Singapore – Sea, the parent company of leading e-commerce platform in the region, Shopee, bags the top spot as the top retailer for the Southeast Asia region based on sales in 2021, as seen from the latest data of Euromonitor International. This was two places up from last year’s rankings where in the previous report, Sea fell behind Indonesia’s e-commerce Tokopedia, the top retailer for the said year, followed by Seven & I Holdings, the holding company of 7-Eleven.
Sea recorded sales of $16.06b 2021. It’s the same brands showing up for the top three retailers in the region only their places shuffled – Tokopedia ended second with $12.88b in sales, followed by Seven & I Holdings with $10.85b.
Meanwhile, Chinese retail & tech giant Alibaba comes in fourth, followed by Indonesia-founded convenience store Alfamart. Indonesian conglomerate Salim Group also makes a comeback, while we see two Thai retailers entering the upper 10 – Central Retail Corp and Charoen Pokphand Group.
In the top 10, Vietnam’s Mobile World JSC enters the list, while Philippines’ SM Retail also retains its crown as one of the region’s top retailers.
The report notes that the retail industry in Southeast Asia is largely fragmented, where growth primarily comes from companies with a regional presence. The biggest pattern we see for the period is the dominance of e-commerce platforms such as Shopee, Tokopedia, and Alibaba reflecting the pace of channel shifts. E-commerce players outperformed other distribution channels, especially in markets with
In 2021, e-commerce grew more than 30% in Southeast Asia and is expected to reach over $165b by 2026. This makes the territory a lucrative target for global e-commerce players.
The report notes that while this is the case, a general or broad strategy will not work. Conquering the market is complex and regional e-commerce players must create localised strategies catered to various cultural needs.
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Regional e-commerce platform Shopee has announced that it is launching more collaborative seller marketing tools to help local sellers attract more new and returning customers on the platform.
According to Kavan Sito, director of Shopee Malaysia, starting by the third quarter this year, all sellers can expect to expand their reach through over 13,000 Shopee affiliate partners to gain a wider audience and boost sales via Shopee’s Affiliate Marketing Solution (AMS).
The affiliate partners include social media influencers, coupon and cashback platforms, price comparison platforms and content publishers. Apart from that, the platform will also be enhancing its voucher features that will enable sellers to incentivise new buyers as well as reward repeat buyers for their loyalty.
The new tools were announced during the Shopee Seller Summit on 16 June, where Sito said that reviews are essential to help create trust and appeal for a product online. As such, Shopee will also be enabling sellers to reward users for leaving useful product reviews.
“These are among many innovative seller marketing features that Shopee will be launching in the coming months to help sellers drive long-term business growth,” he said.
Sito added, “Shopee remains committed to upskilling and empowering local businesses. Apart from free training modules provided through Shopee University, Shopee is glad to be the trusted partner of government agencies to support local communities and drive training initiatives that help to upskill local businesses.”
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Global consumer goods firm Reckitt has partnered with e-commerce platform Shopee to launch its ‘Complete #TheMissingHalf’ campaign in Malaysia, aimed at enhancing the protection of health, hygiene, and nutrition of consumers by relying on its trusted brands including Enfagrow A+ MindPro, Dettol, and Vanish.
As part of this ‘Super Brand Day’ campaign, which will be on 19 May, Reckitt will be providing shoppers with exclusive deals on Shopee Mall from Enfagrow, Dettol, and Vanish, including educational tips, coins, and product giveaways on Shopee Live, up to 4.5 million coins cashback, and buy 1, free 1 deals, as well as exclusive bundles, where Reckitt is offering special vouchers up to RM200 off, gifts with purchase, specially curated bundle sets including Enfagrow A+ MindPro IQ+ EQ bundle, complete Dettol Protection Kit, and complete Reckitt Household Cleaning kit.
Moreover, free shipping deals are also included on the campaign’s exclusive deals, as well as ‘Spend, Spin, and Win’, where shoppers will be given a chance to win a Toshiba dishwasher, Samsung Tablet, and Shopee Coins.
Muksitul Islam, the ASEAN e-commerce director at Reckitt, commented that Reckitt is proud to partner with Shopee in the regional ‘Super Brand Day’ to connect ASEAN consumers to their beloved and trusted brands like Enfagrow A+, Dettol, and Vanish.
