People in HCM City tend to spend more time shopping online while those living in Ha Noi are more price sensitive, iPrice’s research on online shopping habits has revealed.

The study uses data from one million visitors on iprice.vn from January 1, 2016 to December 31, 2016.

According to the research, the majority of online shoppers in the country’s two largest cities are aged 25-34, followed by students and young working adults aged 18-24. Women are shown to prefer shopping online compared with men.

The report reveals that Saigonese people spend 36 per cent more time on researching products and brands in comparison with Hanoians. This study is backed by the fact that Saigonese people are more open to choices than Hanoian shoppers, with more brands having penetrated in HCM City.

Both city shoppers are excited about promotions. However, Hanoians show larger price sensitivity than the Saigonese.

On Black Friday, traffic from Hanoians and Saigonese increased by 80 per cent and 67 per cent, respectively, indicating the price sensitivity of Hanoians during sales, despite the fact that there are more brands and promotion offerings in HCM City compared with Ha Noi.

In terms of popular browsers, Chrome is the most popular browser in both cities, followed by Coc Coc – the Vietnamese browser and search engine. The Vietnamese browser surpasses even Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer. Coc Coc is reportedly the most user-friendly search engine for the Vietnamese, with localised features such as Vietnamese type-writing, file uploading and Vietnamese auto-correct.

iPrice is Southeast Asia’s Meta-Search platform with presence in seven markets -- Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Viet Nam, as well as Thailand, the Philippines and Hong Kong. It operates three business lines -- price comparison, product discovery and coupons. – VNS