GROUP ASSIGNMENT COVER SHEET

STUDENT DETAILS

Student name: Huỳnh Tâm Nguyệt Ánh Student ID number: ISB21000034

Student name: Phương Bích Hằng Student ID number: 21001000

Student name: Nguyễn Hoàng Quốc Huy Student ID number: 21000996

Student name: Lê Thị Thanh Huyền Student ID number: 21001066

Student name: Hồ Lê Phương Nghi Student ID number: ISB21000009

Student name: Phạm Thanh Uyên Phương Student ID number: 21001243

UNIT AND TUTORIAL DETAILS

Unit name: Consumer behavior Unit number: CB-T222PWB-1

Tutorial/Lecture: Class day and time:
Lecturer or Tutor name: Võ Văn Dung
ASSIGNMENT DETAILS

Title: Written report

Length: 2125 Due date: 01/08/2022 Date submitted: 01/08/2022

DECLARATION
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prior permission from the Lecturer / Tutor / Unit Coordinator for this unit.
No part of the assignment/product has been written/ produced for me by any other person
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Student’s signature: Nguyệt Ánh
Student’s signature: Bích Hằng
Student’s signature: Quốc Huy
Student’s signature: Thanh Huyền
Student’s signature: Phương Nghi
Student’s signature: Uyên Phương
TABLE OF CONTENT

I. MARKET OVERVIEW 1

II. BRAND OVERVIEW 1

III. SWOT ANALYSIS 3

IV. KEY COMPETITOR AND TARGET SEGMENTATION 4

V. PROBLEMS AND OBJECTIVES 5

VI. LITERATURE REVIEW 6

VII. THEORY OVERVIEW 7

VIII. FOCUS GROUP DISCUSSION 8

IX. CONSUMER INSIGHTS 11

X. MARKETING CONSIDERATIONS 12

REFERENCE 15

APPENDICES 20
 I. Market Overview

Between 2018 and 2021, Vietnam's e-commerce market, one of the fastest-growing in the

region, was increased by 71.25 percent, from $8 to $13.7 billion (Statistic, 2022). This is driven by

Vietnam’s youthful population and high smartphone penetration. Moreover, the number is

projected to reach $39 billion in 2025 (Nguyen, 2022).

According to Nguyen (2022), E-commerce sales made up 5.5 percent (over 5,000 trillion

VND) of total retail sales in the Vietnamese market in 2020. At the same time, the expansion of

e-commerce is also increasing, escalating from 28 percent in 2017 to nearly half of the population

in 2020.

Within this industry, several existing trends developed parallel with rising internet access,

wider adoption of smartphones, and increasing confidence in online shopping. The Covid-19

pandemic has accelerated the growth of e-commerce (VECOM, 2021) and enhanced the

acceptance of digital financial technology for contact-free and cashless transactions. The near

future will embrace the expansion of omnichannel shopping as multi-channel becomes a new type

of retail. The key to drawing attention to keeping customers is the growing personalization of their

purchasing experiences. To gather and analyse information and create their own experiences, e-

commerce platforms have to invest more in AI and Big Data (Febis, 2022).

II. Brand Overview

Established in February 2015, Shopee was oriented as a social-first and mobile-centric

marketplace that provides users with a friendly environment to browse, shop and sell under the aid

of “Shopee Guarantee”. In August 2016, Shopee officially launched in Viet Nam and soon recorded

1
over 5 million downloads a year later, rapidly rising to be the most popular e-commerce platform

in this market until now. Regarding market position, Shopee obtained 57% of the website traffic

from all multi-vendor e-commerce sites in Q3 2021, respectively larger than the sum of all the other

sites (Aspin, 2021).

Also, Shopee renders a range of service categories including diverse payment methods, the

ability to exchange money mutually between ShopeePay wallet and bank accounts, banking error

supporting service, ShopeeCoin, delivery service, cancellation, returning and refunding policy, and

instant customer service channel (Shopee, n,d.).

To be differentiated from its competitors, Shopee specifically conducts a localization strategy

in which the app is customised to particular markets based on unique features in culture. Moreover,

they simultaneously develop two sub-apps called ShopeePay and ShopeeFood. These are directly-

linked applications of Shopee and have successfully satisfied many users thanks to easy and

comprehensive purchasing experience.

