The Online Citizen A Community of Singaporeans 
by CupoNation
Men increase usage of coupons during GSS compared to regular periods as women show the opposite
The annual Great Singapore Sale (GSS) is usually the highlight of every savvy and trendy shopaholic’s calendar however the recent GSS which went on from June 9th to August 13th showed that shoppers might not be influenced by the popular sale season anymore when planning out purchases. More retailers are offering consumers wide range of options for better discounts and deals all year around. Following this initiative, Inside Retail Asia published a report indicating this year’s GSS digital move to stay ahead of competition by introducing a mobile app, initiative to urge retailers to use technology in the form of price comparison platforms and discount codes.
Is there a drastic change in discount users before and during GSS?
With the emergence of more technology savvy shoppers in Singapore especially during the GSS, we decided to dive in and study whether there is a distinct change in percentage of shoppers who choose to use discount codes before and during the GSS 2017, specifically in the fashion shopping sector? In other words, are consumers still influenced by massive sale periods even when they can use discount codes at any other time?
When it comes to apparel shopping, Singapore shopaholics who crave the latest trends at the convenience of a click and delivery at their doorstep have opted for popularly visited and high traffic e-commerce fashion platforms such as Carousell, Lazada, Qoo10 and Zalora.
Observing that Zalora has a higher percentage of traffic coming from Singapore in comparison to Carousell, Lazada and Qoo10, CupoNation – the discount hunter’s main destination – decided to compare the usage of discount codes for Zalora before and during the period of the Great Singapore Sale.
This study compares the type of consumer who actively makes Zalora purchases, ranging from demographics, age and gender to the type of devices and browsers used 3 months before and during the GSS.
Zalora’s usual discount hunters aren’t always so savvy
During the Great Singapore Sale, the dollar-friendly population of Zalora is indeed lead by the female buyers compared to the male buyers. However, when we compare the percentage of male shoppers before and after the sale period, there is an increment from (21.69%) to (24.67%) during the GSS. Female shoppers, on the other hand, showed a decrease from (78.31%) to (75.33%).
Based on the age of the users we found out that users between 25-34 years (47.14%) are by far the most active deal hunters during the GSS. However, when we compared the shoppers during and before the GSS, we noticed that the percentage of users between the ages of 18-24 years went from (29.87%) before the sale to (31.73%). The opposite reaction could be seen for users between the ages of 35-44 years which decreased from (15.94%) before the sale to (14.47%).
We can also observe a pattern in users who prefer to discount shop with their desktop during the sale period as numbers increased from (42.58%) to (54.29%). There was a slight 0.42% decrease in users who discount shop on the go with their mobiles to (55.75%).
Are Sale Seasons Still Important?
As a general overview upon comparing the before and after GSS period, we can observe that there are several categories of consumers who are very much influenced by the GSS period while using discount codes : men, youth between the ages of 18-24 as well as those who use desktop to shop.
Prior research has shown that men are one of the savviest species – they only shop when they need to and are usually focused on getting only items on a list instead of browsing around. This behavior is reflected when it the percentage of men who use discount codes increases during the sale period compared to the usual time.
Youth between the age group of 18-24 also comprise of students or yet to be employed and still living with a constrained allowance and budget which explains why they seek additional discounts on top of the sale period.
Thus if the question was whether sale seasons are still crucial as part of retailers’ marketing strategy to woo consumers, it wouldn’t be entirely wrong to affirm this finding. However, retailers might want to re-evaluate their marketing strategy and target market to suit the type of people who are still very much influenced by sale periods even when purchasing coupon codes.