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Shopee – Southeast Asia’s Largest e-Commerce Platform.

Shopee is an online platform that provides customers with a simple, safe, and quick online purchasing experience. With over 343 million monthly active users as of 2021, it is regarded as Southeast Asia’s largest e-commerce platform.

About The Company

Shopee is a multinational technology business based in Singapore that primarily focuses on e-commerce. The company is headquartered in Singapore Science Park. It is part of the part company Sea Group. Shopee began its operations in 2015 from Singapore. The company also offers online shopping and selling services to buyers and sellers in numerous European and American nations.

History

In 2015, Shopee, a socially driven, mobile-centric platform where customers can browse, shop, and sell, made its debut in Singapore. This platform makes online shopping simple and safe for buyers and sellers by integrating logistical and payment assistance. In order to compete successfully with other e-commerce platforms in the market like Coupang, Lazada, Tokopedia, and AliExpress, Shopee, which was earlier an app, developed its own website. The company uses its own escrow service dubbed “Shopee Guarantee” to guarantee online shopping security as a way to set itself apart from competitors. It withholds payment from merchants until customers have received their items.

In 2019, the company inaugurated its new headquarters at Singapore Science Park. The new facility is six times bigger than the previous one, which was located in the Ascent Building, and has over 244,000 sq. feet of area that can house over 3,000 employees. WeWork in Singapore had previously leased this structure. Due to Shopee’s quick expansion, the lease was later given back to it. By doing this, it intensifies its effort to enter the digital economy.

Business Model

Shopee began as a C2C (consumer to consumer) marketplace but has subsequently transitioned to a hybrid C2C and B2C format. To help its users logistically, it collaborates with more than 70 delivery service companies across its markets. For item pickup and drop in Singapore, Shopee partnered with logistics startup NinjaVan. In India, it collaborated with Delhivery and Ecom Express for the delivery of products. However, in 2022, the company announced that it is shutting its operations in India.

New Launches

An initiative named “Shopee University” was introduced by Shopee in 2016 to help local company owners and entrepreneurs establish their online stores in the Philippines. In the Philippines and Singapore, it introduced Shopee Mall in 2017, which featured over 200 brands. The specialized portal offers thousands of products from top regional stores and brands. Shopee Mall was developed to provide a more varied online shopping experience and to serve more established brands better.

2018 saw the opening of Shopee’s China Marketplace platform, which gives consumers in the Philippines and Singapore simple access to goods and products from Chinese vendors without paying shipping or agent costs. Shopee Philippines introduced Shopee Cares PH, a social-media customer support division active on Twitter and Facebook, in 2021. In 2021 it also introduced its food delivery services in the Malaysian and Thai markets.

Controversies

In 2019, Shopee Philippines was accused of defrauding Filipino fans of the Blackpink. #ShopeeScam became a trending topic on Twitter around the world. The 568 top spenders on Shopee Philippines’ online store were given tickets to a Meet and Greet session as part of a campaign. However, a number of fans claimed that after receiving confirmation that they had won tickets, It then withdrew them. Others shared screenshots demonstrating how Shopee had altered the rules of the contest a day before this event. Currently, the Department of Trade and Industry is looking into Shopee.

Founder – Forrest Li

Forrest Li founded Shopee in 2015. He is a multibillionaire businessman from Singapore. He also founded Sea Limited. Garena and Shopee are subsidiaries of Sea Limited. Li, a Chinese national born in Tianjin, moved to Singapore soon after receiving an engineering degree from Shanghai Jiaotong University. He also has an MBA degree from Stanford Graduate School of Business.

CEO – Chris Feng

Chris Feng is the CEO of Shopee. He is also the CEO of Sea Group’s division for financial services and digital payments, called Seamonkey. Feng oversaw the mobile games department at Sea Group before assuming his present position. Before joining Sea Group, he was a member of the Southeast Asia core team of German startup Rocket Internet, which helped launch online stores like Lazada and Zalora. He was also Lazada’s chief purchasing officer and a regional managing director at Zalora.

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I am a law graduate from NLU Lucknow. I have a flair for creative writing and hence in my free time work as a freelance content writer.

Popular e-Commerce Platform Shopee Shuts Down Its Operations In India.

Shopee, a Singapore-based e-commerce site that only launched in India in December 2021, has opted to leave the nation. Shopee’s official rationale, which is controlled by NYSE-listed Sea Ltd, is causing worldwide sentiment to shift.

“In light of global market uncertainty, we have chosen to close risks of our early-stage Shopee India endeavour,” the company stated in a statement. Trade organisations led by Praveen Khandelwal, as well as domestic social commerce start-ups, have been vocal in their opposition to the e-commerce platform.
Source: www.business-standard.com

They claimed it was a back-door infiltration by Tencent, a Chinese corporation, in blatant contravention of FDI guidelines. Shopee recently received relief from the Competition Commission of India (CCI), which dismissed a complaint filed against the company for exploitative pricing.

To add to the troubles, Sea Ltd has been in the middle of a tempest because it also controls the popular gaming software ‘Free Fire,’ which was recently banned by the Centre, along with numerous other Chinese apps.

Shopee, on the other hand, scored a huge victory when the CCI dismissed a petition brought by Khandelwal citing “predatory pricing with the intent of destroying conventional and small-scale businesses in the country.”
Khandelwal, who is also the secretary-general of the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), said he intends to appeal the CCI verdict to the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT).

Shopee had allegedly broken FDI restrictions since Tencent owned a significant stake in the Sea Group, according to the trade body. It further stated that the e-commerce platform entered the country through a complicated backdoor.
In its March 3 judgment, the CCI stated that it does not detect any prima facie evidence of Shopee’s violation of provisions 3 and 4 of the Competition Act. It was suggested that Shopee was a newcomer to a market that already had a plethora of e-commerce firms.

According to insiders, Shopee, which employs over 300 people, would provide them three months’ pay as a separation package and will also try to place them in other companies.

It would also provide assistance to sellers until the end of May to remedy any concerns, particularly with transactions.

They also mentioned that the company has shut down operations in France and would now concentrate solely on becoming profitable by 2025, rather than expanding into new areas.

Sea Group has made repeated attempts to reaffirm its status as a Singaporean firm. It has made it plain that Tencent does not have a claim to a board seat. Tencent now owns an 18% stock stake in Sea Ltd.

Sea Ltd founder Forrest Li would possess 57 percent of voting power, up from 52 percent previously, according to the company’s articles of association, which were approved during an annual general meeting (AGM) last month.
Despite having only an 8% stock stake, this is the case. As a result, he effectively has complete influence over the management and the Sea Board. Li was born in Singapore and is a Singaporean citizen.

Tencent’s stake in Sea Ltd has gradually dwindled since it originally invested in the company in 2010. According to Sea’s AGM meeting notice, it now has less than a 10% voting share.

The government’s crackdown on Chinese apps included the abrupt ban on Free Fire. Singapore’s ministry of trade and industry reacted quickly, saying this week that it hoped the restriction will be lifted “as soon as possible.”
According to media sources, the ministry had addressed the Centre a week before to inquire whether the ban was “deliberate” and why it had been imposed, considering that Sea is based in Singapore.
According to sources, the Singapore government is still in talks with the Indian government, but no solution to the disputed ban has been reached.

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