2
III. SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis of Shopee

SWOT Analysis of Lazada

3
 IV. Key Competitor and Target Segmentation

• Key players:

The main competitors of Shopee are Lazada, Tiki and Sendo, who are the direct

competitors. The indirect competitors are The Gioi Di Dong, FPT and Dien May Xanh.

• Key competitor:

Our key competitor in Vietnam market is Lazada, due to the following reasons: both aim

at constructing a marketplace for B2C and C2C, have headquarters in Singapore and

mainly operate in the Southeast Asian Region, built for mobile devices – giving users a

fast and visually high mobile shopping experience, and have Integrated

Logistics/Transport System – works with leading logistics companies to have an integrated

application that users can easily select a preferred logistic service.

• Competitive Landscape

4
 (Appendix C)

V. Problems and Objectives

Having strong promotions and campaigns, Shopee holds the highest market share in the

Vietnam e-commerce market, with a monthly visits of 25.2 million (Statista, 2021). According to

Iprice (2022), from 2019 to 2021, Shopee has maintained ranking first in terms of market share.

However, despite having a significant growth of 18% in 2020, for the following year of 2021, Shopee

growth fell tremendously to 7%. During this period, Lazada was quick to overcome Tiki, and rose

to second place, becoming the closest competitor with Shopee in 2021. (Detailed results can be

seen in the Appendix A).

5
Therefore, Shopee’s problem is: Shopee's position is being threatened by other competitors as

they are growing and gaining more customers.

Company Objectives:

As a result of the situation, Shopee's objective is to protect their market share, by increasing

brand loyalty and maintaining the current users as well as gaining more customers.

Research Objectives:

Shopee needs to find out the problems and the satisfaction that the customers has with the

brand in order to improve and maintain as well as gain customers, therefore, the research is

constructed in order to evaluate the customer’s perception towards the four reasons for choosing

an e-commerce platform: (1) easy and convenient; (2) large selection of products, (3) low-prices; (4)

faster service and delivery in comparison between Shopee and its main competitor - Lazada, along

with other key competitors.

VI. Literature Review

According to the Nielsen Norman Group’s survey, there are 4 essential criterias for

customers when choosing an e-commerce platform: convenience, variety, price, speed of service

and delivery. E-commerce brings benefits for the users when they offer a variety of products, which

can get access to places all over the world, especially locations that don’t offer physical stores of

the brand (Katawetawaraks & Wang, 2011). The authors also mention that in regard to prices,

people prefer purchasing on e-commerce sites because of the great price deal. Buyers form certain

expectations on the delivery in E-commerce platforms, regarding speed and costs, and deviating

from this can result in receiving negative feedback (Kovac, 2017). In order to obtain customer

6
loyalty, service quality is deemed to be the main factor to create a trust-based relationship (Gefen,

2002).

https://www.nngroup.com/ (Nielsen, (1999)

VII. Theory Overview

In order to analyse the focus group discussion for Shopee, this report mainly uses the

application from the theory revolving around customer commitment and customer reviews on

consumer behaviour.

A committed customer attaches to the brand through three factors: brand identification,

brand comfort, and brand delight. Brand delight is an extremely important process during the post-

purchase stage as delight performance helps increase customer loyalty, and lead to repeat

purchases, increased brand engagement. Failing to create satisfaction in customers can increase

churn (turnover in the firm’s customer base), which goes against the major objective of many firms

(Hawkin & Mothersbaugh, 2016, p.639). The firm's goal is to reduce churn as it typically costs more

to obtain a new customer than to retain an existing one, and new customers generally are not as

profitable as longer-term customers.

According to Hawkin & Mothersbaugh (2016, p.239), customer reviews are a word-of-mouth

marketing, which is powerful in online marketing. Customer reviews belongs to consumer groups,

7
which is an independent sources of external information (Hawkin & Mothersbaugh, 2016, p.524).

There are two concerns about customer reviews, first is the bias in reviews, and second is fake

reviews. In addition, customer reviews also play an important role in building a source of credibility,

which has a huge effect on the internal influences of consumer behaviors (Hawkin & Mothersbaugh,

2016, p.398). These fundamental theories are vital to this report analysis, which attributes to the

steps of analysing insight and giving out marketing consideration for Shopee, an e-commerce

platform that has an active customer reviews activity, products and services in order to maintain

their customer base.

VIII. Focus Group Discussion

The discussion begins with introducing the moderators and respondents, information and

rules (see the Appendix D). Afterwards, the moderator will move on to the second and third section,

aiming to find the perception about Shopee application and products and identifying the

customer’s opinions of prices and services in Shopee. The discussion will take 1 hour and 30 minutes.