“Through Shopee’s impressive engagement tools, our consumers can not only look forward to choices tailored to their needs but also an enjoyable shopping experience from our diverse nutrition, health, and hygiene portfolio. We wish our consumers a wonderful Super Brand Day experience,” said Islam.
Meanwhile, Pavan Challa, Shopee’s director of regional brand partnerships, shared that consumers are shopping more frequently online for household and healthcare needs, and they are glad to partner with Reckitt to provide parents and families with a wide variety of trusted brands that gives them the assurance they need when it comes to enhancing family health and nutrition.
“We will continue partnering with brands to offer shoppers access to greater convenience, variety and value all year round through Shopee Mall,” said Challa.
Manila, Philippines – Regional e-commerce platform Shopee has announced the launch of Shopee Code League, a league which is aimed to help upskill coders through workshops and challenges designed to enhance programming abilities. This initiative is available to tech coders of all levels from across the region.
The Shopee Code League will last for two weeks, and will feature a series of exclusive online training sessions organised by Shopee and two rounds of coding competitions that let participants solve algorithmic puzzles designed by the Shopee Engineering team.
Initially, the league had three different tracks, namely data science, data analytics, and programming. This year, to cater to the need of more coders keen on learning about algorithms, the league will focus on offering the following topics: Python programming, C++, Go, data structures and algorithms, and dynamic programming.
The Shopee Code League 2022 is open to all interested individuals and top performers can win cash prizes amounting to S$25k (more than ₱950k). Participants also stand a chance to join Shopee to grow their careers in the tech landscape.
Martin Yu, director at Shopee Philippines, said, “We are excited to support a new generation of tech leaders and enthusiasts who want to learn and improve their skills through Shopee Code League. The initiative proved to be successful each year and we will continue to enhance our programs so that our participants can take full advantage of the opportunities Shopee is offering. We are inviting all tech talents to join and learn how to maximise their potential.”
Singapore – To usher in the brand new year, Shopee, the leading e-commerce giant in Southeast Asia, has once again held its Shopee Brands Summit for 2022 to look back at the past year’s performance and most importantly unveil its line-up of new initiatives and plans to deliver better business to brands and also greater experience for customers for the new year.
A trademark program in the summit is its yearly Shopee Brands Awards to celebrate brands’ milestones and achievements on the platform and recognize those that have exemplified outstanding marketing and commercial performance for the full previous year.
Just like in last year, recognitions were categorized according to each specific product area such as FMCG, beauty, electronics, and fashion & lifestyle. However, the difference is, last year’s awards were focused on who’s delivering the fastest growth, whereas 2022’s recognitions were made to identify brands that have had the best mega campaigns in 2021.
Amorepacific, which inked a partnership with Shopee in early 2021 to boost its regional reach, makes a comeback to be named with the Best Consumer Engagement. In 2021, it was named as the Fastest Growing Beauty Brand.
Other brands that returned to Shopee’s Brands Awards were L’Oréal, Samsung, Adidas, Xiaomi, and Procter & Gamble, and Reckitt. This year, Shopee also introduced new awards, moving beyond just recognizing the merchants but also awarding the top third-party e-commerce enablers in the platform.
Here is the full list for 2022:
Award Title
Winner
Best Customer Engagement
Amorepacific
Best Product Launch
Samsung
Best Brand Launch: Premium
Shiseido Prestige
Best Performing Mega Campaign: FMCG
Abbott
Best Performing Mega Campaign: Beauty
L’Oréal CPD
Best Performing Mega Campaign: Electronics
Xiaomi
Best Performing Mega Campaign: Fashion & Lifestyle
Adidas
Best in Integrated Marketing
Procter & Gamble
Best in Always-on Marketing
Reckitt
Best Performing Enabler – Most Premium Certifications
Jet Commerce
Best Performing Enabler – Most Certifications
Intrepid
During the Brands Summit, Shopee revealed some of the new initiatives it has for brands this 2022 which include strengthening its premium platform, Shopee Premium, for luxury brands via launching four new Shopee Premium regional campaigns this year. Shopee also shared, among others, that it will be launching a new sampling channel to help brands in the FMCG, Beauty and Toys, Kids, and Babies categories attract new shoppers.
Singapore – Shopee has once again unveiled in its inaugural Shopee Brands Summit the list of new initiatives it has in store for brands this 2022. Last year, the platform launched the ‘Regional Champion Brands Program’, a by-invite program that will comprise 16 brands that will receive priority support from Shopee. This year, Shopee announced exciting new features and programs including enhancing its partnership with premium brands where four new regional campaigns are slated to boost the presence of premium brands on the platform.
