Shop Talk: eCommerce trends you need to know in 2022

Ecommerce has been on the rise over the past two years and this trend is expected to continue into 2022. Shopee has been a key player in Southeast Asia’s eCommerce space, constantly engaging consumers with games, live-streams as well as brand ambassadors and celebrities.

Shopee Mall has witnessed an eight times increase in the number of users shopping online at least once a month in the past two years of the pandemic. To further ride on this wave, Shopee unveiled a new mega shopping event on 15 March and upgraded its suite of shopper engagement features to deliver more immersive, personalised, and entertaining experiences that aim to contribute to deeper brand affinity and loyalty.

It also expanded its suite of marketing solutions and tools to optimise marketing impact and returns for businesses.

In this latest episode of Shop Talk, Shopee’s regional marketing lead Pan Huiyan (pictured) shares what the future of eCommerce is going to be like, what industry trends will shape the coming year, and how Shopee is helping brand partners with their full-funnel journey.

Listen to the podcast here. This podcast is presented by Shopee.

MARKETING-INTERACTIVE: What are some of the industry and consumer trends that will shape the coming year?

Pan: Let me condense this into three key trends. Firstly, brands are building more seamless experiences across offline and online channels. So, as restrictions begin to lift and consumers start going back towards life pre-pandemic or in the new normal, more offline engagements can be expected for sure.

But on the same note, consumers have also grown so used to digital services – and it’s really an integral part of their lives – which means we can’t just look at purchasing habits from only one channel at all. Therefore, we are working together with brands to refocus on offering a very fresh in-store experience that incorporates technology, and new experiences that blend seamlessly with their online stores as well.

For example, HP launched its first auto retail flagship hub in Southeast Asia and Shopee partnered the company for an exclusive launch campaign in February. With this store, online consumers have the opportunity to chat with HP live advisors, which comprise a team of experts on the Shopee app to listen to advice in local languages via live video calls. At the same time, consumers can also watch HP’s new product launches on live-streams on Shopee Live, and in the HP virtual showroom as well.

A second trend we have also observed is that brands today are catering to different consumer trends quickly with eCommerce agility. So it’s a win-win situation right there. One example of this is the growing interest in sustainable lifestyle options. So eCommerce gives brands some room to try new things and allows them the ability to execute them quickly, and respond to growing consumer interests.

Last year, we collaborated with industry leaders such as P&G, Unilever, and L’Oréal on initiatives to raise awareness on sustainable lifestyle choices and products.

For Unilever, we partnered with them on the “Clean Home. Clean Nation” programme on Shopee aimed at fostering cleaner communities across Southeast Asia. This programme kicked off with a regional Super Brand Day campaign showcasing Unilever’s home care portfolio, and then encouraged shoppers to make a positive impact towards a cleaner environment.

A portion of the orders went towards community cleaning and activities, alongside local NGOs and charities as well, thus supporting them at the same time.

The programme provided education via online channels to spark more consciousness and awareness around this topic of environmental sustainability, which I think all of us can do a lot more of. I personally find this to be a great step towards all these collaborative and meaningful collaborations so there’s a lot more in store for us in 2022.

Lastly, there will definitely be a greater need for more personalisation. Consumers today are bombarded with different messages from companies and ads. So for brands, personalisation is very important if they want to stand out in a cluttered online space. In line with this, we will continue to introduce a lot of different new ways for brands to reach their customers more effectively, and in turn, build greater user satisfaction.

One example is our new customer intelligence dashboard, which provides brands with more insights on shopper demographics and segmentation. Using the data in this dashboard, brands can customise eCommerce and marketing strategies to deliver more personalised experiences in-app.

For instance, customising their inner chat broadcast messages to target specific shoppers who might have left items in their cart by waiting for an extra voucher to check out additional incentives to finalise the purchase.

MARKETING-INTERACTIVE: Do you have any advice on best practices that brands can tap on in the eCommerce space?

Pan: Ecommerce today is no longer just a point of sale, it represents a full funnel, and brands have to use this to their advantage. The consumer shopping journey today can span a wide range of channels, which makes it pretty complex and sometimes messy.

