Singapore at a crossroads: 3 key findings from the Adyen Index Retail Report

Singaporean shoppers engage heavily with social commerce, with 39% having shopped via social media, compared to 31% globally. This group skews young, with 60% of Singaporean Gen Z shoppers choosing retailers that let them shop on social media. And retailers are seeing the benefit. Our research from 2024 showed that 81% experienced revenue growth from it. 

But, despite this growing opportunity, and the demand from shoppers, a surprisingly low 26% of retailers plan to invest in this channel in 2025.

What it means for retailers 

Retailers that invest in social commerce have a dual advantage: they meet growing demand from shoppers while capturing market share from slower-moving competitors who are failing to meet shopper expectations in this channel. 

Retailers can use Adyen’s Pay by Link to enable seamless, secure purchases within social platforms, turning engagement into conversion without ever leaving the app. It can provide:

• Contextual payments: Embed payment links into social media posts, chats, or stories to increase conversions.

• Customizable links: Tailor links to your brand, with dynamic details like currency, amount, and expiry.

• Seamless checkout: Customers are directed to a secure, localized payment page that supports their preferred method.

In Singapore, businesses are especially attuned to rising operational costs. With fierce competition and high digital adoption, cost-efficiency is not just nice to have, but a strategy to stay competitive. 

Payments is a natural place to look for savings — yet only 36% of businesses are actively seeking to increase revenue by lowering the cost of payments, such as reducing cost per transaction. This is despite the fact that 41% agree offering local payment methods can reduce fees, and 59% believe processing payments domestically can cut costs compared to cross-border transactions.

This gap between what businesses recognise and what they act on represents a significant, untapped opportunity to boost the bottom line.

What it means for retailers 

According to our platform data, interchange and scheme fees typically make up 85% of payment costs, so any way to reduce this can make a big difference. Further, retailers can save 49% per transaction if they can offer local payment methods and avoid card scheme fees. Working with a partner like Adyen means you can automatically send payments through the smartest route to keep costs low, all while accepting the local payment methods your customers love.

One more point is that 40% of Singapore retailers spend time and resources managing different payment vendors. Consolidating your payments stack into a smaller number of providers is an effective way to lower costs. Take Singapore retailer Love, Bonito, who partners with us for payments across online and in-store. We helped to reduce their complexity and bring down their total cost of payments.

Fraud is more than a nuisance, it’s a significant financial threat. For some retailers in Singapore, the losses are staggering: in 2024, 8% reported losing between SGD 24 million and SGD 44 million in the past year alone. More broadly, 36% of businesses say that fraud and chargebacks are a major cost, and 33% report a rise in fraud attempts over the last year (higher than the global average of 28%).

It's not just businesses feeling the pressure. Consumers are increasingly uneasy, too. In 2024, a third of Singaporean shoppers said they feel less safe shopping than they did a decade ago. Emerging technologies like AI are part of this anxiety, with 32% of consumers saying AI makes them more concerned about fraud and scams, compared to 25% globally.

What it means for retailers 

But there’s no need to panic, as AI is also part of the solution. Businesses are using AI to stay ahead of increasingly sophisticated fraud attempts. Today, 45% of companies rely on AI to detect and prevent fraudulent transactions. By analyzing behavioral patterns and comparing them against known fraud signals, AI provides a more adaptive defense, especially when paired with biometric verification, behavioral analytics, and real-time network intelligence.

Adyen’s Uplift, for example, harnesses AI throughout the payment lifecycle to help retailers optimize a range of steps in the payment flow behind the scenes, including fraud prevention, authentication, and authorization. 

For a deeper dive into the data and insights shaping the future of retail in Singapore and beyond, read the Adyen Index Singapore Retail Report.