Shopee Indonesia has officially entered the ride-hailing business. According to reports the e-commerce giant has partnered with Indonesian taxicab company, Bluebird Group. The partnership enables users to hail taxi rides straight from the Shopee App.

Shopee Indonesia’s move to ride-hailing signifies the growing competition faced by e-Commerce giants in the country as well as the endless possibilities in store for them. Indonesia’s largest ride-hailing company, Gojek merge with Tokopedia, the country’s largest e-Commerce provider several months earlier as well.

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The new feature is called Taksi. Available in some areas in Indonesia, users can not only make bookings for their rides via the Shopee app but also make payments using Shopee Pay. In August this year, Shopee had also established a partnership with Blue Bird to form a logistics service called BirdKirim, enabling users to use Blue Bird drivers for courier deliveries.

The ride-hailing market in Indonesia is forecasted to be worth US$5.6 billion by 2025. It is currently dominated by two companies, Gojek and Grab. While Grab is not a top e-Commerce player in Indonesia, it is the biggest ride-hailing company in the region. Grab’s a super app already offers multiple services apart from ride-hailing. They include food delivery, wallet services, and others.

With ride-hailing being a critical component of a super app, Shopee is definitely heading in the right direction to be a super app in Indonesia. Apart from e-Commerce services like online shopping, their app also offers food delivery, hotel reservations and even has its own wallet.

 A new horizon for Shopee Indonesia?

As such, Shopee Indonesia may not be the biggest e-commerce player in the country, but they are definitely becoming a force to reckon with. In fact, as e-Commerce continues to grow rapidly around Indonesia the competition is also increasing among the providers.

Currently, the biggest e-Commerce provider in Indonesia is Tokopedia. Statistics showed that Tokopedia has an average of 150 million visits per month on its e-Commerce website. Following closely for second place are both Shopee and Bukalapak, with around 100 million visitors per month.

According to e-Conomy SEA report by Google, Bain, and Temasek, Indonesia’s e-Commerce value is expected to reach US$ 83 billion by 2025. In fact, the report also stated that e-Commerce for the entire ASEAN region could reach US$ 1 Trillion by 2030, with Indonesia remaining the largest e-Commerce market.

With that said, it is not surprising that some of the e-Commerce companies are venturing out beyond e-Commerce into other verticals as well. For example, following Tokopedia merger with Gojek, the new company, GoTo recently announced appointed underwriters to manage its US$1bn initial public offerings (IPO), which could take place as early as the first quarter of 2022.

For Shopee Indonesia, the competition in the country also meant they would need to branch out to other verticals as well. SEA Limited, the parent company of Shopee, is already making huge investments in their brands in Europe and Latin America. There were also rumors of the company planning to start offering services in India, but there has been no official announcement on that yet.

The post Shopee Indonesia ventures into taxi-hailing services appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

Earlier this month, e-Commerce companies in Southeast Asia made huge profits from the shopping festivals in the region. While many would say the e-Commerce companies have been successful due to the pandemic, the reality is, consumers in the region are preferring online shopping and the opportunities are only increasing.

In fact, Google’s SEA e-conomy report in 2021 stated that 8 out of 10 of SEA’s internet users are digital consumers. The report also indicates that 90% of Thai, 81% of Malaysian, and 71% of Vietnamese internet users have had an experience of shopping online. As online shopping becomes the norm, the market itself is predicted to reach between US$ 700 billion and US$ 1 trillion by 2030.

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For e-Commerce companies, the market is still growing and the opportunities are aplenty. The only problem now is, how can be they be the top e-commerce platform in the region. Compared to other parts of the world, the ASEAN region is unique due to its diversity. While some e-Commerce companies have been successful in some countries, they tend to often play catch up in a neighboring country.

As such, e-commerce aggregator iPrice Group analyzed the performance of the top e-commerce companies in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam to determine which e-commerce sites are holding the most of the market share, and which of them have been successful in drawing social engagement.

Interestingly, Shopee and Lazada are still dominant in most markets across the region. In Malaysia, Shopee holds 71% of the region’s overall e-commerce web traffic, followed by Lazada with 18%, and PGMall with 9%. Shopee Malaysia recently launched its Shopee food feature, which flooded both new and existing users with food vouchers and free deliveries. Meanwhile, Lazada Malaysia added a Chinese language option to cater to a wider market.

