Sea Limited’s Shopee has emerged as one of 🇧🇷 Brazil’s most downloaded shopping app. The eCommerce application achieved this threshold owing to its unique approach to online shopping. The application was a hit among the Brazilian audience due to its thrifty marketplace and in-application mini-games which offer coupons to winners.
The Singapore-based firm has coupled online shopping with a gaming niche (which belongs to its distinct gaming domain called Garena). After only 5 years since its conception, Shopee emerged as Southeast Asia’s most engaging eCommerce website leaving behind platforms like – China’s Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, Tokopedia which is Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp, and Lazada, according to a Web Retailer report.
Analyst Jianggan Li from the advisory firm of Momentum Works indicated that despite the application’s late debut into the eCommerce market, it has fruitfully built a system that is at par with its competitors when it comes to solving eCommerce associated problems.
The startup’s conception, in Brazil, can be perceived to have happened at an apt timing. Just as the Brazilian consumers frenzied away from physical shops, the Shopee eCommerce sales boomed by 44% to $42 billion in the year 2020 (indicated by the data from Brazilian payments company – EBANX).
Data from the analytics platform – App Annie, showed that the eCommerce platform has emerged as Brazil’s top downloaded application with a tightly knit competition with Alibaba’s AliExpress.
Sea Limited’s Global Mission
Sea Limited’s Brazilian venture is just a fragment of its global mission. Sea Limited’s investment domain, Sea Capital, plans to invest in startups that belong to the Latin American geography and beyond.
The company has also established Shopee in Colombia, Mexico, and Chile. Unlike Brazil, these places do not house local staff. Hence, the brand has amalgamated a strategy that promotes its brand on social media. Social media influencers serve as a big mode of marketing for the eCommerce platform.
The firm has disclosed a trivial amount of data about the Brazilian Shopee. However, Itau BBA analysts have estimated the worth of goods and services associated with the platform to be $2.27 billion in the year 2020.
Sea Limited’s most challenging task for the Brazilian wing of the eCommerce platform is to initiate hassle-free delivery, of shopping orders, in such a large country. The firm has minimized its dependence on the local postal system in 2021 and has begun to indulge with private postal entities.
The eCommerce brand aims to possess one primary logistics partner in every country of the Latin American region.
Shopee’s local sellers vouch for its services
Shopee has seen great competition in the Latin American economy in August. This was at a time when its greatest rival in terms of the product base, AliExpress, opened up its platform to local sellers by charging them a mono-digit commission. AliExpress had been in the Brazilian market for 11 years and Shopee followed its footsteps initially.
Luciana Carvalho, a small-business proprietor, began retailing packaged plastic goods on Shopee in February 2021. The business swore free shipping and a 6% commission – in contrast with MercadoLibre’s 17% commission. Carvalho exclaimed that Shopee was easier to sign up, calculate commissions, and procure receipts and delivery tags. She said that the hassle-free services offered by Shopee made her invest in the eCommerce platform. Despite being a MercadoLibre user, Carvalho vouches for Shopee’s impeccable services.
Shopee has kept profitability in mind and enhanced its commission rates to 18%, which is almost double of the commission charged by competitors in the Southeast Asian economy. This increased commission rate showcases Latin America’s upscaling profit margins.
Shopee boasts a huge consumer base in Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Taiwan, Philippines, and Malaysia.
Analysts from Goldman Sachs state that selling higher-ticket products in the Latin American region, like Shopee has in Southeast Asia, will enhance profitability for the eCommerce platform.
