Southeast Asia shoppers go big during Double-Days, making Q4 a key customer acquisition window.

Criteo’s Q4 2024 Double Date Shopping Review across Southeast Asia (SEA) highlighted how shoppers across the region continue to rally around double-day sales events such as 10.10, 11.11, and 12.12. 

The data revealed that Q4 2024 was a period of strong growth, with significant year-over-year gains and a surge in new customer acquisitions. These insights offer a critical roadmap for brands preparing for their 2025 peak season strategies. 

Across SEA, revenue was up 9.6%, transactions increased 6.5%, and traffic grew 6.4% year-on-year, signalling resilient growth despite economic challenges.

Notably, average basket value across Q4 double dates combined rose to 14% signalling that shoppers were buying more and spending more per order.

“The impressive performance of Q4 double days across Southeast Asia underscores its growing significance in the regional retail calendar,” said Sukesh Singh, Managing Director (SEA), Criteo.

“This is noteworthy, especially in the face of inflationary pressures and cautious consumer sentiment throughout the region, highlighting how shoppers across the region remain engaged when value and relevance align. At Criteo, we’re committed to empowering brands with data-driven insights and innovative solutions to turn these peak moments into meaningful growth opportunities.”

Key findings

1. Singles’ Day takes the crown as the region’s biggest retail moment
   • Singles’ Day remained as the top-performing sales event among double-day events in 2024, boosting revenue by 172%, sales by 132%, and traffic by 48% over baseline performance, outperforming 10.10 and 12.12.
   • Across Q4 double dates, average basket sizes increased by 14%, peaking at 17% above baseline levels during Singles’ Day.
   • Together, these figures indicate strong consumer confidence and higher-value spending.
2. Double-day events fuel new shopper discovery and brand acquisition
   • Singles’ Day drove nearly twice as many new buyer acquisitions as baseline performance – a 98% increase – followed by 12.12 (91%), 10.10 (61%), and the Black Friday weekend (43%).
   • This highlights Southeast Asia’s growing openness to discovering new brands during peak sales periods, with double-day events outperforming Western sale days like Black Friday in both engagement and conversion potential.
   • The surge in new buyers also aligns with the year-end gifting season, presenting retailers with multiple touchpoints to drive first-time and repeat purchases.
3. Health & Beauty leads category growth
   • Consumer demand remained the strongest in categories tied to self-care, family essentials, and fashion:
     • Health and Beauty remained the top-performing category through the double-date sales, followed by Baby and Toddler, and Apparel and Accessories:
   • Performance varied across markets, revealing clear local preferences with the percentages indicating the increase in unit sales for 11.11 and 12.12 combined: 
     • Indonesia: Apparel and Accessories (183%) 
     • Singapore: Health and Beauty (180%)
     • Thailand: Baby & Toddler (189%) and Home & Garden (184%) 

These insights underscore the importance for retailers to tailor product focus and marketing strategies to each market to maximise sales impact.

What brands should do in 2025 

Criteo’s data clearly shows that Q4 remains one of the biggest opportunities for retailers and brands to drive both revenue and long-term customer growth. To make the most of this momentum, brands should focus on key strategies below:

1. Plan for early discovery and intent building: 
   Double-day events are key to attract new shoppers, with Singles’ Day alone driving twice as many new buyers as usual. From Criteo’s Q3 CSI results, 45% of shoppers in Singapore began exploring Singles’ Day deals just a few days in advance, while 30% plan 1–2 weeks ahead, underscoring the need for brands to prepare early. Savvy retailers and brands can maximise impact by planning well in advance – ensuring the right creative assets, product visibility and retail media placements are in place. By creating clear discovery pathways across the purchase journey, retailers can engage high-intent shoppers early, nurture interest throughout the quarter, and convert browsers into loyal customers.
2. Drive higher basket value through smarter merchandising: 
   Higher basket sizes and sales in Q4 indicate a ready-to-spend audience, especially when presented with the right mix of value and inspiration. Retailers can capitalise by curating bundles, introducing complementary add-ons and activating limited-time flash sales to encourage bigger checkouts. Furthermore, there is an opportunity for more premium products to be pushed, tapping into the increased purchase intent and appetite for expenditure.

• Tailor campaigns to category and market nuances: 
  A generic Q4 sales approach leaves potential gains on the table. Understanding market-specific trends and festive behaviours allows brands to position product portfolios strategically. By localising campaigns by market and category, retailers can align offerings with seasonal activities and established purchase patterns, maximising returns across the quarter.

Methodology

The insights referenced in this release are based on selected retail activity data from Criteo’s network of over 7,600 brands and retailers globally, including more than 2,000 in Asia Pacific. The findings reflect aggregated and indexed performance trends across key Southeast Asian markets, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam, benchmarked against early-October 2024 baselines. All data has been normalised and time-adjusted by country to ensure a representative regional view.

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