individual assignment analyzing marketing environment of shopee technology company

Shopee trading platform is built toprovide users with an easy, safe and fast experience when shopping online through a strongsupport and payment support system.. Top 10 Most Visited E-co

Lecturer: Bùi Thị Hạnh Thảo

Course: Marketing Principles

Date: Spring 2021

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 Company 3

2 Target customers 4

3 Products 5

II MICROENVIRONMENT.

1 The company 6

2 Suppliers 9

3 Marketing Intermediaries 9

4 Competitors 10

5 Publics 11

6 Customer 11

1 The demographic 12

2 The economic 14

3 The natural 16

4 The technology 16

5 The political and social 17

6 The culture 18

I INTRODUCTION

1 The company

SHOPEE is an electronic trading platform headquartered in Singapore under the SEAGroup (formerly known as Garena), which was founded in 2009 by Forrest Li, also was firstlaunched in Singapore in 2015 (Repository 2019)[1] Shopee trading platform is built toprovide users with an easy, safe and fast experience when shopping online through a strongsupport and payment support system In December 2018 Shopee has 56.6 thousand Twitterfollowers, 1.7 Million on Instagram followers, and 13 million followers on Facebook.(Repository 2019)[2] In 2015 Shopee became one of the 5 most disruptive ecommercestartups published by Tech In Asia.(Osman Husain 2015)[3]

Image1 Top 10 Most Visited E-commerce Websites in Vietnam 2019

After a trial operation, Shopee was officially launched on the Vietnamese market on8/8/2016 IPrice's (2019)[4] report shows that Shopee leads as the most popular e-commerce platform in Vietnam for the whole year of 2019, with 33.6 million monthly webvisits

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With a broad VISION Shopee believes in the transformative power of technology and wants

to change the world for the better by providing a platform that connects buyers and sellers

in a community.(About Shopee - Wantedly)[5] Shopee's MISSION is to better the lives ofconsumers and small businesses with technology, and is listed on the NYSE under the symbolSE.(Linkedin 2015)[6] Shopee aims to continually enhance its platform and become theregion’s e-commerce destination of choice via ongoing product optimization and localizeduser-centered strategies

2 Target customer

● Shopee, one of the leading mobile e-commerce platforms in Southeast Asia, once began as a consumer-to-consumer (C2C Marketplace - Intermediary in the process ofbuying and selling between individuals.) platform, but later on evolved into a (B2C - business to consumers) marketplace focusing on serving customers across the region.(Jen San Antonio 2019)[7]

● Pine Kyaw, managing director of Shopee Vietnam, said that Shopee’s target audience

is millennials who are young, energetic, and highly engaged They spend a lot of time

on their smartphones and use social media networks like Facebook and Instagram.(Voice of Vietnam 2017)[8] Research firm ComScore(2017)[9] points out that Vietnamese millennials are mobile-first consumers The country demonstrates a more heavily mobile-only population than other global and regional markets

Image2 Rate of mobile phone use in the world

The Shopee app has been downloaded five million times and its listings have increased by 133%.(Voice of Vietnam 2017)[10]

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3 Products.

● A record-breaking 80 million items were bought online within 24 hours during Shopee’s 2019 12.12 Shopping Festival This top Southeast Asia e-commerce platformhad an impressive performance for the 11.11 Shopping Festival too, with 70 million items sold in 24 hours.(J&T Express Singapore 2020)[11]

● Shopee’s most popular product categories include fashion, home and living, and beauty All products have to be in accordance with that country’s selling laws.(Jen San Antonio 2019)[12]

Image3 The categories in Shopee

● CEO Shopee - Chris Feng joined the company in March 2014, and has served as the chief executive officer of Shopee since July 2015 and as the chief executive officer of Sea Money since March 2020.(SEA 2020)[14] David Chen is co-founder and serves asthe chief product officer of Shopee He was formerly group SEA chief of staff, a position he held from January 2017 to December 2019.(SEA 2020)[15]

● In Vietnam, Tran Tuan Anh - Managing Director of Shopee Vietnam Mr Tuan Anh graduated with excellence from Foster Business School at the University of Washington (USA) and pursued an MBA program at the Wharton School of Business

at the University of Pennsylvania (USA) Mr Tuan Anh has held the position of CEO of Shopee Vietnam from 2016 to now and has contributed a big part to the

development of an online shopping channel which is considered a successful rookie

in the e-commerce market.(International School of Business 2020)[16] Pine Kyaw is currently the Managed Director of Shopee in Vietnam Shopee is currently one of theleading ecommerce players in Greater Southeast Asia Pine has an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School Of Business, and graduated First class in ElectricalEngineering from NUS.(Seamless 2020)[17]

