E-commerce battles sales fatigue and hiccups in quest for consumers' wallets

ANNOYING jingles, celebrity endorsements and a sale every month have marked the e-commerce landscape in 2020 and 2021. In the lead-up to this year's 11.11 event, it seemed that all systems were primed and ready to receive the deluge of orders that would come in.

Both Lazada and Shopee reported record numbers for the 11.11 sale period. With figures like taking 9 minutes to cross S$11 million in sales for Lazada and 11 million items sold in just 5 minutes on Shopee during the period, e-commerce looks to be going full steam ahead. All despite both platforms holding a sales day monthly since 2020.

"This 11.11 has been another record-breaking event for us. Not only did we break last year's sales record by the afternoon, we also had our highest traffic ever on the platform," said James Chang, chief executive officer of Lazada Singapore in a press statement.