For example, consumers can hear about a product through word of mouth, and then go onto search engines to find out more. Thereafter, they want to look at some reviews so they go to social media or forums to read them. There are so many different permutations, and the user journey and the funnel is no longer simply a linear one.

What brands need to do is connect with consumers across the various touch-points that they want to prioritise, and then funnel them towards a more streamlined shopping journey. This is more efficient than trying to meet consumers’ needs across so many channels and optimising them to achieve one goal. For example, by driving customers in-app, brands can leverage Shopee to better engage customers across the full funnel.

The next thing is brands definitely must be where their customers are all year round.

A common misconception is that marketing strategies or planning are most effective when only activated during the campaign season.

During mega campaigns, we do see that shoppers are definitely starting to make purchase decisions well in advance. In fact, we found that shoppers started adding their desired items to their cart up to 30 days ahead of these annual campaigns.

A lot of times it’s like building a wish list. At any point in time when you are ready to check out, you can then make the purchase. Hence, people are actually thinking of buying things and building this wish list throughout the year.

As such, brands must use a mixture of tools to share their brand story or product-related information in an always-on manner, keeping that top of mindshare in the lead-up towards big campaigns such as 9.9, 11.11, or even the upcoming 3.15.

Consistent messaging on normal days can really help drive top-of-mind awareness and education, especially as shoppers seek information to aid their purchasing decisions all year round.

Lastly, brands can look to maximise mileage with our Super Brand Days. These are perfect opportunities for brands to really flex their 360 marketing and communications muscles to connect with customers, drive conversions, and encourage repurchasing.

MARKETING-INTERACTIVE: How else is Shopee helping brand partners with this full-funnel journey?

Pan: We have been constantly expanding our suite of marketing solutions and we also hear a lot of feedback from brands. Hence, brands now have more tools to better connect with their customers.

One of the solutions includes our Shopee display ads, which we’re looking to launch in the first half of this year. With this solution, brands can reserve impressions on Shopee’s home page banners for campaigns, giving them the highest in-app visibility and exposure to drive new conversions.

Similarly, we can also find new ways in which we can help our brand partners raise awareness, and drive customers in-app. Some of the ways in which we do this includes collaborating with industry-leading partners such as Facebook. So Facebook ads are now integrated with Shopee, making it easier for brands to drive more customers from Facebook and grow their business on Shopee as well.

Besides that, we are also strengthening our affiliate network and partners. We have amassed over 150,000 affiliate partners across the region and we’re still continuing to expand on this consistently.

This is again yet another example of how we can help our brand partners raise awareness of their brands, and to help drive their customers across different touch-points of the funnel. Once brands are able to effectively drive new and existing customers, they can then leverage our platform tools and solutions to then boost conversions and encourage purchasing.

MARKETING-INTERACTIVE: Shopee recently unveiled the five partners of your SG$100 Million Dollar Club. What are some of the things that you saw these top brands have, which allowed them to cross this milestone that all brands should now aspire towards?

Pan: Congratulations again to these top brand partners – L’Oréal Group, OPPO, realme, Samsung, and Xiaomi. These brands were really able to consistently and proactively build up a strong partnership with Shopee, especially in these key areas. Firstly, they collaborate very strongly and closely with us, and it really is a very close and ongoing partnership, especially on the regional campaigns.

Secondly, they plan and execute Shopee-exclusive product launches as well. When the product is Shopee-exclusive, then it is obvious the platform is a factor that really drives plenty of excited fans.

Thirdly, they actively participate in new platform features as well, such as adopting presale mechanics to encourage conversions. And finally, these brands constantly use always-on marketing to build recall among all their customers.

What the past two years have also shown us is the SG$100 million threshold might be a very difficult goal, but it’s not impossible. So it definitely is a milestone that hopefully we can work together with more brands to aspire towards.

At the same time, not all brands are at the same stage of the eCommerce journey. So it’s really about identifying where your brand is at right now, the resources you have on hand, and then how we can keep building upon the strategy from there.

At the end of the day, success to us is also about growing with our brands, especially as shopping continues to scale further because our brands are also powering us as a platform. So this year is already shaping up to be an exciting year and we welcome even more brands to achieve these milestones together with us.

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