Homegrown e-Commerce companies making a mark

An interesting trend seen in some ASEAN countries is that local sites rank in the top three. PGMall (Malaysia), Central Online (Thailand), and Tiki (Vietnam) have done quite well in establishing themselves in their respective markets. These three rising e-commerce sites have carefully executed strategies to earn their top spot.  The cross-country collaboration between PGMall and JD Worldwide, for instance, has encouraged local sellers to offer unique local brands to the Chinese market. With access to China’s extensive market, PGMall’s platform has become one of the most prominent domestic online businesses in Malaysia.

Meanwhile, Tiki, which holds 13% of Vietnam’s e-commerce market share. They signed an exclusive partnership with insurance company AIA Vietnam for 10 years. Due to this, policyholders may manage their insurance accounts and seek health insurance solutions and claims through the Tiki website. This resulted in garnering the platform’s well-deserved web traffic.

Central Online, on the other hand, has allowed its thousands of mall tenants to sell their products through its digital platform during the pandemic. This decision amounted to the diversification of online merchandise and average web traffic of nearly 2.6 million.

In Indonesia, which is the largest e-Commerce market in the region, Tokopedia is top of the list followed by Shopee and Bukalapak. This is probably due to both Tokopedia and Bukalapak being preferred among the local consumers for their e-Commerce activities.

 At the same time, social media is becoming an important tool in e-Commerce as well. iPrice reported that based on Facebook reactions, Malaysians engage the most with posts related to the top e-commerce sites on social media, which accounts for 44% of the total social engagements recorded. Vietnamese users account for 36% of the engagements while Thai users account for 20%.

With the industry expecting to see more sales in the future, the competition among e-Commerce companies is increasing as well. Most platforms are already providing new features like shoppertainment to keep shoppers hooked on their sites. Some have also reduced shipping fees or even provided more free shipping vouchers to consumers.

The reality is though, the merchants are the ones who are also benefiting from the increased sales. While the pandemic may have forced them to move their business digitally, these e-Commerce platforms have enabled them to reach out to more customers around their region, allowing them to not only increase sales but also branch out for more opportunities.

The post Mapping e-Commerce companies in Southeast Asia appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

According to statistics from Shopee, the visits on their platform spiked 5.5 times in the first two hours compared to an average day. This time, there were more shoppers from outside major cities, with a five-time increase recorded among rural and small-town shoppers. Sales for some merchants soared 18 times compared to an average day.

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More than 3.5 billion messages were also sent on the in-app Shopee Chat across the sales period. The chat function enabled shoppers to have live chats with sellers, allowing them to get more information about products before making any purchases. Live streaming continued to be a core part of the online shopping experience with over 300,000 hours of live streams watched on Shopee Live, as users connected with sellers.

For Junjie Zhou, Chief Commercial Officer at Shopee, “the digital economy continues to present many growth opportunities, and we want to enable more people to benefit from this growth by increasing e-commerce adoption and helping more consumers and businesses come online.” 

As e-Commerce platforms enable greater convenience for shoppers, one of the most important features for any platform is payment security. While Shopee and most e-Commerce platforms offer secure payment gateway services, the third-party payment provider may at times be not able to deal with the heavy traffic during the sales period.

Realizing this, some e-Commerce platforms have launched their own payment platforms. For Shopee, they offer their customers ShopeePay, a secure and seamless mobile wallet. The wallet enables shoppers to make seamless purchases, especially for those in rural areas.

ShopeePay was the preferred payment platform for rural shoppers during the sales period with transactions growing nine times more from an average day. As the payment wallet offered extra deals for shoppers, over 2.5 million offline payment vouchers were claimed. Examples of payment vouchers include coupons for meals that shoppers purchase online and redeem at selected restaurants. The vouchers are offered to shoppers based on their location, ensuring everyone is able to get a piece of the pie.

(Source – Shopee)

What do these numbers mean for e-Commerce?

The record-high sales by Shopee only increase the app’s dominance in the region. While Alibaba’s Lazada also recorded good sales during the shopping festival, the platform was still unable to match the success of Shopee.

Shopee continues to grow its influence not only in the region but around the world as well. The e-Commerce platform has already launched services in the Americas and Europe and is now planning to offer services in India as well. While it is uncertain when exactly the company plans to begin operating in the subcontinent, the prospects are looking good for them, especially with some rivals facing issues there.

With shoppertainment gaining traction in e-Commerce, Shopee has also ventured into the food delivery industry. ShopeeFood is available in selected areas in the region and is becoming increasingly popular among consumers, especially with the sales vouchers offered to consumers. The app is slowly matching the competition set by established food delivery apps like Food Panda and Grab Food.

