FILIPINOS have a reputation as being serious shoppers, and one particularly serious shopper spent over ?466,000 during Southeast Asian e-commerce site Shopee’s 11.11 Big Christmas Sale. The company said that in a single order, the Quezon City-based shopper bought motorcycle parts, electric tools, game consoles, smartphones, and tablets.
That serious shopper was just one of many as Shopee announced that it had set two new records at its recent 11.11 online shopping festival: over 2 billion items were bought by shoppers across the region, which includes Taiwan, during the festival period, smashing its previous record in 2020; and shoppers’ visits spiked 5.5 times within the first two hours of Nov. 11 compared to an average day.
In the Philippines, the 11.11 Big Christmas Sale attracted more shoppers from outside the metro, Shopee said, with most orders in the country coming from South Luzon, followed by Metro Manila.
“It brings us great joy to see the impact of our 11.11 Big Christmas Sale on shoppers, businesses, and our local communities,” said Martin Yu, Director at Shopee Philippines, in a statement. “The digital economy continues to present many opportunities for growth, and we want to enable more people to benefit from this growth by increasing e-commerce adoption and helping more consumers and businesses go online. At the same time, we are humbled that we can use our platform to give back to the wider community and support those in need. We look forward to creating more impact for our users in the months ahead.”
According to the Shopee statement, the sale saw the number of shoppers from rural and smaller towns increase five times when compared to a regular day. It also said that more than 3.5 billion messages were sent on the in-app Shopee Chat on Nov. 11, “as shoppers were able to interact live with sellers and get more information prior to making their purchases.”
It also noted that more shoppers used ShopeePay to pay for their Shopee orders across the region, “especially outside big cities where ShopeePay transactions grew nine times from an average day,” it said in a statement.
Local sellers who had joined the 11.11 sale for the first time “saw their orders surge 18 times compared to an average day,” said the statement.
The e-commerce company noted that Filipinos “have consistently prioritized health essentials and home decor during Shopee’s past sales, and the 11.11 Big Christmas Sale was no different.” Shoppers stocked up with 3 million face masks and bought over 800,000 wallpapers, it pointed out.
The brands that attracted the most orders among Filipinos during the sale were Uni-Care, Unilever Beauty, Xiaomi, NIVEA, and INSPI.
Aside from the bargains, the 11.11 sale also included entertainment, notably live-streaming of the K-Pop boy band NCT 127, among others. The site said 5 million hours of live streams were watched on Shopee Live during the sale, and that over 270 million plays were recorded on Shopee Prizes in the Philippines.
Over 1.2 million offline payment vouchers were claimed through ShopeePay “Deals near Me,” Shopee’s location-based feature, it said. Almost 100,000 users used ShopeePay to pay their utility bills, taking advantage of rewards in the form of cashbacks, it noted.