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Diving into Southeast Asia’s shopping trends for Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day is around the corner. GrabAds, the advertising unit of Southeast Asia’s superapp Grab, conducted a survey with consumers in Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines to find out how consumers are planning to celebrate the occasion. In addition to analysing the survey findings, GrabAds also studied past GrabFood and GrabMart transaction trends for the Mother’s Day period over the past year.

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According to their data, superapps are now trending for Mother’s Day shopping.  67 percent of surveyed consumers in Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines plan to buy Mother’s Day gifts this year, with 78 percent intending to purchase their gifts via apps like Grab.

Mother’s Day ranks among the days with the highest user traffic on the Grab app and 2022 should be no exception. In 2021, Mother’s Day emerged as the day with the highest user traffic on the Grab app in the Philippines. In fact, more consumers in the Philippines use the Grab app on Mother’s Day than on Christmas Day. In Singapore and Malaysia, Mother’s Day also ranks among the most popular days in terms of user traffic on the Grab app, coming in at 7th and 11th place respectively for these markets.

Findings also revealed that consumers are more generous when they shop for their mum. Consumers in Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines are more willing to spend more on Mother’s Day, forking out an average increase of 30 percent per order on GrabFood and an increase of 10 percent per order on GrabMart for the occasion.

Source: GrabAds

Cakes and flowers top the list as the most popular Mother’s Day gifts in Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines. Grab delivered 20 times more flowers on Mother’s Day in Singapore compared to an average day, surpassing the amount of flowers delivered on Valentine’s Day in 2021, with carnations, roses and sunflowers among the top picks by Singapore consumers.

Looking at past consumer transaction trends, it appeared that herbs, beer, meat and international cuisine emerge as surprise favourites on Mother’s Day. Herbs and beer emerged as unexpected favourites for Singapore consumers, with a surge in demand by 2 times and 1.3 times respectively on Mother’s Day in 2021. In Malaysia, meat-based ingredients were surprisingly popular on Mother’s Day with a 1.6 times surge in orders via GrabMart in 2021, while in the Philippines, international cuisine, pizza and pork-based dishes increased by 2 times, 2 times and 1.5 times in demand respectively.

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Rising trend of sending gifts via Grab deliveries rather than gifting in person was observed. The volume of GrabExpress parcel deliveries in Malaysia increased by 200 percent, and 50 percent in Singapore on Mother’s Day in 2021.