Sideline income exceeds main business! Shopee sellers receive nearly 10,000 orders a day

Not long ago, Shopee's parent company Sea released its fourth quarter and annual financial report for 2022. The financial report shows that Shopee's revenue in the fourth quarter of last year increased by 31.8% year-on-year to US$2.1 billion, and the total number of orders for the whole year of 2022 increased by 23.7% year-on-year. There is no doubt that Shopee has delivered a good profit report card.

Shopee's sideline income exceeds main business, sellers turn to full-time

After graduating from university, Jin, who majored in footwear design engineering, worked as a design assistant in a company while doing e-commerce as a side job. In the increasingly competitive domestic e-commerce environment, his performance was not outstanding. By chance, Jin learned that someone around him had settled on the Shopee platform and tasted the sweetness of explosive sales during the overseas expansion. So he decided to give it a try himself.

In 2018, Jin opened his first Shopee store. To his surprise, he received orders the day after the store went online, and the number of orders continued to grow every day. Later, the number of orders increased, and the income from this side job gradually exceeded that of his main job. After weighing the pros and cons, Jin decided to run Shopee full-time.

In fact, when Jin first entered the Southeast Asian e-commerce market, he tried many platforms, but only Shopee's performance satisfied him.

In the early days of his business, he took care of all the work, including operations, customer service, packaging and shipping . Shopee's simple and easy-to-use backend saved him a lot of effort. "I was lucky, and the number of orders gradually increased. I felt that I couldn't handle it, so I hired another person." It is understood that Jin's store had nearly 10,000 orders a day during the big promotion last year, and the team has gradually grown to 7-8 people - 2 operations, 1 customer service, and 3 warehouse staff.

The categories have evolved from general to specialized, and the number of sellers' orders has been rising steadily

——Which market?

——What category?

——Which platform can you use to realize your “cross-border” dream?

…

These are undoubtedly issues that cross-border sellers will consider carefully before entering the market.

Limited by the overall understanding of the cross-border e-commerce industry and the lack of previous experience, novice sellers are inevitably prone to being confused, and Jin is no exception.

Especially when it comes to product selection, “What should we sell?”

For Jin, the most reliable products are fashion products, which is related to his major in footwear design engineering in college. Therefore, when he first stepped into the overseas market, he adhered to the concept of "selling what is hot" and laid out all fashion-related products such as women's shoes, women's clothing, and women's bags in the early stage.

Although they are all hot-selling products, the categories are too broad, which undoubtedly brought a series of troubles to his operation. For example, the store consumer group is not accurate due to the variety of products, the market cannot be concentrated, and the product repurchase rate is not high. In addition, the team size was small in the early stage, and the operational pressure of the broad category gradually increased.

At the same time, the more popular the product is, the more intense the market competition becomes, and the store's profit margin begins to be squeezed.

Faced with all these problems, Jin began to think about change, and the idea of ​​"doing more is better than doing more" came into being. With the encouragement and assistance of the official team of Shopee platform, Jin began to think about cutting off some product lines.

As a shoe design major, he knows more about the structure, cost and craftsmanship of shoes than others, which will undoubtedly provide great help in his future product selection and creation of popular items. Combined with the sales evaluation of women's shoes in the store, he finally decided to delve into this category.

After the target category is selected, the supply chain becomes the next urgent issue to consider. Previously, when operating in a pan-category manner, Jin had looked for sources of goods through various wholesale websites, but problems such as scattered sources of goods and slow delivery time resulted in a poor shopping experience for consumers.

After deciding to fine-tune operations, Jin believed that these problems must be solved. After comprehensive comparison, he believed that the products of Wenling women's shoes industry belt were more in line with the target consumer group of his store - young women with strong purchasing desire and strong spending power, such as high school students, college students, and people who just started working, and he personally stationed in Wenling to "go to the source of goods to make products."

With many styles, high cost-effectiveness, young style, and fast new products, Jin's products cater to the consumption concept of young people in the local market. In the Southeast Asian market where product homogeneity is becoming increasingly serious, Jin's products are personalized and differentiated. Therefore, consumers who have bought products in Jin stores often share them spontaneously on social platforms. Sharing brings new traffic, and day after day, the number of orders is also rising steadily.

Valued at $234 billion, sellers are leveraging Shopee to gain market share in Southeast Asia

According to Bain Consulting, the e-commerce market in Southeast Asia will reach US$234 billion in 2025. In eMarketer's "Top 10 E-commerce Sales Growth Forecasts for 2023", five Southeast Asian markets are on the list. The potential of this e-commerce blue ocean is self-evident.

Jin , which focuses on the Thai and Vietnamese markets , seized this opportunity and achieved nearly 10,000 orders a day through Shopee promotions, attracting millions of internet celebrities and repeat customers.

Of course, such achievements were not achieved overnight. Like other sellers, Jin, who was unfamiliar with cross-border e-commerce in the early days, also encountered many problems. For example, he was unfamiliar with the platform rules and price setting issues, but the Shopee Seller Center helped him solve these problems. In addition, Jin also learned how to use marketing tools such as advertising operations and delivery through the Shopee Seller Center and use these tools to achieve better results.

In terms of language, Jin said there was no pressure at all, because Shopee provides a one-click Chinese translation function, and the customer service tool "Chat" also has a direct Chinese conversion function, which greatly reduces the language barrier.

In terms of warehousing and shipping, Jin praised Shopee's Nanning warehouse because it meets the needs of fast delivery and small-scale and multiple replenishment. Sellers do not need to stock up in large quantities, reducing inventory and financial pressure, and can respond quickly to market demand.

Jin’s journey has not been smooth sailing, but in his opinion, taking the first step is half the battle, and only practice can make dreams come true. For sellers who are still considering whether to join Shopee, Jin said, "If there is an opportunity, you should be brave to try. The more attempts you make, the more opportunities you have."

Today, with the help of Shopee's explosive sales, Jin has already embarked on the right track of "cross-border development", and is moving faster and more steadily than others.

It is reported that on March 22, Shopee's first online investment conference in 2023 will be launched! The platform's official four category managers will help out, exclusively revealing the ultimate explosive order strategy, and there will be a 24-hour fast entry channel, direct advertising money for new sellers to open stores, reduced logistics commissions, free withdrawals and other start-up gift packages ( click the entry link to learn about Shopee's latest entry benefits ). Watching the live broadcast will also bring you massive benefits - advertising money, iPhone 13 and other gifts will be given away throughout the process to help you achieve a strong start in 2023!

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