Euromonitor International has introduced a study, ‘Top 100 Retailers in Asia,’ examining how Asia Pacific is shifting its retailing landscape and what factors are leading to this change.
According to Euromonitor International, the rise of the marketplace model is one of the major reasons why digital commerce has grown and will continue to do so. In 2018, 47 percent of all digital B2C commerce sales were made through the marketplace model, up from 27 percent in 2009. In addition to offering a very wide selection, large marketplaces such as Alibaba, JD.com and Rakuten, have brought security to payments and reliability to delivery.
With the region accounting for 41 percent of global spend in 2018, increased wealth, ageing, urbanisation and single households are major drivers impacting consumer attitudes towards retail.
“E-commerce has eclipsed non-store retailing in Asia Pacific, with urban consumers shifting from bulk purchases to a ‘buy as you need’ mentality. While traditional grocery remains strong in emerging Asian economies, more consumers are turning to modern formats, especially forecourt retail and convenience stores,” says Ivan Uzunov, Research Manager at Euromonitor International. “The major shift of the consumers though is away from the physical store as shoppers become more comfortable with buying non-grocery products online,” he added.
Euromonitor expects Asia Pacific’s internet retailing market sales to reach US$ 1.6 trillion by 2023, almost doubling from 2018. As Asian households will become wealthier over 2018-2023 led by Indonesia, Malaysia and India, the larger regional markets remain in the focus of large retailers’ expansion plans.
The top 5 Asia Pacific retailers in 2018 were:
– Alibaba Group Holding Ltd
– JD.com Inc
– Seven & I Holdings Co Ltd
– AEON Group
– Amazon.com Inc