1.2 Finance.

According Sea Limited Reports First Quarter 2020 Results

(Sea Group 2020)[18]:

In Indonesia, where Shopee is the largest e-commerce platform

by orders, it registered over 185 million orders for the market in

the first quarter, or a daily average of over 2 million orders, an

increase of 122.6% year-on-year Shopee also ranked first in

Indonesia by average monthly active users, downloads, and total

time spent in app on Android, in the Shopping category in the first

quarter of 2020

Both in Southeast Asia and in Taiwan, Shopee ranked number one

in the Shopping category by average monthly active users, and total

time spent in the app on Android, for the first quarter of 2020

Image3

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Shopee also ranked number one in the Shopping category by downloads in Southeast Asia, and was among the top three worldwide by downloads in the same category for the first quarter of 2020

Shopee continued to lead as Vietnam’s most popular e-commerce platform in the fourth quarter of 2020, with 68.6 million monthly web visits, ranked top 1 on AppStore and PlayStore, highly interactive on Youtube, Instagram and Facebook.(iPrice 2021)[19]

Image4 Vietnam’s most popular e-commerce

According to iPrice’s analysis, Shopee has competed well on all fronts, with financial backingfrom its parent company Sea Group fueling its competitiveness

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1.3 R&D (research and development).

At the forefront of e-commerce activity in the industry is Shopee It continues to evolve and stay ahead of the e-commerce competition through innovative offers on products Shopee connects with consumers, understands their specific needs, and creates well-executed localized strategies to serve shoppers, brands, and sellers

● Creating a digital experience for consumers

Shopee also saw greater demand for engagement and entertainment while shopping online The company has seen opportunities in its in-app engagement features such as Shopee Live

in the past months as covid-19 outbreak stayed connected online Shopee Live is also becoming popular among people of all ages to tune in regularly to watch a wide variety of live streams in April, making it their preferred entertainment source, recording 30 million views in a single month Shopee has continued to partner with GMA, GMA News TV, and Wowowin Primetime to offer shoppers greater fun and entertainment while they shop online.(Business Mirror 2020)[20]

● Building connections, empowering Filipino entrepreneurs

Shopee plans to create their 11.11 shopping event to significantly impact to make commerce for everyone Also, Shopee accelerated seller empowerment efforts and rolled out a wide range of measures to smoothly transition online sellers The company introduced the Seller Support Package, which comprises a series of initiatives to ease operational costs and boost sales, including subsidized shipping and administration fees, vouchers, and free advertising credits.(Business Mirror 2020)[21]

e-● Partner with Google

Shopee has collaborated with Google to launch Google Ads with Shopee Brands can now create Google shopping ads directly on the Shopee Brands Suite, which will allow them to promote their official stores and products more efficiently across all channels They will get access to specialized marketing tools, be able to create deeper engagements with customers, and flexibly manage and measure their marketing campaigns.(VN EXPLORER 2020)[22]

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1.4 Operations

The Shopee operations division is responsible for running the entire process from the moment a buyer searches the Shopee's catalog to the moment they receive the item In addition, this department also analyzes and monitors KPIs across the entire region, investigating and assessing the causes when the operating system has problems The subdivisions of this suite include Customer Service, Payment, Listings, Storage, Logistics, Vendor Support Systems, and Fraud Handling (Fraud).(Shopee Careers 2020).[23]

2 Suppliers.

Shopee is an online mall where shoppers buy,

and merchants sell Anyone can be a supplier of

Shopee A quick registration process — all you

need is an e-mail ID and a phone number —

lets you start selling fast And note that no

banned products will be sold on Shopee

Image5 Products are BANNED on Shopee

3 Marketing Intermediaries.

Shopee, the marketing intermediary is quite special With the fast-growing e-commerce landscape, Shopee has utilized AI as its own marketing intermediary So how did Shopee do it? Shopee uses AI, data, to build marketing strategies that are consistent with changes in user behavior They have seven different applications online in their markets, and each market significantly differs in culture, user behavior, and shopping preferences In addition, Shopee's data science team works closely with local marketing teams to model shoppers based on the different demographic and behavioral data available Shopee then leverages data-driven insights using its powerful data capabilities and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to predict users' preferences based on their past purchases By identifying relationships and patterns in users' shopping and browsing behavior, Shopee can streamline their shopping journeys more personalized Shopee continually refines its recommendation tools so that more customized and relevant shopping suggestions, promotions, and push notifications are made to fit customer needs Personalization is very important in e-commerce today.(Anisa Menur A Maulani 2020)[24]

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4 Competitors.