According to Shopee, it experienced a strong growth momentum on its Shopee Mall in 2021, where the majority of Shopee’s brand partners more than doubled their Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) year on year as they adapted to major shifts in the retail landscape.
Shopee also said that Shopee Mall saw an eightfold increase in the number of users shopping online at least once a month during the last two years of the pandemic. With the new initiatives, the e-commerce platform wanted to help more businesses capture this growing base of new and existing digital consumers.
First off, Shopee revealed that it will be introducing a new kind of mega shopping event in March to deliver greater excitement and deals for shoppers in the first half of the year. On the four new Shopee Premium regional campaigns, meanwhile, the campaigns were put in place to help premium brands cater to the increasing demand for premium and luxury products online.
Moreover, Shopee will be driving higher business performance with innovative solutions, including Facebook Ads on Seller Center, which enables sellers to create and manage campaigns easily and quickly, and a new Shopee Display ads, which allows brands to purchase new homepage banner display ads to showcase their campaigns. There will also be a new Customer Intelligence dashboard where brands can now access more insights on shopper demographics and segmentation.
And lastly, the platform will also be elevating brand experiences with upgraded engagement tools and features like a new sampling channel and the Shopee BeautyCam. The new sampling channel will allow consumers to try products before purchasing online, while Shopee BeautyCam is an AR-enabled makeup try-on tool with new functions such as more color shades and filters.
Shopee will also be launching Shopee Mall Brand Memberships, a tool that enables integration of the online and offline CRM program for brands, and an enhanced Shopee Live, which now uses AI to recommend more personalized live stream content and deals based on shopping behavior and user interests.
Terence Pang, Shopee’s chief operating officer, shared that as retail becomes hyper-digital and shopping online becomes integral to people’s lives, they believe that there is huge room for growth in SEA.
“By working together with our brand partners, we will continue to expand and enhance Shopee Mall to serve more customers and scale to greater heights. I would like to congratulate our partners for their achievements last year, and look forward to creating better brand experiences for our users in the year ahead,” said Pang.
In the event, Shopee has also unveiled the five brand partners who made it to the 2021-launched ‘Shopee 100 Million Dollar Club’ which are L’Oreal Group, Oppo, and realme, as well as Samsung and Xiaomi.
The exclusive program awards US$100m-valued brands with bonus perks, including a dedicated regional brand campaign. Following the success, Shopee said it will continue to support the 20 brand partners onboarded this year with priority access to new initiatives and campaigns that will deliver high business impact.
Manila, Philippines – Leading e-commerce Shopee has announced that the platform and Colgate-Palmolive inked their first Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to jointly drive e-commerce penetration of its oral care, home care, and personal care products and category on Shopee. The tie-up is a multi-year partnership and will run across seven markets in the region.
Starting 2022, Colgate-Palmolive will become a strategic partner under Shopee’s Regional Champion Brands Program, which will help strengthen Colgate-Palmolive’s online presence and deliver more of its products to consumers through Shopee’s extensive reach.
Shopee’s Regional Champion Brands Program is an exclusive, by-invite-only program that is open to top brand partners, aimed to better support brands in accelerating their growth on regional and local levels. Shopee currently has 17 brands on board the program.
Acording to Shopee, since launching the company’s official store on Shopee Mall in 2019, Colgate-Palmolive has achieved steady growth year-on-year and has consecutively ranked among the Top 5 personal care brands during Shopee’s year-end mega shopping campaigns. Shopee shared that in the recent 11.11 Big Christmas Sale, Colgate achieved a record highest sales in a single day and grew more than 100% vs 9.9 Super Shopping Day.
With the partnership, Colgate aims to grow its digital commerce business across Southeast Asia more than 20 times by 2025.
Mukul Deoras, president of Colgate-Palmolive APAC, said, “We are excited to grow our partnership with Shopee to better serve our customers in the region. As the world’s leading Oral Care company, we look forward to winning together in Personal Care with Shopee by maximizing the potential of our digital commerce business. To achieve this, we will focus on delivering greater value and enhanced customer experiences through our differentiated product offerings and innovations.”
