Market size

Singapore’s e-commerce market is expected to reach $5.4 billion (7.46 billion SGD) by 2025, according to the Singapore economy penetration analysis report. That is five times the industry’s value in 2016, and at the current rate of growth, these numbers seem easily achievable. This growth is estimated to happen at a rate of over 11% per year as a result of investments of up to US$50 billion expected to be made in the e-commerce sector till 2025.

Singapore, which has the highest Internet penetration of south-east Asia at 82 per cent, will continue to lead the way in south-east Asia. And the number of users is expected to amount to 4.4 million by 2023. The country has also seen a significant increase in the number of online start-ups investing in the retail segment, especially in fashion, home needs, travel and entertainment, and digital products.

Top Websites

In terms of traffic, Singapore’s e-commerce king is Qoo10.

In 2018, Qoo10 was recorded to have a total average visit (desktop and mobile web) of 10.2 million traffic, beating Lazada by 2.9 million. The online marketplace started 2018 with a bang as it clocked the highest visits with 11.9 million visits in January. According to general manager of Qoo10 Singapore, Sam Too, he believed that Qoo10 had the upper hand as they had first-mover advantage in the market where they had “groomed” the e-commerce industry a decade ago. To date, Singapore is Qoo10’s second largest contributor to its total Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) after Japan.

Coming in at second place is Lazada. on August 23, 2017, capitaland announced a strategic alliance with China’s alibaba to manage its Shanghai headquarters and build an online mall on Lazada in Singapore. Lazada had an average of 7.3 million traffic and its traffic was floating between 5 million and 6 million range from April to October but had a drastic increase and reached 11.2 million within November. The 11.11 sales could have possibly attributed to this sudden growth in traffic.

Lazada acquired many of the early e-commerce players in southeast Asia, but in Singapore Lazada arrived two years later than Qoo10, which may be one of the main reasons why Qoo10 has been relatively stable.

Taking the third spot is Shopee with an average of 2.08 million traffic. Based on the report, there was a gradual improvement in traffic month after month.This may be due to Shopee’s efforts of launching the China Marketplace portal in March 2018, where consumers were able to purchase goods directly from Chinse sellers without any shipping and agent fees.

Customer attributes

According to the relevant survey data of Singapore, the proportion of female online shopping consumers in Singapore is higher than that of male, and the frequency of female shopping is much higher than that of male. Qoo10’s current focus on beauty & fashion has helped the platform gain more female consumers.

80% of Singapore shoppers said that what they buy is heavily influenced by social media. 96% of Singapore consumers use at least one social network. Facebook and Whatsapp have the highest daily reach in Singapore.

Time of shopping online

Singapore is the only country in southeast Asia where shopping behaviour is more after work, while other countries including Malaysia tend to shopping during working hours.

The order quantity of Singaporeans in the working time is the lowest in southeast Asian countries. since 4 PM order began to increase gradually, and ultimately achieve the first point at 6 PM. In Singapore, people’s shopping time last until 2 o ‘clock in the morning, and 10 o ‘clock at night is a peak (except for the 9 p.m. Thailand leading 1%).

According to a study, Singapore’s largest online shopping group aged between 25 and 54, indicating that most online shoppers are working class, so they are usually only shopping after working hours.

Product Categories

The bulk of eCommerce purchases in Singapore are in the Clothing and electronics categories. 65% online shoppers said they bought shoes, clothes or accessories online. Clothing is the most popular eCommerce category for women, with men mostly buying technology and personal electronics.

Payment Methods

As one of the largest cashless societies in the world, Singapore attaches great importance to the convenience of online shopping payment. Credit Cards is the easiest and most popular method of payment on e-commerce sites in Singapore. And it is the payment method supported by all merchants in Singapore. Visa and MasterCard are the leading Credit Card providers, with American Express, JCB, and Diners Club Singapore, all holding a smaller market share. The second most popular method of payment is bank transfer, which is supported by only 38 percent of merchants, far behind credit cards.

Logistics and Infrastructure

In 2015, the World Bank ranked Singapore as the 5th best country for logistics in the world. Being strategically located in the heart of South Asia means Singapore is an important logistics hub for world trade and is home to a network of major shipping lanes.

20 of the top 25 global logistics players conduct their operations from Singapore, housing their regional or global HQs here. Leading manufacturers also base operations here due to its leading logistics, world-class infrastructure and excellent global connectivity.