A study finds that Malaysians sacrificed their sleep and stayed online to shop when clock ticks 12 after midnight, mostly using mobile app.

The study, carried out by ShopBack, states that Malaysians like to grab the best deals right after midnight from 12:00AM to 12:59AM and this behaviour is observed in major online sales throughout 12.12 online sale recently.

Filipinos shared the similar traits while Singaporeans and Thais tend to do last minute shopping – just a few hours before the end of 12.12.

The 12.12 sale has been said to be the biggest online sale event in Southeast Asia, and in Malaysia, the number of orders on that day spiked by nearly 15 times compared to any day in the first week of December.

This number is revealed by ShopBack, a portal that empowers over 7 million users on more than 1,500 online partners in seven countries – Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Taiwan, Philippines, and Australia.

Specifically for Malaysia, ShopBack has over 1 million users and works with over 500 online partners such as Lazada, Shopee, ZALORA, 11street, Qoo10, fave, Hermo, Taobao, Booking.com, Expedia, and many more.

December is the peak season for e-commerce industry as people tend to make purchases on travel, Christmas, and New Year related items.

“Compared to the average number of orders in the first week of December, the orders that shoppers made in one day (12.12) increased by a whopping 15 times,” says ShopBack Malaysia’s country general manager, Alvin Gill.

Among all the Southeast Asia countries that ShopBack operates in (excluded Taiwan and Australia), Malaysia ranks the second in terms of number of orders, slightly behind Indonesia but about 80 percent higher than Singapore.

“Among the 40 over partner stores that ShopBack Malaysia collaborated with on 12.12, Lazada, Shopee and Taobao emerged as the top 3 stores and Marketplace, Fashion and Beauty, and Travel were the popular verticals. Moreover, Lazada and Shopee remain as the top stores in Southeast Asia, a consistent result that we observed in both 11.11 and 12.12,” says Alvin.

Source: NST