POST COVID 19 CURRENT SITUATION AND SOLUTIONS TO IMPROVE THE WORKING QUALITY OF STAFF AT SHOPEE VIETNAM

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY DEPARTMENT OF INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS – MARKETING POST COVID-19: CURRENT SITUATION AND SOLUTIONS TO IMPROVE THE WORKING QUALITY OF STAFF AT SHOPEE VIETNAM Student: Nghiêm Thu Hà Major: International Business Course: 44 Instructor: MBA Dương Ngọc Hồng Year 2021 [Type here] UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY DEPARTMENT OF INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS – MARKETING POST COVID-19: CURRENT SITUATION AND SOLUTIONS TO IMPROVE THE WORKING QUALITY OF STAFF AT SHOPEE VIETNAM Student: Nghiêm Thu Hà Major: International Business Course: 44 Instructor: MBA Dương Ngọc Hồng Year 2021 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my instructor Mrs Duong Ngoc Hong for the continuous support of my thesis, for her patience, enthusiasm, and immense knowledge Her guidance helped me in all the time of research and writing of this thesis I could not have imagined having a better advisor and mentor for my graduate thesis Besides my advisor, I'd also like to thank my managers, the Health & Beauty category leaders, and my colleagues at Shopee Vietnam for assisting me in developing myself in a dynamic environment at Shopee, while also providing me with many favorable conditions to finish my thesis Here, I have the opportunity to directly experience a professional working environment, interact with talented and experienced people, and put what I've learned into practice Thank you so much to Ms Phan Nguyen Khanh Trinh - team 3T’s leader and Ms Le Kim Uyen - my buddy for directly guiding and supporting me throughout my internship at Shopee Finally, I'd like to thank all teachers at the UEH School of International Business and Marketing Thank you for your understanding and guidance, this has helped me a lot when doing my thesis in the time of this pandemic I wish you all good health and success in life, and I hope Shopee will continue to grow in the future Ho Chi Minh, 22 October 2021 Nghiêm Thu Hà [Type here] ENDORSEMENT This internship report with the topic of “Post Covid-19: Current situation and solutions to improve the working quality of staff at Shopee Vietnam” has been written by myself and has not received any previous academic credit at this or any other institution No other person's work has been utilized in the thesis without proper acknowledgment Ho Chi Minh, 22 October 2021 Nghiêm Thu Hà EXECUTIVE SUMMARY In recent years, e-commerce is no longer a strange concept in society or a new field in our country Especially in 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic has brought many changes to the economy but contributed to the breakthrough growth of e-commerce As the COVID-19 pandemic reshapes our world, more consumers have begun shopping online in greater numbers and frequency e-commerce outperforms traditional brickand-mortar retail in a pandemic Customers prefer to have goods delivered to their doorstep rather than going outside and risking infection Ecommerce was growing fast before COVID-19 hit But the pandemic pushed even more consumers to shop online And Shopee is no exception; in addition to the sharp increase in online business, business development staff who work directly with sellers play a critical role in the company's growth However, these staffs face their own challenges when working in unusual circumstances, such as during the Covid-19 pandemic According to my observations, not all business development staff can achieve the set objectives; in fact, there are still unresolved issues in the working process As a result, I chose this topic to analyze and research while also proposing solutions in order to improve the working quality of business development staff in the time of Covid-19 and thereafter will contribute to Shopee's development The main purpose of the research is to highlight some of the issues that some BDs face They are: Misunderstanding when working with supporting teams; the workload of Business Development Staff is heavy; some BDs are not proficient in using supporting tools; and, finally, there is a constant change in the time of Covid-19: Many flashsale slots have been cut off due to Covid-19's effect Based on some data collected and personal experience during the internship, the author selects, analyzes, and finds out four main problems After analyzing the five main causes affecting the existing problem to offer solutions to help businesses improve their working processes and be more efficient in the future the study comes up with some recommendations that are practical and most compatible with BD in Health and Beauty category to enhance the working quality Thereby, helping businesses attract more new customers as well as maintain long-term relationships with customers who have shopped online on Shopee TABLE OF CONTENT ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ENDORSEMENT EXECUTIVE SUMMARY TABLE OF CONTENT LIST OF TABLES 11 LIST OF FIGURES 11 LIST OF ACRONYMS 12 INTRODUCTION CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF SHOPEE VIETNAM AND JOB ROLE 1.1 About Shopee Vietnam 1.1.1 General information 1.1.2 History