More interestingly, the e-Conomy report by Google, Temasek, and Bain & Co showed that e-Commerce, online media, and food delivery are poised to grow to over US$300 billion by 2025. The numbers are a clear indication that the pandemic has not derailed e-Commerce businesses, even as most countries begin to recover slowly. And Shopee is ticking the right boxes with its services as well as the report pointed out that aside from Vietnam and Thailand, the majority of new consumers are from non-metro areas.

In fact, over a third of last year’s online commerce was generated by new shoppers, of which 8 in 10 intend to continue buying online going forward. The purchase frequency has also increased, though the shift towards essential goods has shrunk average basket sizes. There is no denying that many SMEs moved online as e-Commerce became the only available retail channel. But it’s only good news for them as consumers who have now tried online shopping indicate they’ll continue post-COVID-19.

The reality is, as long e-Commerce platforms offer a secure environment for consumers, offer good deals, and keep communicating with consumers in real-time, the possibilities are endless. E-commerce may have been around for some time, but for Shopee, the sales potential and opportunities achievable are still growing.

The post Shopee breaks sales record, over two billion items sold appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

The region’s biggest online shopping extravaganza did not begin as a shopping event. Instead, it all started out as a day to celebrate singlehood by a group of students at China’s Nanjing University in 1993.

The date picked — November 11, or 11.11 — represents four singles. Soon enough, the celebration caught on among the general public, then retailers, and it’s now become a stalwart in the retail calendar — the biggest reason to splurge at the end of the year.

To put it in perspective, 1.9 billion products by Alibaba were ordered and delivered last year with sales hitting US$38.4 billion, an increase of 26% from the previous year. The gross merchandise value reached more than 210 billion yuan (US$31 billion), double that of Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined, with sales hitting US$1 billion in a little over one minute of trading. For context, US online retail sales on Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday combined last year totaled US$24.6 billion.  

This year, by 12:30, am on Wednesday, consumers had already spent US$56.42 billion on Alibaba’s Taobao and Tmall e-commerce platforms since the company kicked off the shopping festival on Nov 1 — with the number of orders peaking at 583,000 orders per second.

JD.com, Alibaba’s biggest rival, said transaction volume on its platform was 200 billion yuan as of 12:09 am Beijing time on Wednesday. Again, that is a total from Nov 1.

Many of us have been enjoying some retail therapy today, at the comfort of our home given that some of the biggest e-commerce platforms have been putting on a show since the beginning of the month.

New records, thanks to the pandemic

Ahead of the world’s biggest online sale this year, Alibaba has deployed three million workers, assisted by 4,000 planes and ships. Today features some 250,000 brands from all over the world to an estimated 800 million Chinese consumers in a 24-hour period.

A report by BBC stated that Cainiao, the logistics arm of Alibaba, will be using more than 3,000 chartered flights and long-haul cargo ships to bring goods into China. This is on top of the three million people across Cainiao and its partners which are involved in logistics globally at warehouses and ports.

Cainiao will also be using more than 10,000 mobile lockers to allow customers to pick-up parcels without human contact and operate more than 700 chartered flights to deliver parcels outside China.

Consumers had already spent US$56.3 billion on Alibaba’s Taobao and Tmall e-commerce platforms. Source: Shutterstock

Analysts are factoring in ‘revenge spending’ as cashed-up Chinese consumers unable to travel internationally due to the coronavirus pandemic spend more on imported products and foreign luxury brands than before.

Hence why Alibaba this year, expanded the concept from ‘single’ to ‘double’, enabling merchants to double up on promoting their products to consumers across China not just once, but twice. A new sales window was added between Nov 1 to Nov 3, ahead of today.

Alibaba said this year’s event will have the largest international presence since it was founded in 2009. AliExpress now sells to more than 200 countries and regions worldwide.

Lazada was the first to bring the shopping festival concept to Southeast Asia across six markets: Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. Shopping festivals such as 11.11 have also become one of the key industry growth drivers as local small and medium businesses participate in this biggest event alongside LazMall, the region’s largest online mall with more than 18,000 local and international brands. 

The post 3m workers, 4000 planes and cargo ships — 11.11 sales in figures appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

E-commerce sales were expected to be dampened this year as the pandemic seemed like it would limit consumer spending. Instead, leading Southeast Asian (SEA) shopping platforms like Shopee and Lazada have been doing brisk business.

