More Asian consumers are into online shopping than Western counterparts

Provided however that the web contents are important and unavailable elesewhere.

According to KPMG’s fifth annual global consumers and convergence survey “The Converged Lifestyle”, nearly half or 48 percent of Asia Pacific consumers said that they will pay for access to a website if the information is important and unavailable elsewhere.

This percentage for the region is nearly double that for the Americas and Europe, where less than 30 per cent of respondents indicated their willingness to pay for exclusive online content.

Without unique offerings, online content providers will have a far lower chance of getting consumers to fork out money as they have grown used to ‘free’ models.

Only six percent of the 9,600 consumers surveyed are willing to pay for full access to a website, a
significant drop from 16 percent in 2010. Almost three-quarters of consumers surveyed currently do not pay for any of the online content that they access.

The 9,600 respondents in this latest survey come from 31 countries including the Philippines and South Korea. More than half – 55 percent – come from the Asia Pacific region. This is also the first time Singapore is represented.

The survey results also confirm that digital commerce will be a mainstay of any business across various sectors including retail, media and banking as consumers adopt technology at an unprecedented pace.