Finally, the session ends with the moderators concluding.

1. Methodology

• Population: E-commerce users and non-users

• Sample frame: Gen Y and Gen Z who are users of Shopee and/ or Lazada, and e-commerce

non-users.

• Sample method:

• Convenience sampling, choosing audiences from the researchers’ close contacts.

• Discussions will be conducted online via Google Meet

8
 • Sample size: 14 people, dividing into 2 groups of 7 people each.

2. Demographic

3. Key findings

• Convenience:

Except for 25% responding that the Shopee’s interface is feasible, there are others opinions

about Shopee’s display:

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o Interface & manipulation: The app’s interface makes consumers feel confused and time-

consuming, while Lazada did a better job.

o Product recommendation: Shopee sometimes bothers the consumers with the regularity

of searched product recommendation, making them feel uncomfortable.

o Advertising pop-ups: Advertisements on Lazada seem to catch up with ongoing trends

than Shopee.

• Price

The overall prices displayed on Shopee and Lazada are cheaper and more popular than

that of other e-commerce platforms and offline-shop. Some argue that Lazada’s prices are

cheaper for electrical, whereas Shopee wins for more obscure items. Most consumers believe

that Shopee does a fantastic job of providing a large number of coupons with high

application, making it easier to reap the sale days' benefits and more attractive than

Lazada.

• Diversity

o Some agree that Shopee offers more choices than Lazada in terms of products and brand.

However, since there are a large number of shops on the platform, 25% of respondents

have a concern of fake and low-quality products.

o It is agreed that Shopee Mall offers quality products; however, there is a limited number

of product categories in comparison with the brand website. All of the respondents

mention they read feedback before buying a product.

• Services and Delivery

o Payment service

10
 Most of the respondents argue Shopee has a diverse method of payment but two third

of them still choose to use cash on delivery. However, there are still one third of the

respondents who are into Shopee Pay since they could earn more promotion.

o Customer service & refund policy

Overall, customers are satisfied with these services but just at the average degree. Most

people report to have not tried a refund service before. Due to the belief that the process

would be complicated, and the price of the product is not high, respondents choose not to

use the exchange service. The answers of the Customer Care Staff are still dubious and

cannot solve the problem thoroughly.

o Delivery

Overall, there are some disputes over the delivery update on Shopee, some said it’s on

time and accurate but some not. Nonetheless, it’s still better than Lazada since it’s not as

detailed and accurate as Shopee. Interviewees said that Shopee has more discounts and

cheaper delivery than Lazada, but the speed of Shopee should be faster.

IX. Consumer Insights

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 Insight 1: Although the reason people use e-commerce platforms is for the convenience of online

shopping, Shopee's delivery service is unstable and has not met the customer’s wants, making customers

lose the initiative in choosing the location and time of receiving their parcels, leading to the discomfort in

the buying experience. Hence, customers expect consistency between the buyer's receiving time and the

carrier's delivery time.

Insight 2: Customers commonly have a perception that products with low price are

equivalent to low quality. Nonetheless, nowadays, they carefully read feedback and review

before making purchases to be an “Erudite Customer”, buying products that are both reasonable

and high quality.

X. Marketing Considerations

From the insights above, in order to protect their market share by escalating brand loyalty,

maintaining the current users, and gaining more people to use the brand, Shopee needs to take

some considerations into practice.

Shopee is recommended to solve their problem on the delivery time to better match their

customers' convenience. Since the company is connected with various shipping units, Shopee

12
needs to make sure their keeping-track system goes in harmony with their delivery partners.

Firstly, the shipping schedule is suggested to be more flexible. To implement this, Shopee should

give customers choices on available day and time frame to receive the package, expanding to a

more specific time interval (eg. from 8AM to 12AM) rather than office or non-office hours.

Furthermore, to reassure customers that the delivery process is plain-sailing and customers will

show more positive satisfaction with Shopee's delivery service, the app should give urgent

messages reminding customers about their purchase order 36-hour before it is shipped. Options

(Yes or No) about whether consumers could receive their order based on their previously confirmed

schedule should be included in that message. If the answer is no, they must provide suitable reasons

and choose another available time based on the time frame provided by Shopee.

