In a recent report published by YouGov, it has been revealed that more than seven out of ten Filipino consumers are of the belief that local retailers should have an online presence amid the shift in behaviour brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Visa commissioned the YouGov study in July, which had found that up to 75 percent of Filipinos were in favour of the digitalisation of local SMEs. Dan Wolbert, country manager for the Philippines and Guam at Visa, said there is a change in consumers’ preference to shopping online.
Likewise, 95 percent of the respondents said they were willing to shop at local retailers more often to support them in business recovery due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Based on their own data, Wolbert said that one in six active Visa cardholders in the Philippines who did not make an online purchase last year shopped online for the first time this year.
In order to help facilitate the digitalisation of SMEs and to encourage consumers to support local businesses following the COVID-19 pandemic, Visa has launched the ‘Where You Shop Matters’ initiative.
Said initiative is part of Visa’s broader small business strategy and follows commitments the company has made to support 10 million SMEs in the Asia Pacific, and a global commitment from the Visa Foundation of US$210 million to provide COVID-19 emergency relief for the small business sector.
In order to provide assistance to as many SMEs as possible, Visa has partnered with Shopee, one of the world’s leading e-commerce platform. By engaging with the platform, Visa seeks to help support thousands of businesses.
Visa is providing SMEs with a Visa eCommerce Starter Kit to help them start, manage, and grow their online storefronts. It also partnered with BigCommerce to provide onboarding support and special discount rates for SMEs to sign up and start selling online.
