Many people associate this with the so-called 'revenge shopping' which refers to people actively spending after a long time sitting at home avoiding the epidemic.

However, Steven Tuan Nguyen, Criteo’s Senior Director in Southeast Asia, said the trend of "revenge shopping" has nothing to do with the forecast of online purchasing power to rise by the end of this year in Vietnam and the region.

The Covid-19 epidemic has forced people of all countries to shop online. It is forecast that near the end of this year, no matter how the Covid-19 epidemic changes, special shopping days like November 11 and December 12 will create record sales.

Last year, Criteo made a similar forecast which was accurate.

“In 2019, online sales increased, but were still low compared to direct sales. However, in 2020, the gap of revenue between the two forms of shopping narrowed. The reason is that Covid-19 caused a decrease in in-store shopping, and an increase in online shopping," said Steven.

Criteo is a technology company providing advertising solutions for major e-commerce platforms in Vietnam and around the world.

According to the company's data, in Vietnam, November 11 was recorded as the biggest shopping day, with online retail sales on November 11, 2020 up by 378% and product views increasing by 126% compared to the baseline figures of the year. December 12 was the second most popular shopping time in Vietnam, with online retail sales increasing at 369% last year. Meanwhile, Black Friday also saw a 78% increase in retail sales.

In Southeast Asia, Vietnam and Singapore are similar with November 11 as the biggest shopping day of the year. However, across the region, December 12 is the peak shopping occasion, but the difference between these two occasions is not high.

Steven explained that the Indonesian market focuses most on the December 12 shopping day, thus pushing up average sales in the region. Indonesia has the fourth largest population in the world, the largest in Southeast Asia, so its scale is large enough to affect sales in the whole region.

Vietnam has a Black Friday occasion between November 11 and December 12, so e-commerce platforms must allocate resources for all three special shopping days within a short time. This resulted in lower sales on December 12 compared to November 11.

Hai Dang

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