I.

Company analysis
1. Overview of Shopee
Shopee is a Singaporean e-commerce platform owned by the Sea Group (previously
known as Garena). Shopee was founded in 2015 by Forrest Li. It is a social-first, mobile-
centric marketplace where users can search, shop and sell on the go. The asset-light platform,
which includes logistical and payment assistance, plans to make online shopping simple and
safe for both sellers and buyers. Shopee provides a wide selection of product categories
including consumer electronics, home and living, health and beauty, baby and toys, fashion
and fitness equipment.
In 2015, Shopee was first introduced in Singapore and since then, it has expanded to
Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Brazil, and Vietnam. It allows
Southeast Asia and Taiwan consumers to purchase and sell products online. Nowadays, with
the power of technology, Shopee aims to create a community to connect buyers and sellers
based on three main attributes – Simple, Happy, and Together. Besides, Shopee is highly
tailored for each market in which it operates.
Shopee is continuously known as the leading app in Southeast Asia’s Shopping
segment in terms of monthly active users, cumulative time in using the app and total
downloads. It is also the third most downloaded app in the Shopping segment worldwide in
2020.
In Vietnam, Shopee was launched in August 2016 with Mr Tran Tuan Anh as the
Shopee Regional Managing Director. Although joining Vietnam late, Shopee has had a
remarkable growth. According to YouGov 2020 Buzz Rankings, Shopee ranks 2rd in
Vietnam among positively known brands, behind Samsung. Standing at 4th and 9th are Tiki
and Lazada, respectively. Thus, Shopee ranks first among e-commerce sites in Vietnam
according to YouGov's criteria.
2. Shopee Business Model
As for Shopee, the company first started as primarily a Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C)
marketplace but has since moved into both a C2C and Business-to-Consumer (B2C) hybrid
model. A glance at Shopee’s homepage indicates that the marketplace is onboarding brands
such as phone maker Vivo and Blackmores, in addition to facilitating its normal C2C
transactions. This move places the C2C-B2C platform in the same playing field with
marketplace heavyweights such as Lazada.
C2C e-commerce is a type of trade relations where both sellers and buyers are
consumers, not businesses. It presupposes interaction between parties through a third one,
mostly an online auction or trade website. Meanwhile, B2C e-commerce model is when a
company markets its products or services directly to end users. In e-commerce, there are five
different B2C models including direct sellers, online intermediaries, advertising-based,
community based and fee-based. For Shopee, the company acts as an online intermediary as
they bring sellers and consumers together and take a cut off each transaction made.
3. SWOT analysis
3.1. Strengths
● Free Shipping Program: Shopee created the Free Shipping Program, which helps
sellers take advantage of quick and dependable logistical resources offered by Shopee
to ship and distribute goods to customers.
● Wide range of products: In Shopee, you can find almost every kind of product.
Shopee provides a wide selection of product categories ranging from consumer
electronics to home and living, health and beauty, baby and toys, fashion and fitness
equipment.
● Affordable price: In Shopee, the price of some products are even lower than the
market price.
● Buyer’s Protection: Shopee protects its buyers from potential fraud through the
‘Shopee Guarantee’ feature. In ‘Shopee Guarantee', Shopee briefly keeps payment to
ensure that the sale is properly completed before releasing payment to the vendor. All
orders are secured by Shopee Guarantee, which helps shoppers to see and watch the
status of their order.
● Good Communication Platform: Shopee has a display which is easy to use. Even new
users can get used to it quickly. Moreover, Shopee's chat feature provides outstanding
customer support via chat to assist sellers in increasing sales. This feature brings
satisfaction to both sellers and buyers. On the one hand, it helps sellers to understand
customers’ needs. On the other hand, it allows buyers to ask and receive the answer
quicker in order to understand more about the products.
● Advertising Feature: ‘Shopee My Ads’ has a great introductory page which attracts
sellers to learn more about its advertisement feature.
● Sharing feature: Shopee has a complete so that information is easily accessed to
various social media platforms
3.2. Weaknesses
● Terms and Conditions: In shopee, some terms and conditions are hard to follow. For
example, you cannot apply your discount vouchers for all products that you want to
buy. Some vouchers have specific conditions, which are too complicated and
troublesome for some users.
● I n a b i l i t y t o
the items purchased do not meet their
expectations. This makes many
customers worry when shopping
online. It can be said that online
shopping is based on your luck. You
cannot be sure if the product you
receive matches the product description
you have read.
● C u s t o m e r s e r v
It is often found that many sellers in Shopee sell products that do not match from what
has been shown in the description. They even send customers completely different or
much cheaper products. This creates negative thoughts for customers about shopping
online.
● Accessibility: Sometimes the app is difficult to access or even slow at certain hours.

● High shipping fees

 3.3. Opportunities
● Under the impacts of Covid 19, many people are currently changing their behavior to
use online platforms for purchasing instead of traditionally purchasing in store.
Therefore, the growth opportunity for e-commerce marketplaces like Shopee is huge
as the shopping behaviors of customers are changing.

● According to The map of E-commerce in Viet Nam (iPrice Group), Shopee continued
to lead as Vietnam’s most popular e-commerce platform in all four quarters of 2020.
This means that Shopee is attracting and retaining a large number of users in Vietnam.
Besides, with a large number of loyal customers, Shopee can continue to maintain its
leading position in the market.
● With huge financial backing from its parent company Sea Group, Shopee has
confidence in competing with other rivals.
3.4. Threats
● Fierce competition comes from competitors such as Tiki, Lazada, Sendo,... Moreover,
there is a rumor that a merger between the country’s top local e-commerce platforms
Tiki and Sendo might happen. If this happens, the new entity could pose a significant
threat to Shopee.
● The spread of low-quality and fake goods from Shopee can make the consumers lose
their trust in Shopee if they do not have more effective policy to protect consumers.
● In order to gain market share, Shopee has had to burn massive amounts of money on
sales and promotion campaigns to stimulate shopping and this leads to the huge losses
for the company.
References:
1. Retrieved from: https://www.sea.com/products/shopee
2. Retrieved from: https://careers.shopee.vn/about/
3. Retrieved from: https://vn.yougov.com/find-solutions/brandindex/best-apac-buzz-
rankings-2020/
4. Retrieved from: https://iprice.vn/insights/mapofecommerce/en/
5. Retrieved from: https://kr-asia.com/shopee-remains-vietnams-most-popular-e-
commerce-platform-report
6. Retrieved from: https://www.vir.com.vn/e-commerce-titans-step-up-fake-product-
fight-76350.html
7. Retrieved from: https://vneconomictimes.com/article/business/e-commerce-battle-for-
share