More Filipinos are patronizing home-based online businesses, study reveals - Android

Visa’s Consumer Payment Attitudes study conducted in August and September 2020 revealed three key trends in how Filipinos are shifting towards digital transactions.

It’s said that more consumers are starting to be comfortable shopping online. In fact, 93% of consumers increased their online shopping activities last year.

Meanwhile, 1 in 2 Filipinos have tried e-commerce shopping for the first time.

What’s surprising is that the study revealed that most Filipinos (7 out of 10) are actually shopping on social media channels than on dedicated websites and apps.

That’s possibly due to small home-based and online business that uses social media as their storefront. As per the study, 61% of Filipinos prefer these types of businesses, dominating the 53% of people who would go with bigger digital marketplaces.

The third trend is the increase in the use of delivery services by 67% of Filipinos—no surprises there as it’s one of the main components in e-commerce transactions.

Moreover, cashless payments are starting to gain steam since the pandemic. From 7 out of 10, only 5 out of 10 Filipinos now prefer still paying in cash. Filipinos also said that there are transactions that can be done cashless: bill payments, online travel, and grocery shopping.

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The reason behind this is fairly obvious. First, using cash can easily spread infection. Plus, more stores have started to accept cashless payments since the health crisis. Going cashless also has benefits like convenience, lowers the risk of theft, and the ease of tracking financial activities.

e-wallet services like GCash and PayMaya are some of the easiest ways to get on board the cashless revolution. They’ve even innovated recently bringing more features like stocks investments, insurance, and more. Tonik, a digital-only bank, even offers a 6% deposit interest rate.

Despite the increased adaptation, the Philippines is still behind its neighboring countries. For one, Singapore only has 15% of its population who prefer cash on transactions.

The Visa Consumer Payment Attitudes study is done annually and conducted in different regions of the Philippines like Metro Manila, Cavite, Cebu, Pampanga, Negros Occidental, and more.

VIa: NewsBytes

This article, More Filipinos are patronizing home-based online businesses, study reveals, was originally published at NoypiGeeks | Philippines Technology News, Reviews and How to's.