Southeast Asia’s e-commerce race is shifting from getting people online, with penetration already at 80 to 90 per cent, to keeping them. The next contest is over the customers already there, and a new survey commissioned by Lazada suggests the most valuable of them are also the hardest to keep inside any one app.

According to the 2026 eCommerce Savvy Shopper Report by research firm Cube, one in four qualify as ‘savvy shoppers’. “The next wave of growth will come from helping shoppers participate more deeply and confidently,” said Iris Wei, president of Lazada Group. “Savvy shoppers point to what this future looks like: one shaped by deeper engagement, more confident spending, and greater confidence in navigating value, trust, protection and technology. The opportunity now is to make savvy shopping easier for more consumers.”

These shoppers report spending 31 per cent more each month than everyone else. Cube estimates the difference is worth about US$11.5 billion in marketplace spending across the region this year, or roughly 7 per cent of the total. The firm notes that this is spending associated with savvy shoppers, not extra spending caused by them.

The Philippines has the highest share of savvy shoppers at 36 per cent, and they account for 45 per cent of the country’s e-commerce spending. Indonesia follows at 28 per cent, then Vietnam (25 per cent), Thailand (22 per cent) and Malaysia (20 per cent).

The biggest difference between savvy shoppers and the rest is not price. It is how much they rely on sources outside the marketplace.

Source link