As customers' perception on “Cheap products have cheap quality", the frequency of

feedback reading has rocketed as a way to assure the quality of the products through people who

adopted them. However, there are still some gaps in Shopee's feedback giving system. Hence,

Shopee needs to examine the feedbacks' quality before having them appear on the product

evaluation. In order to make it happen, the company should employ a team to check the efficiency

and suitability of the feedback without any biases. The second solution might cost more money

but is long-term sustainable and removes any prejudices, which is introducing the use of AI - the

use of fairness and intelligence. From that, feedback with irrelevant photos and videos with the

purpose of receiving cash benefits would be removed. Moreover, reviews reflecting the bad quality

of the products cannot be deleted or hidden by the shops to better maintain a faithful

marketplace.

13
 Besides, Shopee is recommended to implement a promotion campaign to change and orient

users to the image of “Erudite” and proactive customers in lives, which will help strengthen Shopee's

position in the market and increase the customer loyalty.

14
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see opportunity elsewhere. Making market research agile, connected and decision focused.

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landscape-social-start-ups-see-opportunity-elsewhere

Bhaskar, P. P., & Kumar, D. P. (2016). Customer loyalty on e-commerce. International Journal of

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Decision Lab. (2022). The connected Consumer Q4 2021. https://www.decisionlab.co/download-

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Gefen, D. (2002). Customer Loyalty in E-Commerce. Journal of the Association for

Information Systems, 3, 27-51. https://aisel.aisnet.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=

1197&context=jais

Ganbold, S. (2021). Sea: E-commerce market volume by country 2019-2025. Statista.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/647645/southeast-asia-ecommerce-market-size-cou

ntry/

Hawkins, I. D., & Mothersbaugh, L. D. (2016). Consumer Behavior: Building Marketing

Strategy 13th Edition. McGraw-Hill Education.

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Iprice. (2022). The Map of E-commerce in Vietnam. https://iprice.vn/insights/

mapofecommerce/en/

Katawetawaraks, C., & Wang, C. (2011). Online Shopper Behavior: Influences of Online

Shopping Decision. Asian Journal of Business Research, 1(2), 10.

Kantar Worldpanel. (2018). Vietnam: Into the minds of Millennial

shoppers. https://www.kantarworldpanel.com/vn/news/Vietnam-Into-the-minds-of-

Millennial-shoppers#downloadThankyou

Kovac, I., Naletina, D., & Kuvac, A. (2017). The Significance and Importance of Delivery in

Electronic Commerce. University of Zagreb. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/

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E_OF_DELIVERY_IN_ELECTRONIC_COMMERCE/links/5accbf63aca272abdc65

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Lazada. (2021). Multi-Channel Logistics. Lazada Logistics. https://www.logistics.lazada.com/multi-

channel-logistics

McKinsey & Company. (2019). Seizing the fast-growing retail opportunity in Vietnam.

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Nielsen. (2018). How to engage with Generation Z in Vietnam.

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quarterand-six-months-of-2022/

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 https://blog.remitly.com/finance/shopee/

Samuel, P. (2022). Why Vietnam’s Free Trade Agreements Will Play an Important Role in 2022.

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2022.html/#:~:text=While%20Vietnam%20is%20one%20of,and%20most%20recently%20the

%20RCEP.

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Shopee. (n.d.). Điều Khoản Dịch Vụ ( (Service Terms and Policies). Shopee Trung tâm trợ giúp

(Shopee Service Centre). https://help.shopee.vn/portal/article/77243-

%C4%90I%E1%BB%80U-KHO%E1%BA%A2N-D%E1%BB%8ACH-

V%E1%BB%A4?previousPage=secondary+category

[Shopee announces 4 groups of customers who often shop online.] Shopee công bố 4 nhóm

khách hàng thường xuyên mua sắm trực tuyến. (2021). Tuoi tre. https://tuoitre.vn/shopee-

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 Appendices

Appendix A: Market Share of Shopee and Key Competitors

From Iprice, we acquire the number of monthly web visits for each of the platforms of Shopee,

Lazada and Tiki.

• Monthly Web Visits of Shopee, Lazada and Tiki

https://iprice.vn/insights/mapofecommerce/en/

We acquire the number of e-commerce users in Vietnam each year from 2019-2021 from

Statista.

• Number of E-commerce users in Vietnam

https://www.statista.com/

• The market share of Shopee, Lazada and Tiki

We obtained the market share for Shopee, Lazada and Tiki by dividing the number of monthly

web visits of each of the platforms by the total number of e-commerce users in Vietnam for each

year from 2019 - 2021.