Meanwhile, Chris Feng, Shopee’s CEO, commented, “Shopee is glad to be a strategic e-commerce partner to one of the world’s most recognized Personal and Oral Care brands. As a market leader, Colgate-Palmolive has achieved tremendous growth in the past year and will be a valuable partner in helping to drive further online expansion of the Personal Care category on Shopee. We hope to support Colgate-Palmolive in capturing more opportunities through our robust ecosystem and deep understanding of consumers in each market.”
To accelerate its growth momentum, Colgate-Palmolive will continue to activate a hyper-localized strategy. Earlier this year, Colgate-Palmolive and Shopee launched a joint oral care study to identify gaps, behaviors and unmet needs of Generation Z shoppers. As a result of the insights garnered, Colgate-Palmolive and Shopee co-created and launched a new toothbrush series with the ‘Brush Your Way’ regional campaign in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines.
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – It should be noted by now that Southeast Asia’s e-commerce landscape has been on a steady growth, indicating how the pandemic has vastly contributed to the accelerated digital adoption and the expansion of the industry in the region.
The latest data from e-commerce aggregator iprice analyzed the performance of the top e-commerce companies in Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam to determine which e-commerce sites are holding the most of the market share in the said markets, and which of them have been successful in drawing social engagement.
According to their data for Q3, Singapore-based e-commerce platform Shopee takes the lead across these three markets. In Malaysia, the site gets around 57.5 million monthly visits, while 61.2 million monthly visits for Thailand, with 77.8 million monthly visits in Vietnam.
Meanwhile, Lazada takes second in the Malaysia and Thailand market, each having 14.2 million and 37.9 million monthly visits respectively. Vietnam, on the other hand, has its own e-commerce platform Thegioididong.com taking second, with 50.9 million monthly visits.
“These top sites have been [leveraging people] who are actively purchasing items online during the pandemic. They have significantly focused on diversifying their features and marketing campaigns to engage tech-savvy consumers, which consequently increased both their sales and traffic,” noted iPrice.
Meanwhile, the data also noted that local sites rank in the top three. PGMall (Malaysia), Central Online (Thailand), and Tiki (Vietnam) have done quite well in establishing themselves in their respective markets.
According to the report, the cross-country collaboration between PGMall and JD Worldwide, for instance, has encouraged local sellers to offer unique local brands to the Chinese market. With access to China’s extensive market, PGMall’s platform has become one of the most prominent domestic online businesses in Malaysia.
Meanwhile, Tiki, which holds 13% of Vietnam’s e-commerce market share. They signed an exclusive partnership with insurance company AIA Vietnam for 10 years. Due to this, policyholders may manage their insurance accounts and seek health insurance solutions and claims through the Tiki website.
In terms of engagement with e-commerce brands on social media, Malaysians engage the most with e-commerce-related posts accounting for 44% of the total social engagements, followed byVietnamese users with 36% of the engagements while Thai users accounted for 20%.
“As these e-commerce platforms continue to pursue strategic partnerships, promotions, and social engagements, the future of Southeast Asia’s e-commerce industry is looking bright,” the company concluded.
Singapore – Global action star Jackie Chan was recently announced as top e-commerce Shopee’s newest ambassador in August which was launched as part of the platform’s 9.9 campaign. Shortly after, Chan makes a comeback to viewers’ screens for the platform’s 11.11 campaign.
In light of the backlash from some advertising and creative professionals on Shopee’s current ad for 11.11, MARKETECH APAC reached out to social listening platform Digimind to learn about how the mass audience perceives the latest campaign.
On October 25, just a few days after Shopee released its 11.11 ad with the international star, Singapore-based marketing expert Richard Bleasdale stirred quite a conversation on LinkedIn by sharing a post about the ad, describing it as the “worst ad ever made.” Soon, the post drew quite traction, serving as an invitation for other creative and marketing leaders to share their verdict on the ad–which was a unanimous disappointment over Shopee’s chosen creative direction.
The general audience, meanwhile, had been split on their perception of the ad. According to Digimind’s analysis, some had found the 11.11 campaign endearing, while a fraction showed displeasure over the latest campaign mixed with some neutral liking.
The main narrative of the ad in question was Jackie Chan fighting off bad guys ‘magically’ through the power of Shopee’s ‘big discounts’. For every press of the actor on his phone, discount bubbles pop up such as “$60 CASHBACK ALL DAY,” sending an enemy down and defeated.
