of COVID-19. However, buys of Men Skincare drastically drop in March while Women Skincare performs slightly better than in January. It rather resonates with gender stereotyping whereby men generally do not take care of their body and skin as much when they aren’t leaving the house.

Sales Index of Women vs Men’s Skincare from 1st Jan 2020 to 26th Mar 2020.

GROWTH: RAPID BEHAVIOUR SHIFTS INDUCE NEW REVENUE

As mentioned in our previous report, COVID-19 coincidentally promotes Ecommerce. However, in retrospect, the Ecommerce community is also making a tremendous effort to grow in this unfortunate event. The bubble chart below displays the share of new products – that has never been listed in a month before, against total sales of their own category. The recognition must be given to the community as they are very well responded to the situation by introducing brand-new products to the market in disastrous hours. 81% of Air Conditioner sales in March are new products as well as 60% and 93% of books in February and March, respectively.

Revenue Share of new product to shelf on 1st Jan 2020 to 26th Mar 2020.

There are lots of new brands and sellers emerging in Marketplaces during January to March 2020. “Gross” column displays total sales of new brands against the total of categories in the aforementioned period. Nonetheless, the nature of Laptop and Game Console & Software are very difficult to produce in pressing time hence, meager the growth.

DELAY THE INEVITABLE: New product listings strategy is possible in Indonesia because of the delay in the penetration of novel coronavirus. Neighbors such as Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia had identified their first patients in late January, therefore Indonesian sellers are already running the business with anticipation when they have been hit and the outcome is as we’ve seen.

Until this moment, we should all accept that COVID-19 will change the way of life as we knew. Working from home could potentially become the new social norm. Work-life balance will no longer be just a word everybody takes for granted. Home entertainment might be the next big thing in the Ecommerce ecosystem.

Need assistance on locating market opportunity, gaining more insight on where you rank against your competitors?

Reach out to [email protected] to know how you can improve your ecommerce presence.

Ecommerce Insights

Fears of Virus Outbreak Open the Door to the New Adoption of Online Shopping

April 2, 20200

As people are trying to stay healthy and escaping virus outbreak, Ecommerce industry strive to its best to ensure that we are all kept virus free.

Amids COVID-19 crisis that wreak havoc to the world’s economy, one industry is standing above all to help people escape deadly virus and might change landscape of Ecommerce forever.

COVID-19, the official name for the latest emerging Coronavirus dubbed by World Health Organization (WHO), is feared to become a new pandemic. As of the beginning of March, the number of infected rises above 95,000, with more than 200 identified in Southeast Asia, particularly Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand. Southeast Asia economy is inevitably driven by China where trades, transportation, and excursion are unavoidable from the alleged origination COVID-19, and unfortunately, we are expecting numbers of confirmed patients to grow significantly.

Impact of the outbreak on Southeast Asia

BrandIQ investigate the growth rate of the epidemic in various regions and found that Southeast Asia numbers are fairly suppressive. From the 1st of February to 5th March 2020, numbers of the confirmed patients only increase by 372% while in China, South Korea and Europe numbers are 582%, 47950%, and 19127% respectively.

Southeast Asian culture seems to involve limited human to human contact whilst westerner greetings are either handshake or kiss on the cheeks. Countries like Thailand and Singapore are also absorbing East Asian habit of wearing a mask in public (despite the main reason is to battling the region’s pollution level). This coincidentally helped slowing COVID-19 dissemination.

If you live in Southeast Asia, it is impossible to not notice the thinning visitors in malls these days, public transportations are also less crowded, and food delivery service such as GrabFood and Foodpanda are flourishing. GrabFood recorded 4 million orders in the first month of 2020 comparing to a total three million orders in 2019, supporting our hypothesis that consumers are preferring to stay home amidst the outbreak.

Online marketshare insights are provided by digital shelf on BrandIQ

BrandIQ dives into our Digital Shelf to determine reflective factors on Southeast Asia’s top marketplace from the first week of the outbreak until the beginning of March to see the impact on people’s purchase behavior. As anticipated, every category regards to self-cleaning, healthcare, virus protection has massive growth in sales.

BrandIQ is the first Ecommerce Analytics Platform to launch in Southeast Asia. The platform covers data collection from top regional marketplaces, spread over 6 countries.

We are responding to the outbreak and try to stay healthy

Thermometers revenue is growing 705% prior to outbreak period. It resonates consumers responsibility to ensure their safety and staying on offence. Hand Care including sanitizers & soup also experienced significant uplift. Overall every product related to virus prevention and protection are on positive Dollar Growth side.