20
21
Appendix B: SWOT Analysis

SWOT OF SHOPEE

STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES
• Strong financial resources and Capture high • It is difficult to control the source of the
market share in e-commerce. seller's goods as well as the situation of
• Shopee’s interface design is easy to use. dumping in the market.There are many
• Products are sold at very favourable prices, fakes and imitations appearing on Shopee
often with attractive promotions. due to poor monitoring. It damages the
• High localization and customization: Instead confidence of buyers because they have
of making a common application for all, bought fake goods while the sales of real
Shopee makes an independent application in sellers are also affected.
each different market. Shopee introduces • The Shopee customer support call centre
online stores that sell products advertised and has not been fully effective. Mostly still
represented by KOLs. buyers and sellers contact themselves.
• Effective business model, making the most of • On-time delivery is not guaranteed
the resources of the parties in the value chain:
Shopee operates in a combination of both
B2C and C2C models; Connect with reliable
and convenient means of payment - Shopee
Pay; Cooperation as well as self-owned
transportation unit, owns a wide warehouse
system throughout Vietnam

OPPORTUNITIES THREATS
• The trend of online shopping is increasing • Becauses e-commerce sites do not produce
rapidly: goods themselves, they will be dependent
• Large customer force with high potential and on suppliers, fall into a passive state and
tending to replicate more may lose credibility with customers.
• The amount of time Vietnamese people use • Serious Rivals: Nowadays, the competition
the internet is high between Shopee and other e-commerce
• The growth rate of e-commerce in Vietnam is platforms is extremely fierce, which
the fastest in the world seriously affects the company's market
• Belonging to the top industries encouraged share.
and prioritised for development by the
government.
• The logistics system and logistics
infrastructure in Vietnam is on the rise.

22
• GDP in VN: Growth rates in agriculture,
industry, commerce, tourism, services, etc.
The first 5 months of 2022 show that
Vietnam's economy is continuing to prosper,
bringing GDP growth in the second quarter to
reach 6% and GDP in 2022 to grow over 7%.
Besides, Vietnam's urbanisation rate was at
37% in 2020 and was forecasted that the
share of urban population will surpass the rural
population by 2050, which shows the average
income of Vietnamese consumers is
increasing. As income increases, consumers
will be willing to spend more, the
consumption-to-income ratio of Vietnamese
is among the highest in Southeast Asia.
Hence, consumers will have high spending
power and ability to pay.
• Vietnam offers one of the most favourable
legal environments in the ASEAN region: As
of 2020, Vietnam is part of the Free Trade
agreements (FTAs) allowing the import and
export of goods with reduced or zero customs
duties.

SWOT OF LAZADA

STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES
• Strong investment capital from the parent • Goods are only guaranteed of quality when
Alibaba Group purchased on Lazada Mall: The
• Lazada has their own logistics and warehouse phenomenon of fake goods, imitation
infrastructure systems. Along with the goods, floating products, unknown origin is
rebranding, Lazada Logistics is also rampant, accompanied by unpredictable
introducing multi-channel logistics (MCL) consequences that cause confusion for
services, which provide a single stock consumers.
fulfilment solution to help e-commerce • Customer service is still inefficient.
enablers and brands fulfil across all e-
commerce channels seamlessly.

23
• Flexible and strict policy for sellers and buyers • Consistency between the product’s quality
• Offers a wide range of products: Lazada has and customer’s expectation is not
been pioneering in various countries in e- guaranteed.
commerce and offers an extensive list of
products by category. The products range
from male and female
clothing, accessories, household goods, and
electronic devices to health and beauty
products (Lazada, n.d.).
• Many great promotion campaigns and events.
• Provide a variety of payment methods.

OPPORTUNITIES THREATS
• The political and legal situation in Vietnam is • The market is fiercely competitive with
quite stable. It is a favourable environment for many strong competitors. This will threaten
domestic or foreign enterprises to develop. Lazada’s market share and their position in
Therefore, enterprises feel secure in long- the market
term business, avoiding crises caused by • Because they do not produce goods
unstable political and legal situations. themselves, but have to go through
• Although Vietnam's e-commerce market is distributors, they will be dependent on the
still young, it has a lot of potential with a supplier and fall into a passive state and
young population and increasing penetration may lose credibility with customers if the
of smartphones and the Internet.This makes it supplier does not guarantee the correct
easier for customers to easily access online contract.
purchases. Hence, the number of customers • The volatile economy leads to changes in
will increase. income levels and affordability, making
• The trend of online shopping has increased consumers more thoughtful when shopping.
sharply. At the same time, e-commerce has a large
scale and fast development speed, creating
many choices and consumers can easily
compare prices and product quality.
Therefore, customer loyalty to businesses is
not high.

