SINGAPORE – E-commerce firm Shopee is now eyeing to boost its presence in the Philippines—one of its top potential markets in Southeast Asia—by going after first-time e-shoppers.
Shopee Chief Operating Officer Terence Pang said online purchasing remains a relatively new trend in the country, translating to still many untapped potential customers.
“[In] the Philippines, I think the priority is still very much on growing,” Pang said during a round table media discussion at the new Shopee headquarters here.
Currently, Shopee estimates only around 2 percent to 4 percent of the population make online purchases.
The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) placed e-commerce higher, at between 13.5 percent and 14 percent as of 2015.
“If you imagine, there’s thousands of Filipinos who are coming online and making their very first purchase in their lives everyday. So what Shopee needs to do is provide them with this excuse to come on and develop that habit with us and build this relationship, and help them buy more things online,” Pang said.
Complete package
To access this potential market, Pang unveiled their comprehensive three-year strategy in the country, with plans to go beyond mere e-commerce.
Accessing this market potential, he said, will mean increasing their engagement with their customers either through creating more socializing features in their mobile application like games, and engaging popular brand ambassadors like Sarah Geronimo and, recently, Sen. Emmanuel “Manny” Pacquiao.
“It has evolved from something as simple as having a lot of products, sellers, nice good brands, cheap prices,” Pang said.
Pang added that they expect people to “spend a lot more time interacting with the app. Not just focusing on the end-transactions.”
Educating the public, Pang said, will also be crucial in their market strategy.
“How do we educate the buyers, so that they become more comfortable with buying? And how do we build credibility and a relationship with our end users [in the process?],” Pang said.
And then, there is the external factor, which Pang conceded they could do very little about, like logistics, sellers and public access to mobile phones.
Fortunately, he said there is an existing “ecosystem” in the country, where these components for a successful e-commerce are flourishing.
Regional growth
Shopee is currently moving to cement its strong regional presence in Southeast Asia and Taiwan, especially with the recent opening of its new Singapore main office.
“Our new headquarters reflect our long-term commitment to unlock the full potential of e-commerce in Southeast Asia and Taiwan. We will do this by making online shopping an engaging social experience that connects people across the region,” Shopee Chief Executive Officer Chris Feng said in a statement.
Shopee claimed it is currently the leading e-commerce platform in its covered markets, with over 200 million downloads of its apps and over 7 million active sellers.
This after Shopee reported that its gross merchandise value (GMV), the total sales made by the firm in a period, had already reached $3.8 billion for the second quarter of the year—72.3 percent higher compared to the same period in 2018.
Likewise, its gross orders in the same quarter increased by 92.7 percent to 246.3 million, from 127.8 million year-on-year.
It is now poised to exceed its last year’s performance with its upcoming 11.11 Big Sale.
During the annual event, the average store traffic of Shopee’s partner brands and sellers typically increases by 400 percent.