Zalora: Discounting Strategy
Out of the three countries, Indonesia was the most aggressive in its discounting strategy this year. Its discounted items contribution was higher than Malaysia and Singapore, averaging around 73% vs. 63% throughout the sale period. It kickstarted the Singles’ Day campaign on November 1 by marking down 65% of its items and gradually increased to 80% on November 11 (Chart 5). The majority (21%) of items were also marked down deeper than last year leading to 11.11, at 50-59% off. However, its performance paled in comparison to Malaysia and Singapore despite its aggressive markdown strategy, which only resulted in 2% sell-out rate.
Malaysia adopted a relatively shallow discounting strategy, unlike Indonesia. Most (22%) of the discounted items were marked down at 50-59% off in 2018. However, the most common discount range for this year was kept at 20-29% off on the week before Singles’ Day and went on a slightly deeper discount on 11.11 itself, at 30-39% off. Despite being less aggressive in the discounting strategy, it was still proven successful as sell-out count jumped more than 100% against last year.
Similar to Malaysia, Singapore had nearly 60% of its items on discount on November 1 and gradually increased to 70% by November 11. It kept the discount at 30-39% from November 8 to 11, as it did last year. Even with the same markdown strategy, it managed to garner 150% more sell-out than last year, which was the biggest jump out of the three countries.