Spire talks about emerging Tech Retail trends in ASEAN

Spire was honored to participate at the GATES Consumer Channel Summit, Southeast Asia, 2019. The Summit was held on 20-22 March, in Bangkok. Hafidz Omar, Thailand Country Manager at Spire Research and Consulting, shared his insights on key trends in consumer tech and challenges encountered in ASEAN.

Omar discussed how the IOT (Internet of Things) is impacting the retail industry in ASEAN countries. He also discussed the growth opportunities in geofencing, mobile payment and retail operations, to name a few recent innovations in retail technology.

With the expansion of Geofencing technology (defined by GPS or RFID technology) , in the next five years retailers will be able to customize merchandise and promotions according to the customer profile.

Online payment is still a challenge for e-commerce retailers in Asia-Pacific as most customers prefer cash on delivery and 73 per cent of the Southeast Asia’s population do not own a bank account. However mobile payment may be a solution that bypasses the conventional banking system. 90 per cent of the people using smartphones are expected to have made a mobile payment by 2020.

With the implementation of the Comprehensive Tax Reform Program (CTRP), Corporate Income Tax would be gradually reduced from 30 per cent to 25 per cent. In 2020, the digital population is expected to reach over 100 million and the electronics industry is expected to be worth USD250 million.

Online retailers are using dynamic pricing to price goods based on different variables, such as time of day and demand. This is yet to be implemented by offline retailers.

Asia’s online retail growth is three times that of the rest of the world. This is evident in the Chinese market, where online retail penetration is 20 per cent and growth was 33 per cent in 2017.

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