For younger generations, shopping via apps and websites may continue to become more mainstream in the future.  

A poll of 9,037 people across the region in December revealed that more than 79 per cent have shopped at a physical store in the past year.

Local markets and street vendors attract 28 per cent of all consumers in the APAC region. They were the most popular in Vietnam (41 per cent), the Philippines (38 per cent) and Malaysia (36 per cent).

According to the report, shopping in-store is most popular with older generations – 90 per cent of those 55 and older have shopped in-store compared to 75 per cent of 16- to 24-year-olds. Yet local markets and street vendors seem to buck the trend, being more popular with young people (35 per cent in the 16 to 24 age bracket buy from markets compared to 23 per cent of over 55s.

The most popular reason for shopping online is that it’s faster than going into a store. More than half of online and app shoppers say prices are also an advantage.

However, 78 per cent of buyers like to try out apparel before they buy, 73 per cent want to check the quality first, and 56 per cent simply enjoy shopping around.  

Websites are the second most popular way to buy apparel. Over the past year, 45 per cent of APAC respondents went online to shop for clothing and accessories, while in China the figure was 75 per cent.

As yet, apps have not broken into the mainstream. They are used for clothing purchases by only 15 per cent of those who polled. Apps were most popular in Indonesia, China and Singapore (19, 18 and 18 per cent respectively).

YouGov says young people are more than six times as likely to have shopped via an app than older generations, and more than twice as likely to have shopped using a website in the past year.

Among people between the ages of 16 and 24, 51 per cent have shopped using a website over the past year and 19 per cent have used an app. By contrast, just 24 per cent of respondents 55 years and older have shopped using a website and only 3 per cent via an app.