This week’s round-up has stats aplenty on ecommerce, customer experience, location data and smart speakers.
And if that isn’t enough for you, don’t forget you can always find lots more in our well-stocked Internet Statistics Database.
58% of global consumers are prepared to buy more products internationally
A survey of more than 3,500 consumers across seven countries – the UK, Germany, France, Japan, Australia, Singapore and the USA – found that 58% of global consumers would purchase more international products online if they were made aware of the brands.
The research, carried out by Rakuten Marketing, found that interest in purchasing internationally is highest among the 18-34 age group, with 67% of shoppers in that age group worldwide interested in buying internationally. Region-wise, shoppers from Asia-Pacific countries showed the most interest in international purchases (65%), while 99% of consumers from Singapore reported already having purchased goods from another country.
Three-fifths of Singaporean consumers (61%) also say they intend to make more international purchases online next year, compared with only two-fifths (43%) of UK consumers.
The research notes that aligning marketing with the individual consumer need is all the more important considering that 63% of respondents said they only consider one or two brands when purchasing something online. Yet they still expect a broad choice – two-thirds of participants stressed the importance of breadth of selection and simplicity of the shopping experience, with expectations highest among Millennial respondents.
Baidu overtakes Google to become the second-biggest smart speaker vendor worldwide
According to new data released by Canalys this week, Google has been knocked down a peg in the ranking of top smart speaker vendors worldwide – to be replaced by Baidu.
Despite only selling its smart speakers within China, Baidu has overtaken Google both in terms of smart speaker shipments in Q2 2019 and in terms of overall market share. Google shipped 4.3 million smart speakers worldwide in Q2 this year and took a 16.7% share of the market, while Baidu shipped 4.5 million smart speakers, taking a 17.3% market share. King of the hill is of course Amazon, with 6.6 million smart speakers shipped and 25.4% market share.
This time last year, the figures looked very different. In Q2 2018, Google led the group with 5.4 million shipments and 32.3% market share, followed by Amazon with 4.1 million shipments and 24.5% market share. Alibaba was in third place with 3 million shipments and 17.7% market share, while Baidu was nowhere to be seen – with 0.1 million shipments and just 0.7% market share. This meteoric rise to become the second-biggest smart speaker vendor worldwide represents a 3700% annual growth rate for Baidu.
Given that Google and Baidu operate in mutually exclusive markets, Baidu’s rise doesn’t present a threat to Google’s smart speaker business. However, this marks the first time that Google has shown a year-over-year decline in smart speaker shipments per quarter. As noted by Voicebot.ai, the Q2 2019 figures represent a halving of the company’s market share and a 20% decrease in sales – compared to a sales increase of at least 37% by every other vendor in the ranking.
Baidu, meanwhile, has been in need of some positive news amidst a steady decline in its share price: earlier this month, the company slid out of the top five valuable publicly traded Chinese internet companies even as rivals like Alibaba and Tencent surged in value. Baidu’s share price has seen a 40% decline so far this year, and a new competitor has arisen in the form of Toutiao Search, a search engine launched by Chinese tech startup Bytedance.
Baidu’s rise to smart speaker dominance may mark the beginning of its fightback – and indicate where Baidu should focus its efforts next as web search recedes in importance in the Chinese internet landscape.
44% of online shoppers failed to complete an order because it would not arrive fast enough
Internet Retailer’s recently-released 2019 Click, Ship & Return Fulfillment Report takes a deep dive into the latest policies, costs and trends in e-retailer shipping and delivery, via a secret shopper test of 52 online retailers and a consumer survey of more than 1,000 online respondents on 10 measures of ecommerce fulfilment.
It found that 44% of online shoppers did not complete an order because it wouldn’t arrive fast enough, while 30% of online shoppers have ordered items for same-day delivery.
55% of the top 1000 retailers, as ranked by Internet Retailer, offer next-day delivery, while 47% of Top 1000 retail chains offer Buy Online, Pick Up In-Store, or BOPIS.
The research further highlights just how important speed of fulfillment and delivery has become for consumers who shop online, and how much business retailers stand to lose if they can’t meet these high expectations.
55% of APAC marketers are using location data to help measure relevance and attribution
A new study commissioned by mobile location technology company Blis and conducted by WBR Insights has found that a majority of marketers in the Asia-Pacific region are using location data to identify the right audiences for marketing tasks.
As reported 55% of respondents to the survey – which interviewed 150 senior marketers from travel, retail and consumer goods brands across 11 APAC markets – reported using location data for relevance and attribution, while 67% reported using it for out-of-home (OOH) buys and 63% for TV ads.
The research also found that investment in paid location data-based advertising has increased: 31% of marketers spent between US $10,000 and US $50,000 on location-based advertising, while 21% spent between $50,000 and $100,000 – and 11% claimed to spend more than $100,000.
Other uses for location data among APAC marketers included using geo-conquesting – a practice of using geo-location to attract customers away from competitors using location-based ads – to target competitor stores, using geofencing to win over shoppers, and charting the correlation between store traffic and sales.
Brands are still disappointing Singapore consumers on customer experience
Singapore is a market with a reputation for high expectations when it comes to customer experience. Unfortunately, according to the Singapore 2019 Customer Experience Index, released by Forrester this week, brands are still not living up to these expectations.
According to the Index, which is based on a survey of more than 4,000 Singaporean adult consumers, the overall quality of customer experience (CX) in Singapore has remained flat at 55 points out of 100 since 2018.
Some industries have improved their track records with customer experience since last year: the average scores in the auto/home insurance industry and government rose to 55.8 and 52.2 respectively, despite the Singapore government remaining bottom of the rankings for the second year in a row. The multichannel banking industry continued to have the highest average score of 58.9.
One brand that achieved a noteworthy turnaround of its customer experience was Singapore Airlines, which after achieving a “poor” rating in the 2018 Customer Experience Index (alongside fellow airlines Cathay Pacific and Thai Airways) rose to the top of the index with an average score of 61.4, overtaking DBS Bank and OCBC Bank. This success has come on the heels of a mobile app relaunch earlier this year that was specifically aimed at enhancing customer experience.
It goes to show that moving the needle on customer experience is perfectly possible for brands in Singapore (and across the world) – but more will need to invest in doing so in order to impress consumers.