Is Shopee the Up and Coming Platform in the Asia Pacific that will shake up and reinvent the E-Commerce landscape?
Earlier this year, Shopee was ranked the most positively discussed brand in Malaysia, beating the likes of WhatsApp, McDonald’s, and Youtube to end the year on a high in 2019.
What in the world is Shopee?
It originally started as a C2C platform and later evolved into a B2C marketplace, becoming Southeast Asia's leading mobile e-commerce platform. It was first established in 2015 in Singapore and then expanded into seven major markets, including Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines. Like several other e-commerce sites, Shopee has a wide range of items including consumer electronics, home furnishings, cosmetics, clothing and fitness equipment, etc.
According to Google Trends, Thailand saw a 63% increase in e-commerce search interest in May compared to the same time in 2019. Malaysia and Vietnam also experienced a surge in interest with increases of 32% and 13% respectively.
So what makes them so dominant in their field and can they reshape the world of e-commerce?
Here are 3 key factors that propelled Shopee to what they are today.
1. They are Mobile-centric
Southeast Asians are the most engaged mobile Internet users in the world. According to the Google, Temasek, and Bain and Company report, there are over 360 million users in the region and 90% of them use mobile phones to surf the Internet.
Since the beginning, Shopee has seen mobile as an emerging trend and e-commerce as the primary focus for the next decade. They immediately concentrated on developing their mobile-friendly applications and platforms. Shopee also claimed that 95% of their orders are made on mobile, making them more likely to offer an end-to-end shopping experience directly from their app.
The population of Southeast Asia is also younger and are more likely to be on social media. Approximately 50% of the 600 million people in Southeast Asia are younger than 30 years old.
Did you know that Facebook is the most popular social network platform for online merchants to sell their products in Southeast Asia?
2. Hyper Local Laser Focused
Unlike many other e-commerce platforms where they mostly serve a single market. Southeast Asia is much more diverse and vast. Each of the countries in its network have different economical characteristics and challenges.
Shopee’s Chief Commercial Officer and Singapore country head Zhou Junjie notes that Southeast Asian markets differ significantly in terms of culture, language, user behaviour, purchasing power, and logistics and payment infrastructures.
All of these were highly localised in each market, so a one-size-fits-all strategy would not be effective, Zhou said, adding that Shopee runs seven different apps in each market it operates to cater to each market’s unique requirements.
With this approach, Shopee is able to bring the most relevant online shopping experience for brands, sellers, and consumers.
3. More than just a shopping platform
One important characteristic of Shopee is that they are also considered a Social E-commerce platform. On top of just buying and selling products on the app, Shopee creates immersive experiences that enable users to interact with each other like a social network.
Some of their features include:
Shopee Live (live streaming)
Shopee Games (in-app mini-games)
Shopee Feed (in-app social feed that allows users to share what they are buying and selling)
Shopee Live Chat (allows buyers and sellers to directly communicate)
In addition to all these integrations, one big advantage Shopee has is the ability to leverage data with their sophisticated AI to identify user’s browsing data, which allows brands to use AI and AR-powered tools to give their audiences distinct shopping experiences.
Instead of competing on price.. *cough* Amazon, Ebay *cough*.... Brands and sellers can dominate by creating brand affinity and engagement with customers through these experiences.
Final Thoughts
Wow. Socializing and online shopping together. Doesn’t that sound fun? It’s almost as if we are going to malls together with friends but virtually.
As Shopee shows, the future of commerce is social. They have set the gold standard for immersive engagement around the world and will continue to shake up the e-commerce scene as the time goes on.
The only other social platform in my opinion that has the potential to follow suit is Facebook (with both their own platform and also the portfolio of social media platforms they have acquired). They’ve already established themselves as one of the biggest social networks in the world. All they need to do now is to build their own version of Amazon.
What do you think?