When look closely we will see inverted Unit Growth on Groceries and Body Wash. This could be articulated by two plausible explanations; (1.) customers are willing to pay premium for better/high-end product during the outbreak period (to ensure cleanliness & safety) or (2.) sellers and merchants are taking advantage of the situation by raising and speculating price.

Dollar Growth vs Unit Growth (%) from Southeast Asia’s top marketplace during virus outbreak.

Mask & Filter Dollar Growth are undermined due to stock and product distribution backlog. The real reason behind significantly higher Unit Growth than Dollar could be explained by average order value. Southeast Asia, especially Thailand and Indonesia, has been the victim of PM2.5 since November 2019. The order value of filters is monstrous compared to a piece of mask. Prior to the outbreak, the filter is a dominant product, while during the epidemic – mask became a survival tool. Therefore, Unit Growth value is over-representation while Dollar Growth reflects production and distribution problems (Dollar Growth does not catch up to Unit Growth).

As of now, we are starting to see some level of surgical mask shortage whereby there are several news outlets reporting mask scarcity on both public & private health organization including hospitals and clinics. Some local SMEs aggravated and worsened this incidence by price speculating this lifesaving item. However, ecommerce leaders such as Lazada & Shopee have taken a step of responsibility to not condone such actions and began to take out, ban, and off-board sellers who taking advantage of this global catastrophe.

We put our health first and budgeting other expense

BrandIQ indexing outbreak period online shopping growth by selecting the categories that performed well during normal circumstances (Electronics, Beauty, Petcare, and Fashion) to compare growth index against Healthcare and Groceries products.

The number speaks for itself; Southeast Asian consumers are tightened up their personal expense. Both categories yield positive growths are COVID-19 preparation and protection item (food, medicine, health accessory). Extravagance items, for instance, beauty and fashion are inverted whilst unnecessities such as Mobile, Laptop & other electronics are receding to hibernation. Nevertheless, Alkaline batteries, as a subsidiary to Electronics, are growing 38% (Index +0.76) during the outbreak.

Online Shopping growth index during COVID-19 outbreak

Pet food and medical is expected to yield positive index

Through recent breaking news from Hongkong, a Pomeranian is tested to have “weak positive” immune for novel coronavirus.

“The Pomeranian’s owner was infected with COVID-19 but the dog itself was not showing symptoms,” authorities said.

Hong Kong has said residents should not kiss their pets after a dog tested ‘weak positive’ for coronavirus. Photograph: Jérôme Favre/EPA

However, the famous news outlet also warns the readers to adopt good hygiene practices for both humans and pets, therefore, we are also anticipating incline of pet care products sales via online channel.

Southeast Asia’s commercial landscape as we know might forever altered when consumers, who has been negligence of online shopping, has been forced to step into Online Shopping world. BRANDIQ team hope this crisis resolve quickly but until that time, please stay conscious, stay safe and follow official announcement from WHO.

Need assistance on locating market opportunity, gaining more insight on where you rank against your competitors?

Reach out to [email protected] to know how you can improve your ecommerce presence.

Client News

JBL in Thailand Goes Online Through Marketplace

December 1, 20170

The popular audio electronics company strengthens product distribution through aCommerce channel management on 11street and Shopee

Mahajak Development Co. Ltd., the sole distributor of JBL in Thailand, will officially sell its highly coveted sound system products on marketplace through aCommerce and tap into the potential $1.3 billion online opportunity.

Client News

Indonesia’s Largest Luxury Retailer Launches Online Platform

December 1, 20170

Masari Group will capture Indonesia’s most affluent demographic through an e-platform by aCommerce and follow in the footsteps of Alibaba, JD.com and LVMH taking luxury digital

In 2016, sales of luxury goods in Indonesia grew by 84% from 2015, recording the largest online luxury sales growth in Asia. To cater to increasing demand, local luxury retail giant Masari Group has launched 40+ brands online, including Les Petits Joueurs, Loup Noir and Dorateymur, using aCommerce brand site development and performance marketing. The site went live on October 11.

Ecommerce Insights

Skipping the Middleman: Why Businesses Should Consider the Direct to Consumer Model

September 7, 20170

Ecommerce has completely disrupted not only how people shop, anywhere anyhow, but also the supply chain and distribution of goods. Brands and businesses are empowered in a way never before possible, most noticeably by cutting the middle men and selling directly to consumers. By adopting a direct to consumer strategy, businesses gain a stronger presence in both online and offline markets.

Read more