The report highlights how the majority of APAC consumers prioritize value over price, with 79% of consumers being inspired to shop by content that reveals products’ value rather than discounts.
Consumers in APAC are more focused on value rather than price, according to the latest report published by TikTok, who invited Accenture to develop this whitepaper. Titled Shoppertainment 2024: The Future of Consumer & Commerce here in APAC, the report provides a comprehensive outlook on the future of consumers and the evolving landscape of their behaviors, preferences, and expectations. Launching in APAC on January 23rd, 2024, the report covers key consumer trends across Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Thailand and Vietnam.
The report highlights a significant shift in consumer behaviour: 79% APAC consumers are influenced by non-promotional content. Only 21% of consumers are influenced by promotions across the decision journey. This ranges from 12% in South Korea and Thailand, 27% in Japan, and as high as 41% in Indonesia. Other content factors like product benefits, reviews, demonstration, and visuals hold greater value every stage of their decision journey. Increasingly, consumers are shifting their focus from price and promotion to value instead.
APAC Consumers split over Social and Product
The report also identifies two distinct consumer categories in APAC: social-oriented and product-oriented.
In markets like Vietnam, Thailand, and Korea consumers lean toward being social-oriented. They rely on content recommendations from creators, are less promotion-sensitive, and have a higher degree of trusting intuition when making a purchase.
On the other hand, consumers in Japan and Indonesia, are more product-oriented. They prioritize product information and benefits in their content consumption, are more responsive to discounts, and rely less on their intuition when making purchase decisions.
“In this era of content and evolving consumer behaviours, it’s imperative for brands to facilitate intuitive decision-making and establish rapport with their audiences by striking the right balance between long-term relationship building and short-term promotions,” said Arthur Altounian, VP of Client Strategy & Growth for APAC at GroupM (The Goat Agency). “Brands should remain consumer-first and mindful of creating a seamless experience, which includes engaging content and sales strategies that emphasise the product benefits and offer value.”
Seamless, and informed, purchase decisions
Increasingly, consumers across APAC are looking for more content-driven video platforms which drive content-triggered shopping and facilitate intent-driven buying through search. The report shows that 1.9x more consumers regularly search for products on content-driven platforms like TikTok than on traditional search engines. And this trend is increasing. Amongst APAC consumers, 93% want to continue or increase their discovery, consideration and purchase of products on content-driven platforms in the next 1-2 years.
And while 22% of consumers are influenced by brands only, 48% of consumers are influenced by Content Communities, which are networks of brand and product content that drive interaction and co-creation among consumers and brands. Content co-creation has become as integrated and concurrent as the consumption of content itself, with 73% of consumers creating content in ‘fluid’ ways through trends, contributing in comment sections, and more.
“TikTok delivers content-led commerce to consumers,” said Shant Oknayan, Head of Global Business Solutions for Asia-Pacific, Middle East, Africa, and Central Asia. “As technology continues to develop, and economic factors influence consumer habits, brands must look to engage with their consumers in ways that provide them not only the best deal, but also an entertaining, seamless experience that does not disrupt their task flow. The clear lines between shopping and other activities are beginning to blur, and so it’s even more crucial for brands to deliver content that helps consumers buy what they want, when they want to, and how they want to.”
The Shoppertainment 2024: The Future of Consumer & Commerce here in APAC report is available for download on www.tiktokshoppertainment.com
(Source: TikTok)
