Thais lead the world in shopping via social media
By Coconuts Bangkok


Screenshot: Happy Pills

BANGKOK: -- With thousands of local shops selling crafts, clothes and gadgets exclusively on Instagram and Facebook, Thailand has the largest percentage of consumers who shop directly on social media.

Over 51 percent of online shoppers in Thailand said they bought products by interacting with merchants on social media, more than India (32 percent), Malaysia (31 percent) and China (27 percent), according to the annual Total Retail survey by PricewaterhouseCooper, a consultant firm.

The survey questioned some 23,000 online shoppers in 25 countries.

Full story: http://bangkok.coconuts.co/2016/04/19/thais-lead-world-shopping-social-media

-- Coconuts Bangkok 2016-04-20

Presumably they pay by credit card.

Most of my experience with online transactions out of Thailand has been met with refusal , apparently Thailand is well known for scams and stolen Credit Cards, gee I didn't know that..............................................

Yet another "hub" survey. 23,000 shoppers in 25 countries. So less than 1,000 per country is totally meaningless. Better would be a table showing the cash value of things traded on-line.

Including shopping for sex, guns and amphetamines...

I would like to know where they did the survey in China,

as i find it very hard to believe, the total percentages,

having worked there and seen the amount of use of

on line purchasing,( I was only 4.5 hrs from Beijing,)

How many people live in China? like most people they

reframe from replying to surveys, how many times have you your self by passed such,

More drivel and a nonsense result. 920 people from each 25 countries,

oh how accurate .

Why do many Thai company's only have a Fayboo, not a website or online shop?

You could look at it another way, Thais spend too much time on social media and are easily fooled into buying utter crap on it.

This is a "nice spin" of a rather sad story. (long live the spin-doctors)

The reason why Thais lead the world in shopping via social media is that Thailand is years behind the rest of the world when it comes to development of web pages and online payment systems.

A lack of qualified people to teach someone to make this as well does not help.

That is why people selling have been forced to utilize existing platforms to try to make something similar to online shopping.

Procedure:

You find product..

Send message back and forth a couple of times with seller.

go to bank / ATM - transfer money to seller

send picture of receipt to seller

Seller sends goods by EMS - and send tracking code....

Thais lead the world in shopping via social media

That's a face-gainer for sure!

Edited April 20, 201610 yr by klauskunkel

Amazon.com and Ebay beware.

Sad as this story shows Thais want to participate.

in the USA, online shopping has been made bullet proof. Thailand has along way to go.

Thais lead the world in shopping via social media

So the world is only 25 countries now?

Happy Pills?

The best online shopping in the world is Amazon.com. Best service, no fakes, frequently the best prices, two-day free shipping in the U.S. if you belong to Prime membership. And you can buy just about anything there. Thanks for Chinese government propaganda, even the most informed Chinese think Amazon is only for books. I never buy anything through social media.

Percentage is high because functioning retail online shops are scarce. Especially the lack of PayPal sucks.

If you read the actual report from PWC (which is quite an extensive report from a reputed company), you'll see that it is the emerging economies that use social media for online purchases the most by far. Established economies predominantly use the traditional ebay, paypal, credit cards, company website etc.

Conclusion - There is no established infrastructure in most of these emerging countries for online purchases as we know it in the west. Social media is a recent phenomenon in emerging countries and seems to have leap frogged the traditional online purchasing infrastructure due to a lack thereof. The PWC report infers that purchases through social media in the established economies is increasing, to the detriment of traditional online infrastructural shopping. If the trend continues, social media transactions will increase sharply in established economies in coming years.

The report is well worth a read.

My Gf ordered a watch for herself on lazada. When it came it was a mens watch, and not a small one. Quite large. She was told that it was a womens watch but and xxxl size for a large women. She gave it to her dad. ......I only get COD stuff and open the package real fast before I hand over any money.............

Absolute nonsense. The Chinese purchase dang near everything through wechat now, and only they know how many are using it. Wechat moments is their version of Facebook + chat + bank + everything else. They even use it to order food and book a taxi. Incredible app BUT to get all of those features you need to have a Chinese number or have someone send you funds.

