How to Study the Online Shopper Journey on Shopee, TikTok Shop and Lazada

Who should you screen into a marketplace shopper study?

Start with behaviour, not demographics. The study is about people who recently bought your category online, so the screener should confirm a purchase in the category on a marketplace within a defined window. Three months is a common recall period for fast-moving categories, because people remember recent purchases well.

Define the platforms clearly in the screener. Shopee, TikTok Shop and Lazada all sell the same categories, and many shoppers use more than one. A person who bought on two platforms should be asked about both, not forced to pick one.

• Ask which platforms they bought the category on in the window, allowing multiple answers.
• Confirm they were the buyer or a joint decision maker for the purchase.
• Add a question on offline channels too, because most shoppers move between online and stores.

How should you set quotas when shoppers use several platforms?

Platform quotas get awkward because the groups overlap. If you set exclusive quotas by main platform you will force people into boxes that do not match their behaviour. A better approach is to set minimum completes by any use of each platform, and accept that one respondent can count towards several.

Add the usual demographics, such as age, gender and region, as soft targets unless you need to read them separately. Our survey sample size guide covers how large each group needs to be if you want to cut the results by platform.

Which journey stages should the survey cover?

Keep each stage to a few well-chosen questions. The aim is a clear picture of the path, not an exhaustive list of every behaviour.

What is specific to Malaysian marketplaces?

A few features shape behaviour and deserve their own questions, although exact mechanics vary by platform.

• Vouchers, free shipping and cashback often decide which platform wins a purchase. Ask which incentives mattered, not just whether the shopper used one.
• Sales events change timing. Ask whether people wait for a sale and which events they plan around.
• Official stores versus third-party sellers affect trust. Ask which they prefer and whether they compare them.
• Livestreams and group buying can play a supporting role. Use display logic so only people who have watched a livestream or joined a group buy answer those questions.
• Reviews usually carry heavy weight in categories where effectiveness is hard to judge on the shelf, so ask what proof people looked for.

Which questions reveal the real drivers?

Descriptive questions tell you what happened. Driver questions tell you why, and those are the ones that change decisions.

• Ask about abandoned carts directly and let people select reasons, including waiting for a sale or comparing promotions.
• Ask whether they switched platforms before buying, and what made them switch.
• Ask people to rank the reasons that most influenced the final choice, rather than rating everything as important.
• Ask how many product pages they viewed before buying, to understand how much comparison happens.

If your category also has lapsed buyers, our guide on surveying lapsed users shows how to find out why they left.

How do you analyse the results?

Cut the data by platform, by how many platforms each person uses, and by planned versus impulse purchases. A useful comparison is how a brand ranks in awareness against how it ranks in recent purchase. A brand that is lower on awareness but higher on purchase converts well once people consider it, so the priority is reach. A brand with the reverse pattern has a conversion problem to fix.

Remember base sizes. Once you cut by platform and by segment, groups can become small quickly, so read small groups as directional and flag them in the report.

What mistakes should you avoid?

• Treating the platform as the whole story. Most shoppers compare across platforms and stores, so ask about the wider path, not one app.
• Asking about too many brands. Use carry-forward so people answer only about the brands they know or bought.
• Leaving out the offline channel. Supermarkets and neighbourhood stores often stay part of the journey, so omit them and you overstate the online share.
• Writing long grids. Most respondents are on a phone, so use short lists and clear, single-topic questions.

A short pilot with a small group, read on a phone, usually catches unclear wording and awkward routing before the full launch.

Where does Vase.ai fit?

We build Vase.ai, a research platform with a verified panel of SEA consumers, quota controls and display logic that suit marketplace shopper studies.

For the wider design behind this kind of study, our guide to running a usage and attitude study in Southeast Asia shows how to combine behaviour and attitude questions in one survey.

Frequently asked questions