Why mall-loving Filipinos don't buy much online

Katrina Domingo, ABS-CBN News

MANILA - Slow internet and traffic congestion are preventing online shopping from taking off in the Philippines, retailers said Thursday, as they moved to shift consumption to digital from brick-and-mortar stores.Online retail accounts for only 1 to 2 percent of industry-wide sales, with mall culture still &quot;deeply rooted&quot; among Filipinos, said Philippine Retailers Association president Paul Santos.Crawling connections discourage consumers from buying online while traffic jams are a constant challenge when delivering goods, Rustans Supercenters CEO Irwin Lee said.&quot;We have a lot of people (here) with mobile phones, internet speed is quite low. You want to do online shopping but you lose the signal or WiFi does not carry through,&quot; Lee told ABS-CBN News.<ul class="op-related-articles">	<li><a href="http://news.abs-cbn.com/business/01/17/15/weve-got-it-all-why-philippine-malls-have-chapels">&#x27;We&#x27;ve got it all&#x27;: Why Philippine malls have chapels </a></li></ul>Shopping malls are the &quot;de facto public&quot; space in the country, especially in urban areas, Santos said.Physical stores, however, won&#x27;t disappear soon as developers merge residential and office spaces with retail shops, Santos said.&quot;Developers are integrating shopping centers even more deeply in your life,&quot; he said.Lee said retailers should upgrade physical stores with technology that will create new retail experiences to bridge the gap between physical and online shopping.He cited Alibaba&#x27;s Hema supermarket in China, where shoppers can learn more about products by scanning bar codes with their mobile phones.&quot;You want to be where the shopper is. If the shopper wants an online experience then we have to go there,&quot; Lee said.

Slow internet and traffic congestion are preventing online shopping from taking off in the Philippines, retailers said Thursday as they moved to shift consumption to digital from brick-and-mortar stores.

Slow internet and traffic congestion are preventing online shopping from taking off in the Philippines, retailers said Thursday as they moved to shift consumption to digital from brick-and-mortar stores.

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Why mall-loving Filipinos don't buy much online

Why mall-loving Filipinos don't buy much online

Katrina Domingo,

ABS-CBN News

Published Aug 10, 2017 03:57 PM PHT

|

Updated Aug 10, 2017 05:07 PM PHT

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online shopping

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