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Appendix C: Identifying Target Customers:

The target customers of two e-commerce platforms are identified based on the centralization of

the revenue, and the most using app the customers choose.

According to Metric (2022), the revenue of Shopee from 13/5 to 11/6 was approximately 7,640

billion dong. The revenue from Beauty products, Women’s clothes, Home & Living, Mom and

babies products contributed roughly a half to the total revenue.

25
 In terms of Income, the revenue of Shopee in this period focuses mostly on the range of

100,000VND to 500,000VND. Products in the range of 50,000VND to 100,000VND and

10,000VND to 50,000VND also contributed a huge amount of money to the revenue of Shopee

(Metric, 2022).

In terms of Geographics, the revenue of Shopee was earned from HCMC (41.4%) and Hanoi

(45.7%) (Metric, 2022) .

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 According to Decision Lab (2022), Gen Z and Gen Y use Shopee more than Gen X. The trend

is the opposite with Lazada as Gen X users account for a larger percentage of its total

number of users.

Gen Z is considered generous, high in self-identity as well as national identity with the city and

digital lifestyle. Gen Z users also have a low loyalty rate as they enjoy trying new things (Nielsen,

2018). Gen Y is tech-savvy, with a hectic lifestyle. Therefore, this generation seeks convenience,

creation and suitability (Kantar Worldpanel, 2018). Gen X prefers a work-life balance lifestyle with

a personality as economical and stable (Generational differences chart - University of South

Florida; Nielsen, 2015). This generation is also very loyal to brands (Generational differences chart

- University of South Florida). Regarding customer behaviors, Facebook is prefered by three

generations. The second of the most popular social media is Youtube and only Tiktok is most

prefered by Gen Z (Decision Lab, 2022). With the given information, we conclude that the target

customers of Shopee and Lazada as the table shows in the main part of the report.

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Appendix D: Discussion Guide

Discussion Guide for E-commerce

Project: Shopee

Total Timing 1 hour 30 minutes

I. Introduction and warm-up 5 mins

II. Understand consumers’ perception of Shopee 30 mins

application and products, in comparison

30 minswith key

competitors

Break 10 mins

III. Understand perception of the users about Shopee

30 mins
prices and services, in comparison with key

competitors
5 mins
IV. Thanks and closing

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 I.Introduction and warm-up

(5 mins)

• Moderator introduces, and briefly mentions relevant information

and explains the purpose, and rules of the interview.

o Hello everyone, thank you for taking your precious time to

join the session today. I'm A, and I will be today's host. The

purpose of this session is to exchange and listen to your

feelings and experiences with Shopee.

o Introduction: Shopee is the largest e-commerce platform in

Southeast Asia and Taiwan. It is a platform specially

designed to make online shopping easy, secure and fast

thanks to its diverse sourcing and excellent payment support

services.

o The objective of this interview was to gather information

about the customer's experience and perception of Shopee

as well as the services provided by this e-commerce site.

• Moderator establishes ground rules and explains about audio and

video recording for research purposes only, interviewees’

confidentiality would be protected.

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 • Please share your real experiences in the most honest way,

without stress, including criticism. Your cooperation will help

us a lot for this project.

• We would like to record today's conversation. Your personal

information will be protected, and they are used only for

learning and research purposes.

• Please keep your phone silent and limit doing personal work

to make sure you don't waste your time and other

participants.

• Before going to the main question, can you briefly introduce

yourself? (Name, age, place of residence, occupation, major

of study, etc.). I would like to invite ….

II. Understand consumers’ perception of Shopee application and products, in comparison

with key competitors

(30 mins)

Key Objectives: Is the application and format easy to use? (INTERFACE, INTUITIVE,

CONVENIENT)

Learn about 1. Rate the aesthetics and interface of the Shopee vs Lazada app

Shopee’s application from 1-10. State the reason.

