De fato, pela primeira vez em 2015, os consumidores chineses compraram mais telefones celulares do que os computadores. Em 2016, 66% das compras virtuais foram feitas através de um dispositivo celular, de acordo com os mais recentes dados internacionais de euromonitores. O tecido é equivalente a 450,3 bilhões de dólares em telefones celulares, mercadorias que representam 70% dessas compras virtuais.
China comércio perfeito m
A perfect storm of factors led to the emergence of China’s digital commerce landscape. Like other emerging markets, China turned to the mobile device to establish digital connectivity due to the cheaper network investment and falling mobile device prices. The number of mobile internet subscribers has quadrupled in the last five years. As a result, the smartphone became the primary device for Chinese consumers to access the internet and that forever impacted how consumers there communicated and consumed.
At the same time, consumers were going online for the first time, the existing retail landscape was weak and inefficient, thus opening the door to online competition. Marketplaces, digital platforms open to third-party merchants, propelled China’s digital shift. Local leader Alibaba Group Holding Ltd now captures 44% of the market for internet-based consumer goods purchases as of 2016. Online purchases would have been challenging given the low card payment penetration, but third-party payment apps like Alipay from Alibaba’s subsidiary Ant Financial sprouted up to provide a safe way for consumers to transact online.
Today’s Chinese consumers turn to their smartphone most frequently for service-oriented purchasing, including online downloads, entertainment event tickets and foodservice takeaway/delivery. Although completed with slightly less frequency, Chinese consumers spend the most digitally on inexpensive apparel followed by consumer electronics and appliances thanks to the continued development of user-friendly apps that are further cementing the tendency towards on-the-go consumption. Mobile is expected to consolidate its leading position as the go-to form factor during the 2016-2021 period, as more Chinese consumers, even those in more rural areas, embrace smartphones as a conduit for commerce.
Ásia: a primeira região móvel do mundo
Hoje, esta mentalidade de “mobile first” está a ser replicada nos seus vizinhos asiáticos, incluindo a Indonésia, a Coreia do Sul e a Tailândia. Os indonésios gastaram mais em telemóveis do que em computadores em 2016 e os consumidores na Coreia do Sul e na Tailândia deverão fazer o mesmo em 2017, segundo dados da Euromonitor International.
In contrast, major developed markets have been slower to turn to smartphones as the default device of commerce. Although commerce is more established in markets like the U.K. and U.S., consumers were first conditioned to turn to the computer when shopping online by sites like Amazon.com Inc with the transition to the small-screen device being slower. Euromonitor International projects that consumers in Australia, the U.S. and the U.K. will not spend more through mobile devices than personal computers until late in the 2016-2021 forecast period.
Influência do comércio social
Asian social media platforms worked with companies to bring their brand messaging into this wide network of personal influencers. These connections are especially valuable in a market like China where consumers do not trust official sources, such as the government or big corporations. As a result, their purchasing decisions are influenced more by word of mouth. In fact, 41% of China’s consumers cite recommendations from families and friends as “extremely influential,” compared with only 28% in the U.S. and 24% in the U.K., according to Euromonitor International’s 2016 Global Consumer Trends Survey. Emerging market consumers, in general, reported being more influenced by their friends’ social media posts in the same survey, which highly correlates with those consumers that turn to social networks when conducting commerce.
That’s because one of the first places where social converged with commerce was Asia Pacific. These consumers took a pragmatic and practical approach to time spent online. Companies like Alibaba with a diverse portfolio of online businesses initiated aggressive marketing and pricing strategies. For fashion-driven, middle-class Chinese consumers, social media became a gateway to discount-focused online retailers, especially in segments like luxury clothing. In another example, the popular social messaging app WeChat can be used to hail a taxi, order food delivery, buy movie tickets, pay utility bills and even book a doctor’s appointment all in a single, integrated app. This go-to platform for Chinese consumers illustrates the more advanced functionality of existing social channels in Asia Pacific compared to the West.
Por outro lado, a experiência no Ocidente é muito mais fragmentada, com uma variedade de programas de uma infinidade de competências que atendem a essas necessidades. Além disso, os players de mídia social ocidentais têm se mostrado menos confiantes na introdução de equipamentos para compras de alimentos e na promoção de plataformas sociais do procedimento de engajamento do cliente para construir relacionamentos mais originais. Somente nos últimos anos os players ocidentais, como o Facebook, tiveram que adotar o comércio social por meio de botões de compra, chatbots ou pesquisas baseadas em imagens. Dada a principal demanda por compras sociais entre os clientes asiáticos e como as empresas locais possuem o ciclo completo, a implementação de métodos sociais tem sido um procedimento muito menos difícil do que para as do Ocidente, a célula definitiva da célula do Pacífico.
Michelle Evans is Global Lead of Retail Insights at Euromonitor International. She has been writing about the reinvention of retail for Forbes since 2016.
No Euromonitor, os clientes de todos os setores aproveitam seu profundo conhecimento de transformação virtual, comércio eletrônico e inovação geracional para aumentar suas estratégias de expansão. Reconhecida como líder de idéias no varejo, uma das pessoas mais influentes da indústria retalista através do Retenking Retail (2021-2024) foi nomeada. Também faz parte do Conselho de Parceiros Industriais da Federação Nacional de Varejo.
Ela compartilhou sua experiência em ocasiões do setor adicionando NRF: Big Show, ShopTalk, Comperyshop, World Retail Congress e Money 20/20. Aproveitando seu mestrado em jornalismo pela Northwestern University, ela é citada em publicações globais.
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