Four in five retailers across the Asia Pacific (APAC) region remain confident in their ability to execute customer engagement strategies over the next year, despite concerns around a weakening global economy. This was revealed in a new survey by Twilio, conducted at the National Retail Federation’s 2025 Retail’s Big Show Asia Pacific.
Twilio, a customer engagement platform known for enabling real-time personalised experiences, found that while confidence levels are high, many APAC retailers are grappling with shifting consumer expectations. In today’s value-focused environment, customer loyalty is increasingly difficult to maintain. The top challenge cited by retailers is sustaining trust and loyalty (27%), followed by managing price dissatisfaction (23%) and communication issues around pricing and product availability (21%).
Loyalty and personalisation emerge as key opportunities
Retailers expecting mixed market conditions—both growth and resistance—are choosing to focus on loyalty and re-engagement as critical strategies. Among confident retailers, 28% see loyalty programmes and customer re-engagement as the top area of untapped potential. This is followed by product discovery (24%) and post-sale support (18%), highlighting a more holistic approach to the customer journey.
Investments are being channelled into a range of tools to support this shift. About 25% of retailers are expanding their personalised offers and loyalty schemes, 27% are introducing conversational AI, and 22% are bolstering support from human agents. The combined effort reflects a growing trend towards customer engagement that is more empathetic, responsive and context-aware.
“Confidence is high in the region, which is fantastic. However, the brands that truly shine will be the ones that actually do something with that confidence,” said Nicholas Kontopoulos, Vice President of Marketing, Asia Pacific & Japan at Twilio. “Customer loyalty is under pressure. Building resilience means responding to customers with empathy, relevance, and precision. And that begins with a data-driven, customer-first approach.”
Retailers tap data to build loyalty and revenue
Several leading retailers are already demonstrating what a data-powered loyalty strategy can achieve.
ZALORA, a major fashion e-commerce platform with over 55 million customers across Asia, has unified its customer data and empowered teams with self-service tools. These improvements have reduced campaign lead times from weeks to minutes, while also doubling conversion rates.
Pomelo Fashion, which is popular among younger shoppers in Southeast Asia, has focused on tailoring product discovery and recommendation experiences. These changes led to a 50% increase in product engagement and a 15% rise in revenue—showing the direct value of personalisation.
In Thailand, Central Group has enhanced its loyalty programme by integrating online and offline customer data. With a more complete view of each customer, the retailer activated over 80 personalised, automated campaigns. These initiatives resulted in a tenfold increase in campaign-driven revenue.
These examples reflect a broader trend: leading APAC retailers are no longer treating loyalty as a separate incentive programme. Instead, they are embedding it into the wider customer strategy—one that relies on personalisation, data insights and consistency across all channels.
