Cosmetics is top five shopping category in Southeast Asia

By Natasha Spencer

- Last updated on GMT

Cosmetics is top five shopping category in Southeast Asia
Shopping search engine and price comparison platform, Priceza, unveils the top shopping industry categories for popular Southeast Asian countries in 2018.

On 18th July 2018, Priceza Indonesia revealed the top five shopping categories in six Southeast Asian countries during the first 6 months of 2018.

Unicorn status

Online shopping has captivated audiences in recent years and this has been no exception in Southeast Asia. Priceza notes Thailand in particular, citing Bloomberg’s statistics which reveal how the country’s internet shopping rose by 100% in 2017.

Some Indonesian brands, including Tokopedia and BukaLapak have been hailed as pioneers in e-commerce and 'unicorn' brands after reaching a value of more than $1 billion.

Leading Southeast Asian nations

With almost 5 million users per month. Priceza has explored the most searched product categories over the last 6 months from January - June 2018 in six Southeast Asian countries, including Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam.

The cosmetics shopping category is included in the top five categories in three countries: Vietnam (11.82%), Philippines (5.53 %%), and Indonesia (5.04%).

Priceza’s insights also indicate that each of these popular Southeast Asia categories display unique results.

Category strategies

Telephones and communication devices reign supreme in both Indonesia and Thailand, for example, as the need for mobile phones stand out amongst consumers.

While this is notable for mobile phone manufacturers, telecommunication service providers and app developers, cosmetics and personal care marketers should also concentrate on m-commerce led marketing strategies to capture this preference. 

Sport and health are also strongly valued by Malaysia and Singapore shoppers, whereas other countries choose to place less emphasis on health. With this knowledge, beauty players may opt to focus more on athbeauty product formulations and items that focus on health benefits.

Future cosmetics stability

While each of the six Southeast Asian countries analysed offer its own uniqueness regarding product category preference, cosmetics remains in this top five product category list.

In terms of future results and whether these categories will differ, Priceza Indonesia revealed that it is rather difficult because there are many factors involved there”,​ yet it is probable that these will “not [be] the same and changeable"​. This comes as “the inter-quarter comparison can [find] different results"​.

Therefore, while cosmetics have a firm position in all six Southeast Asian countries explored, Priceza Indonesia state that “it is not impossible with the growing populations of online shoppers in Southeast Asia, [that] the list can shift based on the favourite product preference in each country”​.

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