Online shopping in Hong Kong

Interesting facts about the shopping habits of Hong Kong internet users

Although there is no denying that online shopping has brought much convenience to people’s lives, the issue poses a great challenge for retailers as there is a number of points to consider. What kind of devices do Hongkongers use to shop online? How much money do they spend? How does the shopping activity change across the year? Is online shopping more popular among men or women? To look for answers, Picodi.com analysed last year’s data and presented the results in this report.

Smartphones far behind

Although mobile commerce is booming globally, it turns out Hongkongers still prefer desktops over smartphones. According to our internal data, only 1 out of 4 transactions was made with the use of a mobile device last year.

On the other hand, Hongkongers tend to spend more when using smartphones. When they did shopping with the use of a phone, the average order value was HK$1041. It’s about HK$320 more than when using desktops (HK$721) and HK$773 when using tablets (HK$268). iOS users spend more than Android users —HK$1056 vs HK$929 on average.

The important question is who shops online more — men or women? Our data shows that there were more purchases made by Hong Kong men than those made by women, 55% and 45% respectively.

Unsurprisingly, it’s the young generation that prefers online shopping. Almost half of all online shoppers (45%) are people between the ages of 25 and 34. They’re followed by people aged 18-24 (22%) and 35-44% (21%). The remaining 12% are consumers who are over 45 years old.

Busy end of the year

According to our research, the average order value of a Hong Kong shopper is the highest in August (HK$1579), followed by November and July (HK$1422 and HK$1138 accordingly).

If you look at the shopping activity, it turns out November has the highest number of transactions — 14.5% of all the transactions made during the year. The second busiest month when it comes to the number of transactions was December (10.8%), followed by January (10.6%). Last-minute Christmas shoppers might have greatly contributed to such a high number in the former month. The lowest number of transactions was noted in July.

If we look at the activity of Hong Kong consumers across the week, it turns out that mobile users are the most active on Sunday (18% of all weekly transactions). On the other hand, shopping on computers is preferred during the first part of the weekend — Friday (19%) and Saturday (17%). Hongkongers definitely prefer to shop in the evenings: the peak of sales occurs between 18:00 and 24:00.

The most popular categories for online shopping among Hongkongers were: clothing, travel, food on delivery, jewellery and cosmetics.

Online shoppers around the world

We analysed data from 35 countries and compared the devices people use to shop online and the average order value. Hong Kong, with only 23% of orders made on mobile devices, is among the countries where desktop shopping takes the lead.

Peru tops the ranking with 76% of online purchases made with the use of smartphones. Close behind are Nigeria and Thailand (62% and 56%). Among countries that fall behind Hong Kong were Portugal (33%) and Australia (34%).

However, when it comes to the average order value, Hongkongers with their US$100 (HK$781) rank higher than the world’s average, which is US$79. It looks like Hungarians and Turks don’t like to spend a lot in one go. They are at the bottom of the ranking with US$32 and US$38 respectively.

Online shopping in numbers:

• 1 out of 4 transactions was made on a mobile device last year,
• there were more purchases made by men than by women (55% vs 45%),
• almost half of all online shoppers (45%) are people between the ages of 25 and 34,
• the average order value in Hong Kong is the highest in August (HK$1579),
• the highest number of transactions was noted in November — 14.5% of all annual transactions,
• fashion, travel and food delivery are the top 3 categories for online shopping

Aliexpress, ebay, Foodpanda and Farfetch are the most popular marketplaces in Hong Kong, however, not many users know that shopping in those places can be made even better with cashback. All you have to do is activate it in Picodi before each purchase.

Methodology

This report uses the internal data of a global e-commerce platform Picodi.com for 2018. For currency conversion, we used the average exchange rate for March 2019.

Public Use

Are you willing to share the information and infographics about shopping online in Hong Kong with your readers? Feel free to use all the data and infographics presented in this report for both commercial and non-commercial purposes as long as you indicate the author of the research (Picodi.com) with a link to this subpage.