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 2. Which app makes you want to buy more thanks to its easy

operation? (Example: easier to add/remove products to cart, easier

to track cart)

3. Is Shopee's product recommendations right for your needs?

Compared with Lazada. Do you have any suggestions on changing

Shopee's recommendations so you can surf the app more

comfortably?

4. Do you see Shopee pop up with many ads about games/vouchers?

Compared to Lazada? Do you find these ads effective and

necessary?

Note: Do not apply the comparison with Lazada for interviewees who have

never used either app.

Learn about
Shopee’s products Are the products on Shopee diversified?

1. Do you feel Shopee gives you a wide range of choices for

categories, and are there a selection of products for each

category? Compared to the e-commerce platforms you are using,

what are the advantages and disadvantages of goods on Shopee?

(quality, number of items).

2. Are you satisfied with the product you received (packaging, quality,

feedback).

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 3. Have you purchased through Shopee Mall yet? If yes, do you feel

Shopee Mall offers you a wide choice of brands and products?

Compared with Lazada.

4. Rate on a scale of 1-10 for items on Shopee. Do you have any

suggestions for items on Shopee?

III. Understand perception of the users about Shopee prices and services, in comparison with

key competitors. (30 mins)

Key objectives: PRICES

1. How do you define fair price? Do you think the prices of products

Learn about on Shopee and Lazada are reasonable and worth buying?

customer’s 2. When researching products, do you compare prices between e-

experiences with commerce platforms? If so, have you noticed a noticeable

prices difference in price? Does the price difference between Shopee and

Lazada make you hesitate?

3. How do you feel about Shopee and Lazada's promotions and

discount codes? With sales programs on 7/7, 6/6,... Do you often

shop on these days? Do you feel that the e-commerce platforms

that have implemented the programs are attractive and

convenient? Does the use of discount codes help you reduce the

hesitation when buying?

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 4. Do you have any suggestions about Shopee's pricing policy? (Want

a cheaper price? Want a system to compare prices of the same

product? Want a price increase but quality assurance?)

Learn about
PAYMENT SERVICE
customer’s
Currently Shopee has a total of 3 payment methods: payment on delivery
experiences with
(COD), Shopee Pay wallet and Credit/Debit card
Shopee services
• Do you think the above 3 forms are diverse enough? And what is

the most common form of payment for you?

• Have you ever had any problems paying through Shopee? If yes,

how did Shopee support and solve it?

• Do you feel that Shopee's payment experience is better / worse

than other e-commerce platforms? (If bad: did they do better?)

RETURN SERVICE

• Can you name a few reasons why you have to return a product?

• Have you tried this service yet? Does the process have any

advantages/disadvantages?

• In your opinion, what should Shopee do to improve its return

service?

CUSTOMER SERVICE

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 • Can you name a few issues that prompted you to contact Shopee's

customer service?

• Do you have any other experiences with customer service at other

e-commerce platforms that left a great impression on you? What

do you think Shopee can learn from those e-commerce platforms?

DELIVERY SERVICE

• Overall experience

• How would you rate the delivery service of Shopee and Lazada on a

scale of 1-10 ntn? Why?

• Do you use regular or express shipping? Why?

• In your opinion, how is the delivery fee on Shopee (cheap,

reasonable, medium or expensive)? Compared to Lazada, which

side do you find cheaper?

• How do you feel about Shopee and Lazada shipping discount

codes? Which side offers more incentives, more codes?

• Delivery process:

• Can you tell me about any good or bad experiences with Shopee

and Lazada's delivery process?

• What do you think about Shopee and Lazada's delivery tracking

feature?

• Delivery man

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 • Have you ever had encounters with delivery people that upset you?

Can you tell me exactly how that happened?

Pre-end Overall, what do you think Shopee should do to improve?

IV. Thanks and Closing

(5 mins)

• This is the end of today’s interview, do you have any further questions? Do you have any

recommendations for Shopee in general to improve? Do you feel uncomfortable with any

questions or with the interviewing process?

• Summarize and thank the respondents.

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Appendix E: Focus Group Discussion Data

• Demographics: 14 respondents were participating in the Focus Group Interview, including

4 males and 10 females. There are 5 Gen Y, and 9 Gen Z. All of them live and work in Ho

Chi Minh City, with one living in Thu Duc City. Their occupation ranges from students to

office workers.

