Social Commerce Apps
It has been found that Korean consumers prefer social commerce apps to other mobile shopping apps.
According to digital media firm DMC Report’s recent data, 73.8 percent of them have experienced social commerce apps for shopping, which were followed by open market apps (62.5 percent) and total shopping mall apps (41.9 percent). Coupang was the most frequently used app (37.6 percent) and Wemakeprice (35.6 percent) and TicketMonster (31.4 percent) followed it. G Market, 11ST, Lotte iMall, Auction, Interpark ,and CJ Mall were found to be on the list, too.
The reasons for the frequent use of the mobile Coupang app include the convenience of the use and diversity of the services. The users of TicketMonster answered that it was the company they check on a daily basis, and Wemakeprice users mentioned point accumulation, discounts, and surprise events.
By gender, 77.8 percent of the men and 71.5 percent of the women responded that they have used social commerce shopping apps at least once. The apps were used most by those in their 20s and 30s.
The social commerce apps were found to outdo total shopping mall and open market apps in terms of the convenience of use and payment, display design and user interface speed. Meanwhile, the latter outperformed the former when it came to the ease of search and the detailed information of products. They received poor marks for personal information protection, though.
The TicketMonster app was below that of Coupang in the evaluation of the competitiveness of social commerce service providers. The Wemakeprice app surpassed the former in the assessment, too.
At the same time, it was found that each online shopping consumer has an average of 4.6 shopping apps on his or her smartphone. The number was 4.4 for males and 4.7 for females. Those in their 20s had 4.1 apps on average, while those in their 30s or 40+ years downloaded five and 4.4 apps, respectively.
The online survey was carried out with 540 men and between 19 and 59 years old who have shopped on the Web at least once in the past six months.