Kathmandu, November 19

The trend of shopping online for Christmas appears to be on the rise in Asia.

The survey conducted by Rakuten found that 75 per cent of shoppers are expected to buy more, or at least, same number of Christmas gifts online this year as previous year.

In addition, nearly half (47 per cent) of shoppers said they would do their Christmas shopping online this year, due to convenience (83 per cent), easier browsing and comparison of products (55 per cent) and cost effectiveness from attractive rebates and loyalty programmes (41 per cent). The same shoppers reported an average increase of 20 per cent, in terms of the amount spent online on Christmas shopping in 2014, versus the year before, as per a press statement issued today.

The Rakuten Shopping Secrets survey 2015 was conducted on more than 2,500 men and women aged 20 to 60 in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Taiwan. This is the second year running that Rakuten, an internet services company that runs online shopping sites across Asia, Europe and the Americas, has commissioned it.

“The survey found that when shopping for a gift, shoppers look at price (33 per cent) as single biggest factor influencing their decision of what to buy, followed by likeability by the recipient (26 per cent) and its practicality (25 per cent),” the statement quoted Masaya Ueno, director of Rakuten Asia, as saying.

The survey also found that a quarter of the recipients had received gifts that they disliked last year. These ill-received gifts ended up

being re-gifted (38 per cent), kept somewhere and forgotten about (33 per cent), donated

to charity (24 per cent), or being sold off (13 per cent).