According to Vietnam Insider (2019)[25]:

When it comes to the app itself, Shopee is also not afraid to innovate Shopee has been investing a lot on campaigns to attract consumers to their mobile app specifically

Ranked at number two is Shopee’s biggest regional competitor Lazada When it comes to mobile, Lazada is still fighting strong It seems that the e-commerce giant is now shifting to put a bigger emphasis on mobile shopping

Ranking in top 5 behind Shopee and Lazada are the apps from three local e-commerce platforms: Tiki, Sendo, and Adayroi These three companies also have been achieving good

results in terms of average website traffic for recent quarters, making them worthy opponents for the two regional companies.

Behind this top 5 in the ranking are AliExpress, Amazon, eBay, and Alibaba, all of which are currently not officially operating in Vietnam

Image6 Ranking of Vietnamese e-commerce sites in 2019

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5 Publics.

Giving back to the community, partners

Shopee is committed to making a difference and uplifting the lives of local industries and communities through its several programs First, The company partnered with 39

organizations including PGH Medical Foundation, Kaya Natin, and World Vision to help raise funds to help Filipinos in need during the Enhanced Community Quarantine There were

some 2,800 respiratory masks donated to help medical frontlines in their fight against COVID-19 Then, Frontliner Package to support frontliners in the Philippines by providing them with Shopee vouchers, Unilever vouchers, and mobile load from Smart that they can use for their personal needs Shopee will be supporting the 11 foundations through a digital charity sale, co-branded live streams with brand donations, and in-app donations.(Business Mirror 2020)[26].

6 Customer

Shopee's target customers are all those wishing to buy and sell on e-commerce It also includes well-known and large brand dealers who are also target customers of Shopee Because Shopee, one of the top Mobile e-commerce platforms in Southeast Asia Start with the C2C Marketplace platform - Intermediary in the buying, selling process between individuals and grow to B2C - Business to Consumers.(Jen San Antonio 2019)[27]

"(Vietnam Economic News 2017)[28] The uneven distribution of the population has made it

difficult for them to complete.

Notably, Vietnam’s population increased rapidly between the 1960s and 1970s

Nevertheless, population growth has slowed down in the last two decades, as women started to have less children to reduce family size

Image7 Total fertility rate in Vietnam, 1955-2020

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In 2019, Vietnam had a population of over 95 million people In terms of age structure, 70 percent of the population were between 15 and 64 years old, while children aged under 14 made up 23 percent and the elderly above 65 years accounted for the remaining seven percent.(Statista Research Department 2020)[29] This is an advantage for Shopee For a young population that uses the internet a lot, more importantly the ability to spend on the young population and their ability to accept online spending, the potential is very high Per capita income in Vietnam is on the rise With disposable income and growing wealth, Vietnamese consumers are willing to spend more, and thanks to high connectivity, e-commerce now has more room for growth.(Vietnam Investment Review 2021)[30]

Image8 GDP per captia (current US$) – Vietnam

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In particular, Vietnamese consumers are increasingly connected with smartphones outgrowing computers as the main connectivity tool Research firm ComScore(2017)[31] points out that Vietnamese millennials are mobile-first consumers The country

demonstrates a more heavily mobile-only population than other global and regional markets

Image9 Rate of mobile phone use in the world.

2 The economic

According to a report from Google (2018/2019)[32], smartphone penetration in Vietnam has doubled since 2014 and there are now 51 million smartphones, representing over 80%

of the 15 plus aged population This is an advantage for Shopee as smartphones are the key

to e-commerce activities online The increase in smartphone ownership will have a profoundeffect on E-Commerce in general

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Vietnam first connected to the Internet in November 1997 In the last 20 years, the country has seen a tremendous increase in the number of Internet users According to the Minister

of Information and Communications, Vietnam had approximately 52 million Internet users in

2017, or a 54% Internet penetration rate, which is above the global average of 46.5% This puts Vietnam at the top of Asian countries and the numbers are expected to continue rising

at a fast pace.(E-Commerce Industry in Vietnam 2018)[33] With the increasing accessibility

to the Internet, more and more people will have the opportunity to access and use commerce services

Vietnam’s development over the past years has been remarkable Between 2002 and 2018, GDP per capita increased by 2.7 times, reaching over US$2,700 in 2019, and more than 45 million people were lifted out of poverty Poverty rates declined sharply from over 70