Southeast Asian shoppers are taking longer to make up their minds this year-end sale season, but buying faster once they land on a retailer’s site, according to new regional data from Criteo. The commerce intelligence platform’s 2026 Year-End Shopping Decoded report, based on Q4 2025 data, found that conversion rates across the region rose 20 per cent year-on-year even as site traffic stayed broadly flat, with 11.11 and 12.12 still ahead.

Shoppers research longer, then buy faster

Shoppers in the region took an average of 22 days between first viewing a product and buying it around 10-12 November, Criteo found. That research window ran longer in Thailand (29 days), Malaysia (27 days) and Indonesia (26 days) than in Europe (18 days) or the US (17 days) over the Black Friday weekend. Once they did reach a retailer, though, they converted. Q4 retail revenue across SEA rose 21 per cent year-on-year, with the extra sales coming from the same pool of shoppers buying more often rather than more visitors turning up.

Singapore showed that shift most clearly: traffic to retailer sites fell 15 per cent, but conversion rose 39 per cent, lifting Q4 sales 18 per cent. Malaysia was the fastest-growing market in the region, with both conversion and revenue up 34 per cent. That pattern sets SEA apart from the US, where more visitors showed up (+3 per cent) but fewer of them bought (conversion down 10 per cent), and Europe, where growth came from added traffic rather than a better conversion rate.

Brand comparisons happen inside marketplaces

For purchases made around Singles’ Day, SEA shoppers browsed an average of 3.8 brands on a single retailer in the month beforehand, and 5.8 brands when counted across retailers — nearly double the US and Europe, where Criteo tracked purchases over the Black Friday to Cyber Monday window instead. Much of that comparison shopping likely happens inside marketplaces, where competing brands sit side by side: online revenue at SEA marketplace and department store sites rose 41 per cent year-on-year in Q4, and at mass-market retailers by 36 per cent, while fashion retailers’ online revenue fell 21 per cent.

Criteo’s separate Spark of Discovery research found that most Singapore shoppers are open to discovering new products when search results feel relevant and well-timed, and 44 per cent cite seeing the right ad at the right moment as a top reason to buy.

Singles’ Day still leads, but the season starts earlier

Singles’ Day remained SEA’s biggest shopping day of the quarter, with sales up 132 per cent, order value up 212 per cent and traffic up 73 per cent against baseline — ahead of both 10.10 and 12.12. Malaysia felt that surge hardest, with sales up 155 per cent, while Singapore recorded the region’s biggest jump in order value, up 299 per cent. Averaged across Q4, the three “double days” (9.9, 10.10, 11.11) outsold the Western shopping calendar: an 89 per cent average lift in sales against 38 per cent for Black Friday and 35 per cent for Cyber Monday.

The season also starts earlier than many brands assume. 9.9 outsold both 10.10 and Black Friday, and the eve of every double day ranked as the second-biggest sales day of its month — 11.10 and 12.11 both outsold Black Friday outright. Thailand showed the clearest spread, with 9.9 and 12.12 drawing uplifts close to Singles’ Day itself. Health and beauty led category sales on 11.11, up 268 per cent, while 12.12 was carried by gifting categories including cosmetic sets, TVs and karaoke systems.

AI assistants enter the research phase

Singles’ Day also brought in the greatest share of new customers: first-time buyers were 2.3 times baseline levels, ahead of 12.12, Black Friday, 10.10 and Cyber Monday, and made up roughly 40 per cent of all buyers across the quarter. Criteo points to a parallel shift in where that research now begins — a growing number of shoppers are asking AI assistants for recommendations before they ever reach a retailer. Its ChatGPT Ads integration, which launched across six SEA markets in September, is built around that shift; globally, more than 80 per cent of the traffic those ads drive comes from new customers, the same profile that Singles’ Day attracts.

“Southeast Asian shoppers have a sale to look forward to almost every month, so they’ve learned that a good price will always come around again. That frees them to take their time choosing which brand to buy, and more of that research now starts with a question to an AI assistant. In AI-assisted commerce, the brand that’s easiest to understand is the one that gets recommended.”

Sukesh Singh, Managing Director, SEA, Criteo

Criteo’s advice to brands follows from that pattern: show up wherever shoppers are researching, including inside AI assistants, since purchases still mostly close out on a retailer or marketplace site; build visibility in the weeks between sale peaks rather than relying on the sale day itself; and track which channels are actually bringing in new customers rather than crediting the last ad a shopper clicked before buying.

The findings are based on aggregated commerce data from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, drawn from Criteo’s global network of more than 17,000 advertiser clients, with US and European comparisons from the same dataset.