Brunei: 76 percent of people are using ecommerce

Approximately 1,000 people aged 18 to 65 participated in the survey, which was carried out by The Authority for Info-communications Technology Industry of Brunei Darussalam (AITI) from January to February 2018.

What’s clear from the survey is that millennials dominated the ecommerce activity in Brunei, with the number of users declining as the age demographic is progressing. About 33% of respondents said they purchase items online once or twice a month, while 8% said they do it at least once a week. The vast majority of people who shopped online said it was because of convenience, better prices and more variety.

In the past 12 months, the majority of respondents (56%) spent USD 500 or less buying items online, while 26% spent more than USD 1,000.

The social media had a strong influence on what people bought, with 30% saying they made purchases because of the advertisements they saw on social platforms. About 57% of online shoppers said they prefer to shop via websites, while 24% said they use social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram.

According to the survey, the three most popular websites for Bruneian consumers are eBay, Zalora and Amazon. About 47% of ecommerce users said they shopped on eBay, followed by 36% for Zalora and 18% for Amazon. Chinese-owned Ali Express and Lazada are also gaining popularity, with 11% of users making purchases via those portals.

Credit or debit cards were the preferred method of payment for 84% of ecommerce users, other methods include online bank transfers (36%), e-wallets (27%) and offline payment or cash on delivery (19%).

However, 24% of respondents said they don’t use ecommerce because they are afraid of credit card fraud and non-delivery of items, while others prefer to shop in physical stores. About 6% said that they did not know how to engage in ecommerce activities, but those responses were not restricted to older age groups.