Screenshots from Shopee’s latest 11.11 ad
Apparently, the negative sentiment by the mass audience drew some parallel with professional opinion, which is Shopee’s seeming failure to leverage Chan’s martial arts prowess. Following Bleasdale’s post, MARKETECH APAC formally reached out to some of the advertising professionals that commented on the post.
A consensus among the creative leaders was Shopee’s perceived faulty decision to favor a fictional story of ‘powerful’ discounts rather than spotlighting the ambassador’s renowned action-comedy branding.
A leader from ad agency Cheil Singapore described the ad as an “orange mess,” while an advisory board member from martech DAIVID said the ad could have been an opportunity to have “some whacky martial-arts impossibility” performed by the ambassador.
Digimind had rounded up some definitive comments which had been in agreement with the said professional flak.
Negative and neutral comments on Shopee’s 11.11 ad gathered by Digimind
One tweet said, “I guess Jackie Chan beating up people with a tap of a button is all [we’re] going to get in a Shopee ad.”
While another wrote on Twitter, “[Jackie Chan] did a [Shopee] ad, my life is ruined.”
Other hostile comments pointed out other ‘less-than-perfect’ elements of the ad such as Chan’s seeming wrinkle-free appearance and how the ad looked like a ‘deepfake’, which is the digital alter of a person’s face.
“I’m laughing, they [airbrushed] Jackie Chan’s wrinkles…,” one netizen tweeted.
While another one said, “Tell me why I’m so convinced that the Shopee ads with ‘Jackie Chan’ [are] [deepfakes]…”
According to the report, there were a total of 309 mentions in Southeast Asia, excluding promotional content, about Shopee’s 11.11 ad from the period of October 17 – 31 across leading social media platforms including Facebook and Twitter.
The study found that Malaysia conversed the most around the campaign with 40% of the mentions coming from the market, followed by the Philippines (30%) and Indonesia (20%).
Information from the study also showed that the inaugural Shopee ambassadorship of Chan for 9.9 in August garnered higher traction on social media than the sophomore campaign of the star for 11.11. There had been a 4530% fall in the total volume of mentions for the newer campaign compared to the previous 9.9 over the same period from August 19 – 31.
Shopee’s 11.11 ad was released on YouTube on October 18 across its covered markets in Southeast Asia. Thai viewership of the ad eclipsed the platform’s other markets, registering over 39 million views as of writing.
Digimind’s analysis covered the markets of Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and India.
Singapore – Shopee has taken a new direction to their evolving e-commerce platform, this time partnering with online travel agencies and hotel booking platforms Agoda and Booking.com to offer its newest hotel booking offering on the Shopee platform, aptly called Shopee Hotel.
Through this exclusive partnership, Shopee users will now be able to access one of the largest online inventories of hotels, resorts, homes, and apartments supplied by Agoda and Booking.com. The new feature will be rolled out across seven markets including Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan, Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines.
In addition, Shopee Hotel will provide users with greater savings and exclusive travel deals, while also increasing the reach and visibility of hotel partners to boost domestic and international tourism.
“The launch of Shopee Hotel is timely in meeting the needs of consumers, as domestic and international travel gradually re-opens in the region, and more people are planning holidays. Agoda’s search data in September revealed that searches for domestic stays have risen by over 57% compared to May this year. There has also been an increase of 37% more users in Southeast Asia searching for international destinations,” Shopee said in a press statement.
The platform allows the planning of travel itineraries within the app as well. As users browse for accommodations, they will be able to discover top landmarks near their chosen hotels, which can help them to explore local enclaves, neighborhoods, and attractions.
“We are pleased to partner with leading travel platforms, Agoda and Booking.com to launch Shopee Hotel, which serves to provide our users with easy access to a wider variety of travel products and experiences. We also look forward to supporting the recovery of local travel and related tourism industries by promoting fun staycation ideas together with hotel partners. We invite everyone to travel safely and earn greater savings by booking their next holiday through Shopee Hotel,” said Terence Pang, chief operating officer at Shopee.
Meanwhile, Damien Pfirsch, chief commercial officer at Agoda, noted that with travelers knowing and trusting Agoda and Booking.com to help make travel easier, their partnership with Shopee will help accelerate the recovery of the domestic and global travel and tourism industry in the long term.
“This partnership with Shopee, the first with a regional e-commerce partner, will conveniently bring these great deals to Shopee customers, on a platform they are familiar with. At the same time, we can better support our hotel partners and tourism operators by connecting them to the biggest online community of shoppers in Southeast Asia,” Pfrisch said.
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