Shopee Philippines is quite bullish that it will have a banner year in 2018 as more Filipinos use their smartphones for their shopping activities.
“Today, we’re looking at over 6 million downloads in the Philippines. Moreover, we have over 3 million active listings, plus more than 200,000 sellers,” Agatha Soh, regional marketing head of Shopee told BusinessMirror recently. She said Shopee’s strong focus on the mobile platform has enabled the Singaporean company to be a competitive force in online shopping. “Delivering a great mobile experience to the customer is one of the key factor’s in our rapid growth,” Soh said.
She added localization is another element in their growth. To cater to every country’s differences, Soh said Shopee made it sure it hired local people who understand the customs and practices. “What we have observed is that every country is different from one another. From then, we tailor our tools to suit the taste of the local users,” she said.
“When it comes to messages, it’s even more obvious. In Thailand and the Philippines, we have observed that celebrity-driven programs are very popular. That is why we need to tailor our strategies,” Soh added.
She emphasized the concept of localization has given Shopee the homecourt advantage. Soh said Shopee is currently continuing optimizing its platforms, and a key focus in expansion is boosting the shops by tapping leading brands. She pointed out that Shopee wants to ensure that it has a platform that caters to all kinds of sellers and a variety of products to its sellers, as well.
The e-commerce executive added Shoppe will continue to empower all sellers ranging from big names to small players as it wants to be the platform for everybody, and to make sure it can empower all of them.
Being the market with the heaviest exposure in digital technology, Soh said millennials are the first users of Shopee. Nevertheless, she added the company wants to grow beyond millennials as the main market in the country. As e-commerce will continue to grow in the Philippines, Soh said Shopee is optimistic there’s more room for growth given that a lot of shoppers are still into the conventional way of shopping.
Soh added Shopee is also bullish on Southeast Asia for its strong economic growth performance and huge market base, mainly Indonesia and the Philippines.
With a population of more than 200 million, Indonesia offers a lot of growth potential for any business. She said that the Philippines also offers a lot of room for growth because of a huge and young population and strong macroeconomic fundamentals, such as the 6.7 growth in its gross domestic product.
“Overall, the economy is opening up to e-commerce. It’s exciting to be in the Philippines,” said Soh, who identified health and beauty, mobile and home gadgets, and home living as the top 3 categories in Shopee. Moreover, she added women outnumber the male shoppers in Shopee.
She said the Philippines is an interesting market because Filipinos basically possess an entrepreneurial spirit. Soh added Shopee encourages people to pursue their entrepreneurial aspirations.
“Shopee doesn’t discriminate against any kind of seller, whether it is big or small. Generally, the trend is moving online. What we aim to do is empower all kinds of sellers to be able to sell online or put their business online,” she said.
She added Shopee adopts a zero tolerance on counterfeit products. It has placed a team that conducts on a daily basis quality checks and listings on the products on their platform. “We make sure that we catch these products and fraudulent sellers, and remove these products from our platform by doing checks daily,” she said.
