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Shopee sees more men buying food online during quarantine
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As user opens the e-commerce app Shopee. Shopee has found a significant increase in male users buying food ingredients as food sales on its platform surged during the social distancing period. (Shutterstock.com/shutter_o/File)
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-commerce platform Shopee has found a significant increase in male users buying ingredients as food sales on its platform surged during the social distancing period.
Shopee Indonesia director Handhika Jahja said men's purchases of fresh, frozen and instant food products had increased six-fold compared to last year, suggesting that men had been making more home-cooked meals during the quarantine.
“Consumers found comfort in online shopping while they need to stay home because of the pandemic, and we see this shift as long-term evolution,” he said in a statement on Thursday.
He noted that shoppers were relying on e-commerce for daily needs, especially food and beverage, while sellers used online platforms to reach consumers amid the outbreak.
Shopee recorded a sharply increasing trend of re-ordering food items last month, with diced meat, frozen kebab, instant coffee, rice, soy sauce and sugar becoming the most popular products. Food product variation had doubled over the last year.
The company also found that online food purchases from outside the Jakarta area had tripled in the last few months. As sellers adapt to online marketing through live streaming on the Shopee platform, they can reach more consumers, which helped them increase sales by 3.5 times, Handhika added.
“Social distancing due to the pandemic has made a huge change in consumers’ lifestyles, which in turn affects how our merchant partners do their business. This pushes us to better our system in supporting our customers and partners,” he said.
The company also said demand for canned food had soared in March as the government initiated social distancing measures and prompted people to prepare more ready-to-cook ingredients at home. However, the trend soon switched to fresh ingredients in the following month as consumers for the category grew 11 times. (eyc)