of development 1.1.3 Vision and mission of the company 1.1.3.1 Vision of the company 1.1.3.2 Mission of the company 1.1.4 Working culture and core value of the company 1.1.4.1 Working culture in Shopee 1.1.4.2 Core value of the company 10 1.2 Organizational Structure 11 1.2.1 Business model 11 1.2.2 Structure and function of each department 11 1.3 Performance of Shopee 14 1.3.1 Business performance compare to other competitors 14 1.3.2 Financial statement from 2017 to 2020 18 1.4 Introduction of Internship Position 19 1.4.1 Internship position 19 1.4.2 Introduction of Bussiness Development Department - FMCG cluster 19 1.4.2 Description of Internship Tasks 20 - Deal hunting for 22/9 - This deal is the same as deal - Improve for 15/9, I upload list of deal communication skill need to be hunted and ask seller to confirm it But the amount of deal that I hunted for 15/9 is very small so for better performance of 22/9, I have to contact more seller and remind them to confirm deal on seller center - Pitching seller about October voucher plan - If seller wants to attract more customer to their shop or improve their conversion rate, they need to create voucher in shop Another mega campaign is coming, Shopee offer a bunch of vouchers to seller, besides buying voucher to create voucher in shop, they can have many benefits from buying voucher from Shopee This can increase the visibility very effectively I aim to pitching the shop that just established on the platform and has good performance so the pitching process can be faster and seller can easily agree to buy the voucher - Answer question from seller about how to create voucher in shop and how it works - Some question about system error that seller can not confirm order on app - Answer some questions about delivery status - Due to the error of VNP system, thousands of orders had been wrong updated, instead of “pending for picked-up”, the system update the status to “successful picked up” This Wednesday 15/09/2021 Thursday 16/09/2021 - Solving seller problem - Solving VNP failed order Friday 17/09/2021 - Improve communication and persuasion skill - Adopting promptly to the situation and have a quick response about the problems - Keep updating announcement from FMCG team - Improve communication skill - Adopting promptly to the situation and have a quick response about the problems - Pitching seller about exclusive program leads to cancelation of wrong updated orders In this case, I must contact seller to inform about this situation and ask them whether they want to keep these orders or not - This program encourage - Improve seller to sell only on Shopee communication and but no other ecommerce persuasion skill platform Seller will receive benefits from joining this program: + minus 1% of FSS fee, sellers will be charged only 5% instead of 6%, + getting a red tag called “exclusive shop”, this will increase the visibility on Shopee - This task is not difficult because seller doesn’t have to pay any fee or register any form so the percentage of successful pitching is quite high Week 7: from 20/09/2021 to 24/09/2021 - Attending weekly meeting with FMCG team - Deal hunting for new user collection Monday 20/09/2019 - Pitching up-spend paid ads program - The meeting is about reviewing the performance of FMCG cluster, some information about 3PL status and the prepare for spike day 10.10 - This task will appear to times a month so I have chosen the product and just ask seller for stock and checkout limit My seller has got used to this so the process run very quickly - The purpose of this program is to encourage sellers to spend more money on paid ads than before, if the bigger gap between this month and - Skills of synthesizing the information - Improve communication skill - Improve communication and persuasion skill last month is, the more discount percentage they can get - Attending 3T team catch up meeting - Final approve deal hunted by CMT Tuesday 21/09/2021 - QC checking all deals hunted from CMT - Deal hunting for HB campaign Wednesday 22/09/2021 - This meeting is about reviewing mini spike day 15/09 performance and reminding newbies about process confirming deal hunted by CMT - Announce the new RM KPI for ST seller BD and share tips for better KPI score for newbies - After all sellers have confirmed nominated deal in their seller center, BD will go to CMT to final confirm these deals, this action must be done very carefully, just confirm my own deal, not click on “approve all” - After final approve, there will be a list of failed deal, BD must download this list to know which are the reason behind these failed deals - This task is to double check the price that seller agreed to sell, BD will check whether the discount is too high or not because seller can input the wrong price If it over 55%, BD need to check this price is reasonable or not, if not BD must contact seller for confirmation - These are weekly tasks so I had no problem with these task but I tried to pick up product that hadn’t been picked up before to increase the performance of those products - Improve communication skill - Skills of synthesizing information - Being careful, and precise when action on CMT - Being careful, and precise when doing with numbers - Being careful, and precise when