THE FILIPINO digital mom makes “the biggest purchase decisions in the household,” relies on social media for parenting tips, and goes online after the children are asleep, according to the results of the 2019 Digital Moms Survey by Singapore-based community app, theAsianparent.

“Only 10% of moms today ask advice from friends and family. They go online now,” Carla Perlas, Asianparent regional head of content, said during the survey launch on Nov. 13 at the Shangri-La at the Fort hotel in Bonifacio Global City, Taguig.

“They want to know, ‘Hey moms, did you experience this?’ We get a lot of questions [like that] on the app,” she added.

The survey was conducted in September and included 1,038 responses from Filipino users of the app.

The app also conducts the same survey in several markets like Singapore and Indonesia annually.

The survey showed that most of the app’s active users are 21 to 30 years old (65%) and almost half have one child (45.13%).

Eighty-five percent of the respondents said they make the biggest purchasing decisions in their household, especially when it’s for the children.

“One of the key drivers of purchasing the product is knowing the benefits and use of the product,” the survey said.

Most mothers using the app are college-educated (65.2%) and while a third work full-time, over half are stay-at-home mothers (55.73%).

They are also digital-savvy, according to the survey, with 31% of respondents saying that their screen time has increased by four hours since becoming a mother. And while they are sporadically online most of the day, more mothers (28.08%) find themselves online the most after 9 p.m., presumably her children’s bedtime.

“Fifty-three percent of moms said they only watch TV once in a while now. So it’s really the internet, that’s where they go,” Ms. Perlas said.

While online, a third said they log on to social media sites like Facebook while 28% said they visit parenting sites and 16% said they shop online.

“She wants to get advice and recommendations, and she wants to engage with other moms,” said Ms. Perlas, before explaining that some want to brag about their children or to vent.

Inside their shopping carts are baby essentials like diapers (48%), clothes (20%), and milk/formula (15%). Most mothers still prefer doing their shopping in physical stores (57%), especially for baby essentials (70%) but a considerable percentage of their shopping is now done online with 43% shopping online for general items and 30% shopping specifically for baby items.

Despite the growing percentage of online shopping, the survey showed that most respondents still prefer paying cash for their purchases (75%) over cashless alternatives.

“She is still an experiential shopper… [they] have lots of questions and [they] want to be able to ask the store manager and get answers,” Ms. Perlas said.

“She has to thrifty… because she really has to budget the income they have,” she added before explaining that 53% of respondents said the family earns about 30,000 a month. — Zsarlene B. Chua

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