The world’s biggest online shopping event, Singles’ Day has broken new records across Asia despite the Covid-19 pandemic. Alibaba ended the shopping bonanza with USD 75 billion worth of sales, up 95% from its performance last year.
Over in Southeast Asia, Shopee, a major e-commerce player in the region, also outperformed last year’s sales in under an hour. The shopping festival was a record-breaking success for the e-tailer, with 200 million items sold on 11.11 itself. Its 11.11 Big Sale campaign, which lasted for three weeks in Singapore and four weeks in Indonesia also gained traction through various daily promotional offers and live stream shows to engage with consumers.
With strong sales recorded on 9.9, how did Singles’ Day fare this year? Was it an indicator of a rebound in consumption or merely savvy shoppers taking advantage of killer deals?
This report shares the detailed performance of top categories for Shopee Singapore and Indonesia for the women’s fashion segment. Nearly 250,000 data points were analysed from 21 October – 11 November (22 days) in Singapore and 12 October – 11 November (31 days) in Indonesia.
Starting with the respective Covid-19 timeline in Singapore and Indonesia, the subsequent content provides context to the factors that influenced consumer demand and shopping behaviour highlighted throughout this report.
The current state in Singapore and Indonesia are miles apart. Although the number of cases in Singapore and Indonesia started increasing rapidly in the initial stages, Indonesia took a turn for the worse.
Singapore’s quick, proactive and aggressive public health response has managed to contain the outbreak. The lives of Singaporeans have returned to normal as early as June, with more businesses and public places reopened. Overseas travel to certain countries has also been permitted in September. Currently, new cases in Singapore have plateaued, with no new case reported for the first time in November.
Meanwhile, Indonesia is still grappling in its Covid-19 response with Large-Scale Social Restriction (PSBB) imposed twice since April. Currently, there are close to 5,000 new daily cases reported and the country has just entered into a recession for the first time in 22 years.
All data used in this report comes from products retailing online as tracked by Omnilytics, unless otherwise mentioned.
Singles’ Day solidified its reputation as a major shopping festival in SEA as sell-out performance for its fashion products surpassed that of 9.9 and 10.10 events.
Despite the economic uncertainty brought by the pandemic, 11.11 registered 136% and 283% more sell-out than on 9.9 and 10.10 respectively. The number of discounted products was nearly 2x higher than on 9.9. Consumers were lured by the hype around Singles’ Day as the average discount was the shallowest, albeit by 2 percentage point compared with 9.9.
This year, Shopee held its 11.11 Big Sale campaign just a day earlier than last year, for the same duration of three weeks. With over 260% more discounted products this year, sell-out grew in tandem by 372%.
The appointment of Phua Chu Kang as Shopee’s brand ambassador deepened its engagement with local audiences. The cultural icon worked on various initiatives with the brand to connect with Singaporeans. Aside from his exclusive appearances on Shopee Live, shoppers saw the return of special themed days packed with three weeks of exclusive deals and contests.
The spike in sell-out on November 6 proved that consumers were bargain-hunters, as they took advantage of multiple voucher redemptions on ‘Vouchers Day’, alongside bank coupons and cashback promotions. Shoppers could also place SGD 1 deposit from November 6-10 to enjoy vouchers worth up to SGD 150.
Due to the hype around Singles’ Day, many consumers hold off their purchases until the actual day of 11.11. However, consumers actually missed out on better deals offered prior to the big event. The majority of items were markdown deeper during this period, at 40-49% compared to just 20-29% off on Singles’ Day.
The discount range that generated the highest sell-out was 50-59%, in line with the findings by Facebook and Bain & Company that Southeast Asian consumers are value-hunters.
However, brands and retailers do not always have to resort to deep discounting and hurt profit margin. The 40-49% discount bracket returned the same sell-out rate as the 60-69% range, at 4%. It is more important to accurately identify what consumer wants and fulfil that demand.
Non-apparel categories continued to be popular throughout the three-week campaign period and on the big day itself. They were led by Bags and Shoes, which contributed to a combined 28% of total sell-out.
While Bags and Shoes championed the three-week campaign period, Activewear cropped up as the top category on the actual 11.11 event. Its sell-out rate saw an uplift on November 7, due to the ‘Sports & Activewear Day’ deal by Shopee. It reached a peak on November 11, surpassing other categories with a 2.4% sell-out rate at a median price of USD 34 and average discount of 47%.
