(Source: Manila Times | February 11, 2018)
Mobile shopping platform Shopee emerged as the fastest growing e-commerce company in the Philippines, according to a recent study by the Malaysia-based iPrice Group,
Shopee finished second behind Lazada among the top Android shopping apps of 2017 and took the top spot among iOS shopping apps in the third quarter of the year.
Agatha Soh, Head of Regional Marketing for Shopee in Southeast Asia attributes the emergence of the e-commerce platform in the Philippines to its steady growth since it was launched in late 2015.
“In the Philippines, Shopee now has more than 6 million downloads, and over 3 million active listings by over 200,000 sellers,” said Soh.
“Over the past two years, we’ve increased partnerships with leading brands and distributors across the region to provide users with a more diverse online shopping experience. In the Philippines, this includes onboarding leading brands including Colgate, Palmolive and Nestle, who have all launched their own official shops on our platform in 2017,” Soh added.
Asked what are the factors that contributed to Shopee’s growth in the country, Soh points to the platform’s “mobile-first approach [that]helps attract the online consumers who are bypassing desktops, and going straight from offline shopping to mobile shopping.”
“According to a Statista 2017 report, about 39 percent of sales are through mobile devices and, by 2020, mobile traffic will increase eightfold,” Soh further pointed out.
Moreover, Soh also points to the success of two major mega-sale campaigns that benefited both buyers and sellers in a big way. One is the Shopee 9.9 Mobile Shopping Day event last September that saw “a 3.5 times increase in orders and a 5 times increase in visits across the region.” The 9.9 event was also cited by the iPrice study as one of Shopee’s “all-time high” in 2017.
The other mega-sale event is the 11.11 Shopee Super Christmas Sale that “recorded around 2.5 million orders across the region in 24 hours, surpassing last year’s 11.11 performance by 4.5 times,” according to Soh.
Other contributing factors cited by Soh include the continued success of Shopee University, a series of in-depth tutorial modules crafted by Shopee to aid local entrepreneurs and businesses in setting up their online businesses.
“We’ve seen over 3,500 participants across 40 states to date, and will be looking to expand this initiative to include even more participants in cities both within and outside of Manila,” Soh added.
Commenting further on the results of the iPrice study, Soh said being named one of the top mobile shopping apps in the Philippines is a testament to Shopee’s “user-centric, mobile-first strategy.”
“In the Philippines, around 90 percent of our transactions are done via mobile, which is why we continue to place our focus on providing all our users the best mobile shopping experience,” Soh added.
“As mobile penetration in the Philippines continues to increase, we see an increased shift towards m-commerce. Therefore, we believe that marketplace websites should continue to leverage this trend, and continuously optimize their platform for mobile,” the Shopee executive concluded.
Read More: Here
