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Cambodia: New outbreak will align consumer behaviour with neighbouring countries
With the new cluster of COVID-19 infections, Cambodian consumer behaviour is likely to follow countries that experienced the pandemic more severely last year, according to data and artificial intelligence company, ADA.
Hubert Marchand, ADA’s country director in Cambodia, said that as a multi-national company, his firm is privileged to datasets from nine markets, allowing it to leverage that data to execute precise marketing solutions.
Across each market, consumer patterns have changed to reflect the status of the pandemic, the key takeaway being a rise in e-commerce and digital payments.
For example, about 56 percent of Singaporeans said they had purchased something online last May, while only 7 percent reported that they had not, according to German data portal Statista. Meanwhile, Malaysia’s e-commerce sector expanded by some 20 percent in 2020.
In Cambodia, searches for online shopping have increased by 47 percent since January 2020, according to data from Google Trends.
ADA Asia, a division of Smart Axiata , recently introduced e-commerce services to take advantage of the emerging trend. The data-first advertising agency using uses artificial intelligence and data analytics to reach consumers . The service is aimed at clients seeking comprehensive solutions to drive traffic, manage customer experience and create engaging content on digital marketplaces as well as e-commerce sites to attract custom.
“One of the benefits of being a data company is being able to find easter eggs in big data sets and see if they align with larger trends occurring in society,” Marchand said.
“Real-time geolocation allows us to understand where people go and when they stop going there. We conducted some exercises with 2020’s timeline looking at physical retailers, including supermarkets and malls,” he said.
The firm has a database that includes 6 million Cambodian devices that can be interpreted to predict consumer behaviour.
About 34 percent of Cambodians adopted e-commerce, digital payments or digital products in 2020. About one-third of people are first-time users and 94 percent of them say they will keep up usage, according to Marchand.
Just like in countries such as Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia, which saw more severe outbreaks, traffic in large Cambodian shopping malls fell, while footfall in specialised supermarkets increased to coincide with government announcements and varying degrees of travel restrictions. ADA found that there was a “big shift” after the March school closures. Its data shows that Cambodian consumers followed their ASEAN counterparts during the first wave of the outbreak.
“People were skipping the mall and increasingly going to supermarkets, but it was at different times of the day. Previously, people frequented supermarkets over the weekend but footfall spread throughout the day and weekdays,” Marchand said.
Things eventually levelled off by the end of April and remained that way until the incident in November, which resulted in the same pattern.
The Feb 20 event has resulted in a similar trend but, for Marchand, the key question is how to help his clients adapt.
ADA is in discussions with a major e-commerce specialist to bolster its division. Already, it has built relationships with Lazada, Shopee and Tokopedia and is working on expanding partnerships with Cambodian digital marketplaces and “super apps”.
“Cambodia is one of the markets in our portfolio we see lagging a bit behind regional neighbours such as Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. However, it typically grows faster and skips steps, earning it the title ‘The Leapfrog Kingdom’, Marchand said, noting that the pandemic will serve as an opportunity for Cambodia to embrace the increasingly digitalised future.
Source: https://www.khmertimeskh.com/50827210/new-outbreak-will-align-consumer-behaviour-with-neighbouring-countries/