Moving from e to m-commerce in Asia

Ten years later, the situation has been reversed with the rapid spread of Internet access. E-commerce sites now show fewer products to consumers by optimising for smartphone viewing, underscoring mobile’s disruption of e-commerce. 

Just like traditional merchandising, there is a need for retailers to build merchandise in a way that speaks to the customer, the way a shopkeeper does in a physical store. 

Asia-Pacific is projected to lead e-commerce sales in 2015, representing 33.4 per cent of worldwide e-commerce sales, according to eMarketer. With more than 2.6 billion mobile phone users in 2014, it comes as no surprise that Asia-Pacific consumers are more likely to purchase goods and services through mobile devices than the global average.

This makes mobile a crucially important channel for business and brands to connect with people in Asia Pacific. As more consumers go mobile-first, retailers need to develop strategies built on personalised marketing, the social experience of shopping, and retargeting and remarketing.

 

Personalised marketing at scale

Mobile, for instance, offers marketers the opportunity to personalise content at the group, or individual level. The smartphone is now the go-to device for adults – at least 76 per cent are using it for communication and social activity while on the go, and more than 60 per cent own more than one mobile device. People are increasingly switching between their devices, with the same study showing at least 40 per cent of adults starting an activity on one device, but finishing it on another. 

As such, it’s imperative that we think about how all types of marketers can reach their customers in ways that resonate and are integrated into the overall mobile experience. 

 

The social experience of shopping

Eighty per cent of online purchases are made without prior intent to buy that product. Offline, this discovery is known as “merchandising”, and its importance is understood by retailers. Online, however, this discovery is constant. At Facebook we call it “News Feed”, but feeds of all types occur on the Internet, and they are the future of merchandising.

For marketers, the challenge is to appear in the right feed to the right person, with the right product at the right time. Today, effective marketing and sales boil down to good targeting. Marketers need to be able to predict what each customer is going to find interesting, then target these predictions at them. With Big Data, we can now create really small segments of customers, and they’ll discover what matters to them.

 

Retargeting and remarketing

Since we now live in a multi-device world, it is vital for brands to understand the impact of their marketing strategies in order to optimise, evaluate and measure them. Because our platform is about real people, we give brands the ability to reach, report and measure across devices.

As such, we can improve people’s experience with ads by tailoring them to what they are interested in - while protecting their personal information. 

Previous studies of Facebook campaigns show that over 90 per cent of ad-driven in-store sales come from people who saw an ad but didn’t click on it, proving that people still make many purchases in physical retail stores despite browsing on mobile devices. 

Currently, 1.35 billion people on Facebook worldwide gives marketers access to not just generic demographics segmentations, but to specific motivations that drive consumer behaviour.

 

Deepesh Trivedi is head of Retail &  E-commerce for Southeast Asia at Facebook.