Three digital consumer trends businesses must know

Digital technology has become so deeply ingrained in our daily lives that we rely on digital devices for a spectrum of uses, from watching our favourite TV shows on-the-go, to shopping for a new outfit. In fact, consumers’ dependence on digital devices is so high that 49% of Singaporeans reported that they could not go a day without their mobile phones, according to Limelight Networks’ recent The State of Digital Lifestyles 2019 research report.

With technological advances showing no signs of slowing down, businesses must embrace innovation in order to improve the quality of digital content delivery, to stand out from competition and compel consumers to opt-in to their content.

Here are three key trends about the Singaporean consumers that businesses need to know in order to engage with them more effectively across multiple touch points.

Digital technology has improved lives beyond measure
Technology has had an overwhelmingly positive impact on the lives of Singaporean consumers. The majority (78%) of Singapore consumers have indicated that online digital technology has improved their lives. Aside from mobile phones, laptops and tablets, consumers have also taken to digital assistants, such as Google Home and Amazon Echo, internet-enabled security devices, such as security cameras and doorbells, as well as internet-connected home automation devices to automate tasks and simplify daily routines.

With the Singapore government making bold strides to be a Smart Nation, it comes as no surprise that younger consumers – aged between 26 and 35 years old – are the growing group of digital natives that are embracing the perks of digital technology.

Given that mobile phones have become such an inseparable part of Singaporeans’ lives, this presents a huge potential for business to explore new business models by ensuring that content and user-experience are optimised to suit the behaviour of the ‘mobile-first’ generation. For example, with the burgeoning e-commerce market in the Asia Pacific region, online shopping platform Lazada, has most recently leveraged live-streaming to bring a static product to life and for shoppers to engage with sellers in real-time.

Consistent content delivery is now an expectation
Streaming has become mainstream, and is now the preferred option for consuming digital content, with Singapore ranking the highest in Asia when it comes to streaming movies or TV shows online.

As a result, consumers’ expectations for content performance continue to rise. Consumers expect consistent delivery of the content they consume, regardless of where they are accessing the content from or the type of device they are using. Mobile devices are increasingly being used to stream online content, but mobile connections are often subjected to changes in bandwidth and network latencies that can interrupt content playback if content is not delivered at the optimal bitrate to match the consumer’s network conditions.

Despite the popularity of digital media in our daily lives, there is room for businesses to improve on the quality of digital experience. We found that 93% of Singaporean consumers are frustrated with digital content, particularly when it takes too long to load or stops playing.

Whilst 5G wireless networking holds the promise of mitigating this challenge by bringing about faster download speeds, consumers at present continue to remain frustrated by the process of using digital content, indicating that there is still a gap that businesses need to address.

Businesses need to ensure they deliver consistent, high-quality viewing and content experiences with low buffer rates across multiple digital devices. Leveraging a Content Delivery Network (CDN) that has been optimised to deliver high-quality audio and video streaming with low rebuffering rates can ensure the experience consumers expect, without the frustrations that cause them to abandon content. A CDN is also able to continuously monitor connection and optimise how content is delivered based on real-time analysis to ensure consumers receive the highest possible picture and sound quality without experiencing rebuffering.

Consumers are increasingly wary of the security of their personal data
Privacy concerns among Singaporeans are the highest globally, with over half of Singaporeans more concerned about their personal information being stolen online than they were a year ago. With the consciousness heightened toward cybersecurity, it is thus expected that Singaporeans are more mindful of the security of their online environments and show great concern about the current state of cybersecurity.

Consumers now expect that businesses are sufficiently prepared to thwart attacks. If your site has been breached and consumer data is stolen, it will have a major impact on consumer loyalty and future revenue. As such, winning over and maintaining consumer trust is a constant challenge that businesses need to overcome.

Against a backdrop of growing cyber threats – the likes of the recent Sephora data breach which compromised the personal data of 3.7 million customers, including Singaporeans – businesses need to diversify their cybersecurity solutions to mitigate attacks of increased frequency, sophistication, and size.

To protect web infrastructure and help secure customer data, businesses should consider using Web Application Firewall (WAF) to protect web servers from malicious attacks. By utilising a cloud-based WAF solution that is integrated between a Content Delivery Network (CDN) and the web application infrastructure, it helps increase site performance by reducing the amount of traffic that needs to be inspected. In addition, bot traffic mitigation should also be employed to guard against the increasing number of malicious bots being used to try to exploit potential security vulnerabilities and exfiltrate sensitive data. Most importantly, these efforts will need to be proactively communicated to customers to establish trust.

Key takeaways for businesses
Given the heightening competition, it is now more vital than ever for businesses to provide the best possible online experiences to meet the growing demands of digitally-savvy consumers. This includes providing consistent, high-quality content delivery across as many device types as possible, whilst ensuring security, thereby encourage consumer confidence and their affinity with the business.