12 November 2014

End-year holiday spending to surpass S$4 billion in Singapore this year

Source: Adobe. At least 10% of annual online sales in Australia, mainland China, Singapore, Japan, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Thailand will come from the year-end holiday period.
This holiday season, Singapore shoppers will be reaching for their mobile devices and heading on an online shopping spree, according to the latest Adobe Digital Index Holiday Shopping Prediction*.

Tablets and smartphones are expected to play a key role in the plans of Singapore shoppers and purchases made through the devices are expected to account for 17% of all online sales between now and Christmas.

Adobe says the holiday season, comprising November and December, could account for as much as 20% of annual online sales, showing how vital the Christmas spending spree has become for retailers moving into e-commerce. The market is forecast to reach S$4.4 billion in 2015 in Singapore, four times its value in 2010.

Online sales in Singapore are predicted to peak on December 8 as shoppers hunt down the best deals and place their orders in time for delivery before Christmas. The analysis also predicted that 9% of online shopping transactions will be conducted through tablets, but smartphones are poised to take over as the preferred mobile shopping device as they have risen to account for 8% of transactions.

Stephen Hamill, Adobe Managing Director, Southeast Asia, said the rise of phones as shopping hubs is a signal to retailers that they need to create user-friendly and mobile-optimised digital shop fronts. “With 20% of annual online sales coming during the runup to Christmas as shoppers buy on their mobile devices, it is clear people now see shopping on their phones, tablets and laptops as the norm,” said Hamill.

“People now want to connect and shop from wherever they are and it is becoming easier as phones get bigger screens, better interfaces and mobile data connections continue to improve. Retailers have to keep up with consumer behaviour and they have to be able to do so across a range of devices.”

*The Adobe Digital Index publishes research on digital marketing and other topics of interest to senior marketing and e-commerce executives across industries. Research is based on the analysis of select, anonymous and aggregated data from over 5,000 major companies worldwide that use Adobe Marketing Cloud to obtain actionable data and analysis of activity on their websites. Data was collected from analysis of 4,500 websites, 20 billion visits to e-commerce websites in 2014 and more than 1 trillion visits since 2008.

Adobe’s Holiday Shopping Prediction is based on the analysis of aggregated and anonymous data of more than one trillion visits to 4,500 retail websites over the last six years and 20 billion visits in October 2014 all over the world.