doing with numbers - Improve communication skill - Deal hunting for deep discount 10.10 - Attending meeting about CMT hunted for October spike day and mini spike day - Attend meeting of HB team Thursday 23/09/2019 - Receiving October list seller - This task has been done by senior BD but the amount of deal they hunted were behind target and behind other category, so there is a list of deals that will be added to deep discount collection - The amount of deal each BD has is huge, about 2,000 deals on average so this task will be done by CMT tools - The process of hunting is similar to September mini spike day, just a small difference in the priority of deals BD will have types of deals instead of so BD will focus to hunt deal marked P1 and P2 first - Being careful, and precise when doing with numbers - Improve communication skill - This meeting is about reviewing the performance of spike day 9.9 and mini spike day 15.9 and 20.9 Putting some key item to make an example of how to effectively push deal - Remind some update about operations and 3PLs, give some recommendation on how to communicating with sellers when receiving complains about these problem - List seller will be updated every month, some sellers convert to ST or SKAM will be eliminated and receiving new MT seller instead - After receiving list seller, each BD has to scan the list to choose which seller is potential to keep or will eliminated if having bad performance - Skills of synthesizing the information - Skills of synthesizing the information - Skill of working with number - Solving seller problem relating to dispute - Attending AMS Pitching November Package Training Friday 24/09/2021 - Uploading list deal hunting 10.10 on CMT tool - Attending Product Training Program - This seller is being sued by buyer because he thinks the item purchased from this shop is fake So seller must submit some paper to prove the authenticity of the product He ask me some issue relating to this case - This is the first time I’ve received dispute case so I need advice from my buddy and I have known how to solve these problem - Shopee Affiliate Marketing Solution (AMS) is a program that enables brands to achieve measurable results from their marketing investment through Shopee's extensive affiliate network and partners - Sellers join this program to diversify their brand presence across various affiliate partners - Improve communication skill - Adopting promptly to the situation and have a quick response about the problems - This time uploading is more difficult than the last time because the number of deals is more than 20 times so I must be focus and very careful when doing this task Product support team is the team who: - Manage the configurations on the features and control who can access the portals/features - Monitor incidents or live issues after the new features have successfully been released - Receive the feedbacks & reports from users and work with Reg/ Dev to fix the issue or improve the logic - Skills of synthesizing the information - Skills of synthesizing the information - Understand the product team structure - Know how to raise issue to product support team - Understand system logic & how to debug issue from local operation Even though they have many responsibilities but there’re just people in this team and every day they receive hundreds of ticket raise in product support portal (PSP), so this meeting is to clarify to BD the process and some frequently case and how BD can solve problem themselves without raising ticket in PSP This will reduce the workload of team product Week 8: from 27/09/2021 to 01/10/2021 - Attending weekly meeting with FMCG team - Do a survey on seller’s Monday 27/09/2021 10.10 preparation - Deal hunting for new user collection - Solving pending scheduled and pending shipping order Tuesday 28/09/2021 - The meeting is about reviewing the performance of FMCG cluster, some information about operation prepare for the new normal and the prepare for spike day 10.10 - My team asks each BD to ask top seller about their plan on stock, product, staff and the money prepared for 10.10 - Skills of synthesizing the information - Next month I’ll have the new list seller, so I want to give these slots for potential seller, not top seller had converted to ST I have to contact sellers to ask whether they want to keep these orders or not: - Orders have been pending for over 16 days but seller still hasn't pressed schedule for orders that already have a shipping unit - Order sellers have pressed scheduled for over 16 days but have not been handed - Improve communication skill - Skills of synthesizing the information - Improve communication skill - Improve communication skill - Solving seller issues relating to QC over to 3PL for the following reasons: + 3PL has not come to collect, 3PL comes to collect but cannot collect => Cancel + 3PL has already taken it but has not changed the status My sellers have cases: - Seller wanted to add new model but worried that it won’t pass QC test => told seller to add model, if the process is slow, I’ll raise to QC support to review new model faster - Key item has been deleted because the description is over advertised => contact PIC who deleted item to reopen the item and warning seller to carefully