In fact, the SEA region is firmly in its biggest year-end promotional period, where e-commerce sites are throwing madly discounted prices across their sites for a limited one-day or weekend-only window. Following September 9 and October 10 (the 9.9. and 10.10 sales milestones, respectively) the next big retail date is on November 11, and top regional platform Shopee is gearing up for its annual 11.11 – 12.12 Big Sale.

However, the leading e-commerce platform in SEA and Taiwan is introducing a slew of activations across its active regions in conjunction with the Shopee 11.11 promotional period. Instead of just another massive sale, Shopee is this time providing more opportunities for most players along its online shopping value chain, including businesses, retailers, and consumers.

The growth of e-commerce in Southeast Asia and Taiwan has created new opportunities for sellers, SMEs, and brands. This trend is reflected in Shopee, as the number of sellers on the platform increased by 60% year-on-year.

As the regional e-commerce scene became increasingly diverse, it became apparent that there was no unilateral model that would suit all small to midsize enterprises (SMEs) who were selling in the marketplace.

Firstly, Shopee will support more than 300,000 sellers, SMEs, and entrepreneurs in the region who signed up for Shopee’s Seller Support Package in early April. By highlighting new sellers during Shopee’s 9.9 Super Shopping Day in September, new merchants posted a 6x sales boost during that period, and similar support should be expected for Shopee 11.11.

In Malaysia, the Shopee 11.11 Big Sale will offer the widest selection of merchants offering the biggest amount of discounts and cashback. A total of 11 million orders were recorded on November 11 last year, signifying a 24x increase from the first Shopee 11.11 Big Sale campaign back in 2016.

Shopee is also committed to propping up to 10,000 SMEs in Malaysia and Singapore with initiatives that aim to assist SMEs in embracing digitalization, in the wake of the present economic backdrop. Shopee’s recent survey of 11,850 Malaysian sellers found that 5,406 are new entrepreneurs who turned to e-commerce in the recent economic downturn, and are operating 100% online storefronts.

The platform has also enhanced its Shopee University program, including digitalizing the curriculum and widening its online Seller Education Hub so that all sellers can level up their e-commerce skills. Shopee Masterclass, the e-tailer’s social commerce tutorials by popular live-streamers, helps sellers get acquainted with Shopee Live, the platform’s ‘shoppertainment’ component.

Shopee also helped local and international brands connect and engage with the region’s digital-first shoppers. In 2020, Shopee co-created 600 Super Brand Days with top companies such as Disney, Samsung, and L’Oreal, generating strong traction during the past 10.10 Brands Festival, where traffic on the site surged by two and half times the usual amount.

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Along with supporting brands and sellers, this year Shopee is also committing to community initiatives like the Shopee 11.11 Big Charity Drive. This will occur in each of Shopee’s SEA markets, supported by trusted social organizations, top celebrities, and the biggest brands in the region. The Charity Drive aims to raise awareness and donations for underprivileged children and cancer research in the region, among other causes.

Martin Yu, the associate director at Shopee Philippines, said that “e-commerce has made a profound impact on our lives, and especially so this year.”

Yu pointed out a parallel with the Black Friday sales that have become a tradition in the US and other markets. “Shopee 11.11 Big Sale is our way of transforming a global phenomenon into one that truly belongs to our region,” he explained.

“It continues the strong momentum of our successful 9.9 and 10.10 events, and builds on our long-term vision to transform the lives of people and businesses we serve. Join us as we make e-commerce for everyone at 11.11 this year.”

The post Shopee looks to make mark in SEA sales season appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

Recently, Shopee Head of Regional Marketing Agatha Soh sat down for an interview with Tech Wire Asia, where she answered questions about the company’s strategy for expansion, its focus on small businesses, and its plans for the immediate future.

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What makes Shopee perfect for small-and-medium scale business owners in the Philippines?

We want to make sure that we will be able to break down barriers for all entrepreneurs, regardless of the size of their business operations. We all know that Internet penetration is on the rise in Southeast Asia. We’re focusing on mobile, so even SMEs with very little infrastructure can grow and thrive.

One interesting trend in the region is the transition from offline to desktop to mobile shopping. This is something important. Mobile is more accessible. Thus, it’s very easy for entrepreneurs to sell their products.

For us, we believe a lot in the sellers. We want to make sure that we can cater to small businesses. In terms of the kind of support, we try to customize the solutions we provide as well.

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What advantage does Shopee have over its competitors such as Lazada or Zalora?

First of all, our focus on mobile is significant. At Shopee, we have a laser-sharp focus on user experience for mobile customers and merchants. We believe this is the future and we have allocated resources for both buyers and sellers in this regard.

