Fuel-linked inflation is turning everyday spending across APAC into a loyalty stress test. As prices, fees and routines become harder to predict, daily life means staying close to brands that share pressure fairly, simplify value and help life remain manageable amid market anarchy.
What does brand loyalty look like in a world of uncertainty? This is the big question many face today, as prices continue to increase due to global fuel supply shocks. People are posting their frustrations online and changing their routines to become more deliberate with their spending. Gone are the days of blindly buying a product just because “I’ve always bought this,” with serious canvassing now part of every shopping experience. Meanwhile, brands are trying to figure out how to position themselves in this new era of intentional consumption, far beyond simply slashing prices. “What will make us truly worth it?” they wonder.
Why is this important?
Economic uncertainty is likely to continue in the coming months. In Southeast Asia, oil spikes are still pushing up transportation and food costs. In South Korea, rising energy costs are adding to inflation pressures and weakening spending confidence. As fuel surcharges spread across industries and regulators monitor pricing practices, energy volatility has become part of daily household planning. This is reshaping behaviours across APAC - among urban households, small business owners and mobility-dependent workers. In the Philippines, street food vendors are scaling back or raising prices as liquefied petroleum gas costs rise. Online discussions reflect the same shift, with people cutting back on food delivery due to surcharges, comparing fuel prices before leaving home, postponing trips and reworking commute habits. Across Reddit and Southeast Asian Facebook groups, users share tips on cheaper delivery platforms and petrol price trackers, underscoring the need for constant recalibration rather than simple cutbacks.
What’s the behavioural shift?
Shoppers are deliberating how they spend, comparing prices, stacking rewards and using digital tools to evaluate value as pricing volatility and inflation make costs feel less stable. Over 70% of Japanese shoppers actively seek cheaper alternatives or closely track prices due to rising living costs. Others set price alerts, wait for promotional cycles such as Singles’ Day, consolidate spending within ecosystems to unlock reward thresholds or delay non-essential purchases until vouchers or cashback promos appear. In South Korea, more than half of online shoppers use coupons or reward systems.
Rising fuel prices are also directly feeding into SEA households’ cost pressures, with diesel and gasoline prices reaching double pre-crisis levels and rising by 30 - 60% year-on-year in some lower- and middle-income economies. This shows up in small but telling decisions: families in Jakarta prioritising nearby convenience stores over longer mall trips while workers in Vietnam rely more on platform-based delivery and transport services. Urban households are consolidating trips to manage costs. In the Philippines, fuel price increases have been repeatedly flagged as a key driver of transport and food inflation, with ripple effects reaching everyday spending and logistics costs.
"These days, loyalty is no longer a given - it’s now more conditional and needs to be earned constantly."
People are seriously considering which brands are fair and make daily life manageable. This isn’t just about lowering prices – it’s more about value for money. Brands that succeed in offering more value for the price outperform cheaper options, adding that in Thailand this value-seeking behaviour is common across generations. Factors that add to a brand’s value include: quality, attitude and trust.
What’s the key takeaway for brands?
When price increases are inevitable, the key to earning loyalty is making your brand’s value go beyond numbers. That means doing away with the easy route of discounts and going for the more difficult but sustainable journey to price transparency. Hidden fees, shrinkflation and surcharges are read as signals of intent, with people questioning whether increases reflect genuine cost pressure or opportunistic margin protection. So, if you must change prices (whether higher or lower), be honest about it and explain why. Good transparency gives people “a reason they can believe and repeat,” strategy and cultural intelligence leader Rafael Silva tells Canvas8.
At the same time, brands should work towards spotlighting exactly what their value is, through clearer pricing, visible rewards and loyalty systems that surface total benefit upfront. Rakuten’s Points ecosystem in Japan illustrates this shift, with integration across consumer-facing services such as Rakuten Ichiba, Rakuten Pay, Rakuten Card and Rakuten Travel. Spending within a single ecosystem makes rewards more visible and immediate for people, fighting off fragmentation.
And lastly, now is the time for brands to help make people’s lives easier. As costs remain volatile, daily life is shifting towards fewer trips, more localised consumption and app-enabled convenience that reduces friction in basic routines. Gojek PLUS illustrates this shift by offering guaranteed discounts across GoFood, GoRide, GoCar, GoTransit, GoSend and GoMart, making mobility, meals, errands and deliveries feel more predictable. Loyalty increasingly follows whoever helps people keep moving, working and showing up.
Global strategic insights agency Canvas8 is the official culture partner of The Marketing Society Singapore. Exclusively for members in Singapore: get eight weeks of access to the cultural intelligence that helps you move with certainty, not guesswork. Members, you will have been sent the link to access.