• Frequency of Use: Among 14 respondents, there are 11 people using Shopee, 1 person left

Shopee and moved to Lazada and 2 people do not use e-commerce for purchasing

products. Regarding e-commerce purchasing frequency, medium users, who purchase

products on e-commerce 2-4 times per month make up 58.3% of the respondents who

use e-commerce. In addition, 16.7% of respondents are heavy users, who use e-commerce

to purchase products more than 5 times per month and 25% are light users.

• From the Data Collection Table, we have gathered the main ideas towards the four

criterias:

• Convenience

Only 25% of respondents agree that the interface of Shopee is easy to use. The other

respondents have negative perception towards Shopee app’s display:

o Interface & manipulation: Shopee received some reviews that the app’s interface

makes consumers feel wordy, tangled and confused as there are too many

contents and categories displayed, the point at which Lazada did a better job.

Although having faced the similar problem, Lazada has fixed the app with a more

friendly interface. Moreover, products’ names on Shopee are decided by the buyers

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 and some are too long to read without clicking on the product. This can be a

disadvantage as the name is not fully exposed to consumers if they are strolling the

web, but can also be an advantage when it encourages consumers to click on.

o Products recommendation: Shopee sometimes bother their consumers with the

regularity of searched products recommendation. Moreover, such a large number

of recommendations and information can disturb consumers’ experience and make

them feel uncomfortable while surfing the app. However, some consumers

appreciate this function as the results and recommendations are highly related to

their needs.

o Advertising pop-ups: Both e-commerce apps have a lot of vouchers and other

kinds of advertisements popping up when entering the app. Despite the similar

regularity, advertisements on Lazada seem to catch up with youth’s trends and

tendencies than Shopee.

o Vouchers: Shopee provides consumers with more vouchers and they seem to be

available with more products than those of Lazada although many of them are still

considered impractical. Therefore, customers hope that Shopee will provide more

usable vouchers.

• Diversity

The respondents believe that Shopee offers a wide range of categories, and gives them a

large selection of choices, and some (of 7 people) agree that Shopee offers more choices

than Lazada in terms of products. However, since there are a large number of shops on

the platform, 25% of respondents have a concern of fake and low-quality products. It is

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agreed that Shopee Mall offers quality products; however, there is a limited number of

product categories in comparison with the brand website. All of the respondents mention

they read feedback before choosing a product from the shop.

• Price

On the whole, the majority of customers suppose that the overall prices displayed on

Shopee and Lazada are cheaper and more popular than that of other e-commerce

platforms and purchasing directly. However, some argue that prices on Lazada are cheaper

for larger electrical items, whereas Shopee wins for smaller or more obscure items. Moreover,

although both Lazada and Shopee tend to go all out when it comes to hosting big sales and

promotions, most consumers believe that Shopee has been providing a large number of

coupons with a high application, making it easier for customers to reap the benefits of huge

sale days and more attractive than Lazada.

• Service

o Payment service: Most of the respondents argue Shopee has a diverse method

of payment but two third of them still choose to use cash on delivery. The reason

lying behind is somewhat alike, people find it inconvenient to put money into

Shopee Pay and worry about the risk of losing money due to the app’s problem.

However, there are still one third of the respondents who are into Shopee Pay

since they could earn more promotion codes that could be applied by using this e-

wallet.

o Customer service & refund policy: overall, customers are satisfied with these services

but just at the average degree, no one has distinct or perfect experiences. When

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 questions about refund policy are asked, most people report to have not tried it

before, since the products received are very much alike with what they have seen on

the app. Besides that, some think the process would be complicated, and the price

of that product is not very high, so they choose not to use the exchange service.

When considering the satisfaction with customer service, most people believe in the

convenience of Shopee, due to the just-in-time reply by hotline and mail. However,

the answers of the Customer Care Staff are still dubious and general and cannot

solve the problem of these customers thoroughly.

o Delivery: Overall, there are some disputes over the delivery update on Shopee, some

said it’s on time and accurate but some not. Nonetheless, it’s still better than Lazada

since it’s not as detailed and accurate as Shopee. Interviewees said that Shopee has

more discounts and cheaper delivery than Lazada, but the speed of Shopee should

be faster.

• Non E-commerce buyer

The common concern for non e-commerce users when buying on e-commerce is the

product quality. Important factors that encourage non-user to shop offline are shopping

habits and self-interest. The non-user likes the enjoyment of buying in store as they can

physically touch, evaluate the products as well as enjoy the store atmosphere. A non-user

mentions loving the moment of shopping with family and friends. Both of the non-users

do information search online to have the comparison between shops.

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