Social media is playing an increasingly large role in driving conversions in the Southeast Asian market. A report from WARC found that 30% of all ecommerce sales in the region begin their customer journeys on social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, before ending in chat apps like WhatsApp. Reynold D'Silva, from Facebook APAC, said that the perceived lack of security around online payments, in addition to the peace of mind offered by one-to-one communication on chat apps, is encouraging purchases through social media. He added that the ability of apps to “transmit images and photos, enables sellers to build trust by showing transactions done with satisfied customers”. It was also revealed that the industry which was seeing the largest impact from this trend, was the health and beauty sector. According to D'Silva, trust levels in this sector are higher than average with "48% of [buyers] who discover beauty content on Facebook saying they trust information provided”, with 45% of people saying the same of Instagram.