Thailand couldn't possibly come close to the business happening in China through wechat. Poor survey.

The best online shopping in the world is Amazon.com. Best service, no fakes, frequently the best prices, two-day free shipping in the U.S. if you belong to Prime membership. And you can buy just about anything there. Thanks for Chinese government propaganda, even the most informed Chinese think Amazon is only for books. I never buy anything through social media.

Chinese have their own, much better, version called TaoBao. Smokes Amazon in every way. They literally sell everything on there, and have return policy and so on. You can even buy Thai SIM cards from TaoBao cheaper than you can buy them in Thailand, and they are legit. The large numbers allow incredible deals at discounted prices.

I was a bit sceptical about this so I had a look on Google to find out more.

This makes good reading

http://recode.net/2015/07/24/for-impulse-shoppers-a-brave-new-retail-world-on-social-media/

Online shopping with ebay Amazon et al is not the same as social media shopping.

Edited April 20, 201610 yr by Muhendis

Not a surprise. Their smartphones may as well be melted into their hands. Neck supports will be a big hit in TH soon. Maybe I should start an online shop selling them already, 555

Most of my experience with online transactions out of Thailand has been met with refusal , apparently Thailand is well known for scams and stolen Credit Cards, gee I didn't know that..............................................

Yeah, if I want to use my credit card here for anything larger than about 10000 baht, I had better let my CC company about if before I make the purchase, otherwise the transaction will be refused, and my CC will be blocked for fraudulent activity.

Pain in the ass actually.

This is a "nice spin" of a rather sad story. (long live the spin-doctors)

The reason why Thais lead the world in shopping via social media is that Thailand is years behind the rest of the world when it comes to development of web pages and online payment systems.

A lack of qualified people to teach someone to make this as well does not help.

That is why people selling have been forced to utilize existing platforms to try to make something similar to online shopping.

Procedure:

You find product..

Send message back and forth a couple of times with seller.

go to bank / ATM - transfer money to seller

send picture of receipt to seller

Seller sends goods by EMS - and send tracking code....

Thailand does have good online payment systems for legitimate businesses. The reason for social media commerce has more to do with sellers avoiding tax etc.

The best online shopping in the world is Amazon.com. Best service, no fakes, frequently the best prices, two-day free shipping in the U.S. if you belong to Prime membership. And you can buy just about anything there. Thanks for Chinese government propaganda, even the most informed Chinese think Amazon is only for books. I never buy anything through social media.

Oh Amazon has fakes. Maybe not amazon per se, but amazon marketplace sure does. I bought a 'used' DVD from a marketplace retailer that turned out to be a pirated copy of the movie. When I complained to amazon, they didn't care, they just said to take it up with the retailer.

So beware what you buy in the amazon marketplace.

Absolutely meaningless survey, article and headline.

If you read the article it states that 51% of Thais THAT SHOP ONLINE use social media. What percentage of Thais shop online? That's not stated in the article. Pretty small, I'd have thought, so the numbers shopping on social media is 51% of that small amount. And with just 25 countries in the survey this article should really be confined to the bin.

Now I understand the 12% drop in Bangkok Bank's profit.

Percentage is high because functioning retail online shops are scarce. Especially the lack of PayPal sucks.

What do you mean "lack of PayPal"? I have a PayPal account linked to my Bangkok Bank account. Had it for years, I use it to send money abroad from Thailand.

Presumably they pay by credit card.

Maybe COD?

Thais buying online from amazon.com or local online shopping websites, not so much, but via social media e.g facebook it's surprising how popular it has become in only a few years. Even my wife buys stuff off facebook, mainly cosmetics with no credit card required, just a bank transfer etc. So far she has never had any problems but she has never purchased expensive items e.g. designer handbags, which may be fake. The cosmetics can have a fairly high mark-up if they are originally from overseas but it can still be easier than buying from an overseas site. I sometimes bring back things for her from Australia because I can usually get the same items for half-price or less but that's not going to be an option for most Thais.

What it means is that Thailand is No. 1 at something. That's what's important.