writing description - Improve communication skill - Cross-team working skill - Inform seller about counterfeit issue - There are official distributor who sue sellers that sell the product in the lower price comparing to the listed price - Sellers who sell these products need to provide documents proving the product origin including Distribution contract/ Agent agreement or Purchase invoice from a legally authorized agent - Improve communication skill - Uploading CMT list for 15/9 and 20/9 - I don’t have to upload as many deals as 10.10, but still be very careful when working with CMT - Careful with number - Improve technical skill Wednesday 29/9/2021 - Hunting for unicorn deal Thursday 30/09/2021 - The purpose of deal unicorn - Analytical skill is to develop and open more visibilities for category on banners, so each PICs must nominate the quality product that already has purchase and review The last time I nominated these deals, their performance was really good so this time I take more time to choose quality deal to participating unicorn deal - Hunting for deep discount deal - This deal is running from 12.10 to 15.10, which is after spike day 10.10 and in mini spike day 15.10 so the traffic that time is good so I will take this advantage to pick item that popular so buyer can easily make decision to purchase - Checking the process of - This is everyday task, I seller’s confirming deal have to know the progress of on CMT seller’s confirming deal, if it’s behind target, I must contact seller go to seller center and confirming deals Friday 1/10/2021 - Analytical skill - Careful with number - Contact with new seller - Since old PIC of my new - Improve seller is a member of 3T team communication skill so it’s quite easy to add contact of my new seller on Zalo - Completing deal hunting for nexus 10.10 deal - Today is the cut off day of - Improve technical nexus deal of spike day 10.10 skill so we make sure that 100% deal is hunted If BDs can’t contact seller or can’t hunt the target price, they can choose to input current price and not make price tag for them Week 9: from 4/10/2021 to 8/10/2021 - Attending weekly meeting with FMCG team Monday 4/10/2021 - Deal hunting for new user collection - Contact with new seller - Attending HB meeting for HB Tuesday campaign Tuesday 5/10/2021 - Doing seller focused survey - Contact seller having counterfeit issue Wednesday 6/10/2021 - The meeting is about reviewing the performance of FMCG cluster, some information about operation and the prepare for spike day 10.10 - Now I already have new list seller so the item to join this deal must be picked again - I continue contact to the rest of my list seller - Skills of synthesizing the information - To bring more development opportunities, Shopee kicks off the HB Tuesday Campaign with the name of Thứ Nữ Quyền - Siêu Hội Nhan Sắc - BDs can pick their potential seller and pitching this campaign for them because of the limited slots - Currently Shopee is trying to define a group of Focused sellers - those who are selling well on Lazada and their situation on the competitor ecommerce platform to build a separate treatment plan for this group Therefore Shopee needs RMs support survey seller some questions related to Lazada - A company complains about counterfeit issue relating to Nano Curcumin 365 Premium products being sold at Shopee - This company complained listings not have receipts and vouchers, or use announcements and invoices (very old, from 2018) of products with similar names, signs of copying documents + providing vouchers true to - Skills of synthesizing the information - Improve communication skill - Improve communication skill - Improve communication skill - Analytical skill - Communication skill - Hunting new user deal - Solving pending schedule/ shipping order - Final approving all deals on CMT - QC checking all deals approved on CMT Thursday 7/10/2021 - Contact sellers who have price errors the product advertised Because it is a conditional product, BD must ask seller to provide proof of the origin of the goods, showing the correct product for sale - I have plenty of slots in new user deal and these deals can be asked for rebating so it’s very easy to this task because this will bring the visibility for the shop without spending much money - I have a list of many order that haven’t been confirmed by sellers or picked up by shipper for over 16 days so I have to contact seller to ask if they want to keep these orders and if they have trouble with confirming process, I will escalate the problem to SOS team - Today is the cut-off day for hunting deal on CMT tool, all deals had been approved before but have to be final approved once again to check whether they are overlap with another promotion campaign or not - There will be a list of items that have been final approved on CMT and BD must check the promotion price of each item to make sure there’s no mistake with the price, if the item is being discounted to deep comparing to normal price, BD must reject or fix the price immediately - If BD see a mistake about the promotion price like missing a zero when seller input price in seller center, they must contact seller to - Communication skill - Cross-team communication - Improve technical skill - Analytical skill - Communication skill check if the price confirmed is right or not - Hunting flash sale deal Friday 8/10/2021 - Flash sale deal is the deal every seller want to have because it right on the home page of Shopee so shop can be recognized by many user and gain the visibility so the flash sale price must be the cheapest promotion price, if not the slot will be rejected - Checking if there was a - I will double check price on problem before spike day CMT to make sure there was no problem and check whether voucher in shop that seller create is reasonable or not - Communication skill Week 10: from 11/10/2021 to 15/10/2021 - Feedback seller status in campaign 10.10 Monday - Submitting flash sale 11/10/2021 slot - Escalating system problem to SOS team - Attending “BD Centre Roll Out” meeting Tuesday 12/10/2021 - BD check and get the seller's feedback about the last 10.10 campaign For sellers that sell on Lazada, BD should ask seller to share more about the performance (revenue, marketing, operation, Lazada support, ) - Recently, I’ve received many flash sale slots so I should take this advantage to push some of my potential seller because this slot can bring benefit to them - A seller has a system error and cannot confirming order so I must input problem to escalation sheet for SOS team can solve this problem - BD needs many other nonShopee platform/tools to support daily task (e.g Google sheet) This leads to difficulty in keeping track and risk of data security - Communication skill - Skills of synthesizing the information - Analytical skill - Cross-team communication - Skills of synthesizing the information - Doing seller survey - Final approving mini spike 15.10 deal hunting on CMT - Contact seller having counterfeit issue Wednesday 13/10/2021 - Submitting deals - BD Center supports BD to manage day-to-day tasks - BD Center is being built with the goal of replacing external tools (such as Salesforce, Seller Admin) and at the same time improving operational efficiency and internal data - BD a survey on seller for Shopee currently accounts for how many percentages of the shop's total online orders in a month - All deals had been approved before have to be final approved once again to check whether they are overlap with another promotion campaign or not - A company claims that TOMA ring products are being sold at Shopee are fake, trademark infringement, false advertising about the product's use - Seller sell this product need to provide documents proving the product origin including Distribution contract/ Agent agreement or Purchase invoice from a legally authorized agent - I have many slots today so I plan to give those slots to as much sellers as possible because I want their shop gain more visibility so the process is take more time than usual since there are more sellers need to be contacted - Communication skill - Improve technical skill - Communication skill - Analytical skill - Submitting deals - QC all deals on CMT Thursday 14/10/2021 - Sending voucher to seller - Recently, I’ve received many flash sale and mechanic slots so I should take this advantage to push some of my potential seller because this slot can help them to gain more visibility - This task is to double check the price that seller agreed to sell, BD will check whether the discount is too high or not because seller can input the wrong price If it over 55%, BD need to check this price is reasonable or not, if not BD must contact seller for confirmation -Before any spike or mini spike day, I always send a seeding script of voucher to seller for them to announce the sale day of Shopee and promote buyers to purchase product - Solve pending schedule - The orders have been & pending pick up orders pending for a long time and the possibility of a refund is very high when shipped BD must check with seller if they’re having any problem - If the order has been picked up or cannot be processed Friday because of problems: the 15/09/2021 system cannot press the schedule or the Shipper/Post office cannot scan the order => RMs input to Gdocs to keep the application and input to the "BD Escalation" sheet for Ops support to check issue - Solving seller’s - Today, I have many case problem from seller like deleted item, wrong price in CMT and system error when shipper - Analytical skill - Being careful, and precise when doing with numbers - Improve communication skill - Improve communication skill - Improve cross-team communication - Improve communication skill pick up order I met these issues before so I know how to solve these problem - Improve cross-team communication APPENDIX 2: PLAGIARISM TEST RESULT ... internship report with the topic of ? ?Post Covid- 19: Current situation and solutions to improve the working quality of staff at Shopee Vietnam? ?? has been written by myself and has not received any...UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY DEPARTMENT OF INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS – MARKETING POST COVID- 19: CURRENT SITUATION AND SOLUTIONS TO IMPROVE THE WORKING QUALITY OF STAFF AT SHOPEE VIETNAM. .. development staff in the Health and Beauty category Implementation methods Data collection Read materials and update reports related to the topic, and gather reports related to the topic for analysis,