Along with this, we have a strong focus on localization. I don’t just mean tailoring our message for each market, either. Every market is so different in Southeast Asia. Thus, in any country, we provide localized support for buyers and sellers alike. We also make it a point to hire local talent for each country’s operations.

What security measures are in place for consumers? Does Shopee enforce sanctions on merchants? If so, when and how is this done?

Shopee takes this really seriously. If we want to provide a good user experience, we have to provide a good, secure system. We have a very big team in place that controls quality for all our listings. If there is an item that does not fulfill regulations, we might even ban the seller. We also have an ongoing effort to educate our merchants.

The concept of security is very important to us. We provide the Shopee Guarantee, an insurance-type offering for our buyers that has been very successful on our platform. This reduces any barriers or reservations in the minds of users. We have found that once users experience Shopee, they do not leave.

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One of the things customers love about Shopee is the fact customers can decide when merchants receive their payment? Is this feature unique to Shopee or was it inspired by another firm?

It’s something we partly modeled after successful businesses. However, we enhanced it, built it, and rolled it out over time. In countries that have not fully warmed up to the concept of online shopping, we focus on educating consumers and merchants on the benefits of e-commerce.

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Shopee’s payment options are quite interesting in the way that a credit card option is unavailable. Will Shopee be open to the idea of using cryptocurrency-based payments in the future?

So far, we do not have plans for this [cryptocurrencies] yet. In the Philippines, we are still investing resources to develop our infrastructure. We are working on introducing other payment options in the near future, however.

What is Shopee’s primary target for 2018?

I think for 2018, we would like to be the No 1 online shopping destination in the Philippines. We would continue to focus on improving the product and user experience we offer by introducing new features. We would also aggressively expand our number of sellers to keep pace with the market landscape.

We want to focus on our sellers. Whether you’re big or small, we want to bring you online. There’s a lot of education to be done. We have to educate everyone and show how easy it is to use our platform.

The post Shopee insider reveals 2018 plans for Filipino SMEs appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

The Philippines is embracing e-commerce a bit later than its Southeast Asian siblings. Back in 2015, the overall revenue for e-commerce in the country was valued at a modest US$0.5 billion per year. That’s just 0.5 percent of retail transactions in the country.

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The Philippines’ e-commerce market is expected to grow significantly over the next few years, however, with eCommerceiq Asia speculating that the Philippines’ online market would likely balloon to US$10 billion by 2025, as noted in an Export.gov report.

With a significant number of Filipinos gaining access to the internet through their mobile devices, the advantages of e-commerce retailers such as Lazada and Shopee are starting to become incredibly prominent. With this in mind, however, something as established as Lazada might actually end up losing some ground to upstart firms such as Shopee.

Lazada Thailand CEO Alessandro Piscini poses after an interview with Reuters in Bangkok, Thailand. Source: Reuters

One thing that is notably different about the two online retailers is the consumer experience they provide. Based on the features of the two online retailers, Shopee does appear to be superior to Lazada when it comes to consumers’ raw shopping experience.

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One thing that many Filipino shoppers are particular about is the security of their purchases. In this regard, Shopee truly shines, as customers have control when their payments are released to merchants.

Apart from this, communicating with Shopee sellers is also a breeze, thanks to the mobile application’s messaging-friendly layout.

Lazada, on the other hand, is starting to gain some reputation for being merchant-centric. The reactions of netizens in a previous Reddit AMA by a Lazada merchant, for one, showed that many customers feel rather discontented by many aspects of the online marketplace.

Online shopping in the Philippines is heating up. Source: Shutterstock.com

As of today, however, Shopee is still pretty much a growing alternative to Lazada. Its Shipping Options, for one, is still inferior to the veteran retailer. Its payment options are also more limited, as it does not have options for PayPal and credit cards.

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Nevertheless, the clash between the two e-commerce firms seems inevitable. Just recently, Lazada reacted very strongly to a full IPO prospectus report released by Sea, which owns Shopee. According to the report, Shopee had 2.2 times the number of total orders of its closest competitor in the Greater Southeast Asian region, as noted in a TechInAsia report. Lazada, of course, was not pleased.

For Filipino shoppers, however, the rivalry between Lazada and Shopee is something that would likely translate to great deals and aggressive marketing strategies; and this is something that shoppers in the Philippines genuinely love.

The post Shopee moves into Lazada’s Philippine e-commerce territory appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.