Study: 80% of APAC retailers confident as loyalty makes a comeback

Loyalty is re-emerging as the new battleground for Asia Pacific (APAC) retailers, as brands shift from transactional tactics to data-driven strategies designed to win back trust and drive long-term value. According to a new study by Twilio, launched at the National Retail Federation’s (NRF) 2025 Retail’s Big Show APAC, loyalty and re-engagement (28%) was named the top untapped opportunity by confident retailers, surpassing product discovery (24%) and post-sale care (18%).

This renewed focus on loyalty comes as four in five retailers across APAC say they are confident in their ability to execute customer engagement strategies over the next year, despite growing economic headwinds. Yet beneath this optimism, customer loyalty (27%) has surfaced as the most pressing challenge, ahead of price-related dissatisfaction (23%) and communication around pricing and product availability (21%).

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To stay ahead, many retailers are making deliberate investments in personalised offers and loyalty programmes (25%), alongside conversational AI (27%) and human agent support (22%), in a bid to deliver more empathetic, relevant, and human-centred experiences across the customer journey.

Brands across the region are putting that philosophy into action. Fashion eCommerce platform ZALORA, which serves over 55 million customers in Asia, streamlined its customer data systems to enable self-service campaign execution, reducing turnaround times from weeks to minutes and doubling conversion rates.

Pomelo Fashion, a trend-driven retailer in Southeast Asia, used tailored product recommendations to improve product discovery, resulting in a 50% increase in engagement and contributing to a 15% lift in revenue.

Meanwhile, Thailand’s Central Group unified its online and offline data ecosystems to enhance its loyalty programme, enabling over 80 personalised and automated campaigns, delivering a 10-fold increase in attributed campaign revenue.

While 43% of retailers expect mixed conditions in the year ahead, Twilio’s findings point to a clear shift: in an environment where loyalty is no longer guaranteed, brands are rethinking engagement from the ground up and placing bigger bets on relevance, personalisation, and long-term value creation. 

"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, APAC and Japan at Twilio.

He added, "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."

That customer-first approach is increasingly powered by AI, and consumers are expecting it. According to DHL eCommerce’s “eCommerce trends report 2025”, 81% of APAC shoppers want retailers to offer AI-powered features such as visual try-ons, voice search, and smart shopping assistants.

The report, based on a survey of 24,000 online shoppers across 24 markets, found that AI, social commerce, delivery expectations and sustainability are now shaping the future of digital retail. Nearly half (47%) of consumers in the region are already shopping using voice or command-based tools, indicating a clear shift in expectations.

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