Shopee continues its expansion in Thailand

Shopee, a Singapore-based e-commerce company which has now becomes No.2 in the Thai market, said it currently has no plan to collect commission fee from shop owners. However, in order to maintain market share, it plans to expand investment in logistics.

The move comes after 11street, a Korea startup scrapped up its plan, paving way for JD.com, a giant player, to penetrate the market through JD Central.

Terence Pang, Shopee’s Chief Operation Officer who overseas three markets including Thailand, said Shopee views Thailand among the top markets in seven Southeast Asian countries and Taiwan and the company still wants to expand more investment in Thailand, especially in logistics.

Over the past three years since starting the businesses in Thailand, Shopee has more than 23 millions downloaders in Thailand, more than 800,000 online shops and over 1,000 leading brands. The company hires more than 700 employees so far. By the end of second quarter, Shopee generated US$ 2.2 billion in GMV from more than 120 million purchase orders in seven countries.

He said the success of Shopee was derived from hyper localized marketing, ecosystem that supports cash payment upon receiving the products and the collaboration with various transport companies. Shopee will continue providing free delivery to customers and commission-free for shop owners who do businesses on its platform. This is to maintain its strong point and attract new buyers and new shop owners especially in automobile and sports categories.

At present, the best-selling items are electronics, mobile phones, gadgets, beauty and supplementary products, and fashion. The revenue of electronic products in ecommerce channel reaches US$ 41.8 billion while US$ 17.7 billion belong to fashion and beauty categories.

Mr. Pang believes that Thai ecommerce market can be further developed, especially in the adult and baby boomer segment, aside from teenagers, first jobbers which are the main online shoppers at the present. Online shopping will see more purchases for daily goods such as consumer products.

Sivakorn Panupong, Head of Business Development for Shopee (Thailand) said the company had estimated the number of online shoppers in Thailand will reach 13.9 million in 2021 and the spending for online shopping will increase from 8,000 baht to 12,700 baht per person.

The number of online shoppers will increase as a result of the increasing use of smart phones by 37% of total population. And the number of mobile phone users who use internet connectivity will increase to 27 million persons. The number of internet users in Thailand will rise to 41 million people and Thailand currently has the world’s top social media users including Facebook and instagram.

It has also found out that 67% of online shoppers access shopping via mobile phones, followed by 22% who do online shopping through both PC and mobile phones.