Increasing Levels of Ease and Convenience a Key Draw for Online Shoppers

The majority of the online shoppers across Asia/Pacific, Middle East and Africa are satisfied with online shopping, according to the latest survey on online shopping habits by MasterCard Worldwide. India, Thailand and New Zealand are leading the curve with more than 90% of the online shoppers feeling satisfied. The Greater China region as well as South Korea scored the lowest between 62% and 65% in terms of satisfaction levels amongst online shoppers. Secure payment facilities, convenient payment methods and price and value of the items are the top three most important factors influencing respondents’ online shopping experience.

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More online shoppers in general agreed that it is more convenient and easier to shop online as compared to last year. The most frequent online purchases were conducted through websites of retailers selling home appliances, books & arts, airline, ladies’ clothing and accessories, with each of these categories registering between 36%-38% of the respondents saying they often shop from these sites. Respondents overall are becoming more comfortable with shopping on the Internet, and there seems to be a greater ease with using the medium, with 74% of respondents having stated that it has become easy to shop online in 2009 versus 68% in 2008, whilst 78% of respondents stated that it is convenient to shop online in 2009 versus 50% in 2008.

Online shopping has become essential to more than half of the respondents from China, Korea, Japan, India and Thailand. There is an increase in shopping online for groceries from 20% to 27% of the respondents since last year, with the shift being significant in China with the number of people shopping for groceries online increasing from 32% to 58%. Additionally, 94% of respondents from China indicated that browsing online has led to an online purchase at least a couple of times. Satisfaction rates have risen as well over the past year, especially in India (87% versus 94%) and Thailand (86% versus 93%).

“Online shopping has come a long way and today the latest MasterCard survey reflects this change. As online shoppers become more savvy and are increasingly satisfied with their online shopping experience, they are purchasing beyond lifestyle items such as airline tickets, online games and music downloads and have evolved to buying basic necessities including home appliances and groceries. This new class of shoppers will continue to embrace the convenience, ease and variety offered by online shopping," said Garth Viegas, senior business leader, Intelligence & Planning, Asia/Pacific, Middle East & Africa, MasterCard Worldwide.

Other key highlights from the survey include:

• 43% of respondents tend to browse online but would only purchase online occasionally, 34% of respondents browse and then proceed to purchase online and 18% of respondents reported that they browse online but would only make the purchase through offline channels. The incidence of people browsing and then purchasing online has increased in most countries as compared to 2008, but is most pronounced in China, Thailand & India.
• Most people (84%) do plan ahead when it comes to making purchases online. This is particularly true in Australia, Japan and New Zealand, with about 9 in 10 respondents claiming they would plan before purchasing an item online.
• Japan, specifically, has seen the most significant increase (84% to 94%) in the number of people claiming that they would do advanced planning prior to purchasing online.
• High tendencies of impulse shopping triggers were observed in India for home appliances (52%) and CDs/DVDs (53%), in China for books/arts (52%) and groceries (51%) and Thailand for ladies’ clothing/accessories (55%) and South Africa for CDs/DVDs (50%).
• Top reasons for visiting merchant websites include checking the latest information on products (79%), checking promotional deals (62%) and the intention to make a booking/purchase (60%).

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