How to sell on Shopee in Southeast Asia?

Easy, secure, fast and enjoyable shopping - these attributes have made Shopee stand tall amongst all the other existing e-commerce giants (like Lazada, Tokopedia, eBay, etc.) in the Southeast Asian e-commerce market. Started in 2015, this Singaporean multiple-national company has ranked 6th in the “Best Global Brands 2021” awards by YouGov. Even with late entry in the market, Shopee records maximum monthly active users and maximum time spent on the app. According to Data.ai, Shopee topped the charts of most downloaded apps in the Shopping category, in 2021.

Glimpse of Shopee Sales

Shopee started as a free service for vendors to sell their products online and for buyers to shop at nominal rates with home delivery convenience. This is how it acquired the majority chunk of the Southeast Asia market. It then started charging some transactional fees and adding more features on the platform. It has hosted several sales campaigns like 9.9, 11.11, 12.12, etc. It broke its first sales record in 2020, with over 2 billion items sold in a sales campaign (11.11 Big Sale). This is equivalent to the sales recorded in the last quarter of 2021. Therefore, making Shopee the most liked app for shopping online in Southeast Asia.

Why sell on Shopee?

The statistics of e-market presence and customer acceptance of the overall brand mentioned above in this draft makes it a must go place to sell online. Shopee has served as one of the most lucrative bridges between the customers and vendors.

In order to understand why one should sell on Shopee, one can introspect why customers buy from Shopee over other e-commerce platforms. The first and primary reason that makes Shopee as the go-to customer's choice is its security assurance. Shopee provides strict regulations ensuring better protection in its Shopee Guarantee Program. This means that customers can never get a fake or duplicated product. This has built the real trust factor in the market and outspread widely even with late entry as compared to other e-commerce platforms. The customers are more likely to prefer Shopee for an expensive product purchase. Thus, once a company or distributor is verified to sell on Shopee, they are projecting their business to a huge prospectus of customers from different countries.

Furthermore, Shopee platform provides some effortless features and support to its seller community just as it assures its customers for quality products and smooth shopping experience. Some benefits of selling on Shopee include:

Minimal financial stress with low transaction fees.
Minimal to zero shipping costs.
Multiple payment options.
Multiple language support - upto 6 languages.

Prerequisites of Selling on Shopee

Shopee runs a well-proof process to achieve its motto of “simple, happy and together” shopping experience for both sellers and buyers. Therefore, it is mandatory to ascertain some requirements to successfully register and sell on Shopee. These prerequisites cum norms include following:

1. Authorised Brand or Seller

In order to get registered and sell on Shopee, one should qualify to be an authorised company or a licensed distributor, that is, one’s business should be registered or the individual should have a valid active license from recognised government agencies or brands. This is the primary verification step to assure that customers get original products from authentic sellers.

Some examples of government and registration related documents are provided in the following list:

BIR Certificate of Registration (Form 2303).
Mayor’s permit.
DTI/SEC business registration certificate.
For official distributors: Official distribution licence/ authorization from the particular brand.

2. Logo and other statutory

Further, the Shopee registration process asks for other company details that are necessary to verify the brand identity. It also makes it mandatory for sellers to generate invoices for payments and other necessary receipts for credit transactions if any. It requires following to be verified as an authentic seller:

Registered official shop logo.
For brand owners: Trademark/IP certification.
Collection receipt and invoice.

3. Necessary on-site tools

The most important note to make is that Shopee does not allow any redirection outside its online platform. Therefore, sellers should not use any product descriptions or links that direct them to other website pages. The sellers also should not initiate any payment gateway outside the Shopee platform. They should have verified access to use any one or all of the payments options provided by Shopee like:

ShopeePay
SPayLater
Shopee Coins
Shopee Gift Cards
SLoan and other Payment options

This means sellers should have necessary payment portal registrations, shipping ops or other rights in the entire shopping journey of selling online within the Shopee platform.

Steps to start Selling on Shopee

The basic registration process begins with a normal signup procedure that verifies the seller's contact details. On approval, one can create their seller account on Shopee. All the steps to follow thereafter are mentioned below:

Step #1 Seller Registration

The first step is to fill the seller registration form that includes basic info about the individual and his/her company details or license number for verification; details on shop information and selecting shipping channel/s from the provided options. The shop information is how one’s profile would appear on the Shopee platform.

Step #2 Listing/Adding Products

This is the section that the target customers would see. It defines the customer impact of the seller’s products and the overall brand perception. Adding products on the Shopee platform is all about creating a valuable shopping experience with necessary nitty-gritty involved. Make this section as informative as possible. Make sure all the information of each product listed on the platform is included. Keep no room for surprises. This helps customers understand the product better before making a purchase and builds overall brand trust. Also thoroughly consider that the presentation of all the information, that is, the seller's shop details and product details is mobile friendly as the majority of the active Shopee purchases are listed from mobile users.

Step #3 Outline Process to Fulfill Orders

Align the packaging and other processes before handing over the product for shipment. This step involves all activities that keep a track of all the active order updates and helps further process return orders or product related queries if any.

To get more details on steps for smooth onboarding, visit the Shopee Guide.

How to Increase Sales and become a Shopee Preferred Seller?

Shopee Preferred Seller is a badge that a seller gets his/her profile based on criterias defined by Shopee. This features a seller shop in the recommended section and increases its visibility to users. This can be achieved by strictly following the guidelines laid by the Shopee. Abiding by the same helps sellers increase their sales and meet criteria which further notifies them that they have qualified and may further participate in the Preferred Seller programme.

The following criteria notifies that the seller has qualified to become a Shopee Preferred Seller.

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Here, the Net order refers to the orders that are shipped in time and are exclusive of cancelled, returned or refunded orders.

Furthermore, the following criteria is considered to also delist a seller from the earned badge.

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All the seller activities are closely tracked by Shopee. Meeting the community rules, policies and regulations would certainly yield increased sales and best of the seller experience.

Some additional tips to increase sales are provided below:

Add the recent or new product additions in a carousel at the top of your shop pade to increase chances of displaying them first to the customers. The more a product list is updated, the better it gets to be featured on top.
Add high quality images of your products to grab attention and create a unique impression.
Keep the Product Description simple, clear and to the point covering all the details or features of the product along with its stock quantity, shipping fees if any and delivery dates.
Ensure smooth shopping experience for customers with timely shipping, and guided return or refund policies. Good ratings and reviews gain customer loyalty and make your profile stand out for the best customer relationship.
Boost Now feature can be used to run ads for certain products which can increase the visibility of that product on different web pages of the Shopee platform. This can also help achieve more sales with minimal investment.

Takeaway

Singapore’s multinational e-commerce brand - Shopee supports 6 languages and is present in 14 countries with booming sales in the chunk of the Southeast Asian countries: Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia. This makes it appealing for the global market to sell on Shopee with a very subtle onboarding process. It also assures customers of quality products with simple and happy shopping experiences. In case you have bigger projects in your basket that are not just confined to sell on e-commerce platforms but run a warehouse or a fulfillment center, then Hopstack - a Warehouse Operating System and other Management products company would be happy to help. Schedule a demo today to explore the Warehouse Management Saas products that smoothly manage and optimize all your warehouse processes.