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Jofie Yordan · · 5 min readShopee’s YouTube tag team a retort to TikTok-Tokopedia
In wrestling, a handicap match is where one wrestler fights against two allied opponents at once.
The merger of TikTok and Tokopedia in Indonesia may have turned their ecommerce competition with Shopee into such a match.
However, Shopee has now called in YouTube as its tag-team partner to level the playing field.
Shopee’s office in Jakarta / Photo credit: jafriyalbule / Shutterstock
The partnership, which enables YouTube creators to become Shopee affiliates and sell products on the ecommerce platform, currently only covers Indonesia, although Vietnam and Thailand are the next target markets.
This move will help Shopee fend off competition from TikTok Shop, which in the past two years has threatened its market share. Part of TikTok Shop’s success lies in how it taps into users’ impulsive buying behaviors and how it uses affiliates to drive sales on the platform.
However, unlike TikTok Shop, YouTube has yet to prove its ability to convert views into sales.
More affluent audience
On sheer numbers alone, the Shopee and YouTube duo appears to have an advantage, given that YouTube has a larger user base than TikTok in Southeast Asia.
YouTube’s users in the region last year reached 332.6 million, compared to TikTok’s 276.1 million, according to advertising audience data from DataReportal.
The Shopee-YouTube partnership may also benefit from a more affluent audience.
YouTube Shopping’s launch event in Jakarta / Photo credit: egaranugrah/Shutterstock
Ming Yii Lai, project leader and research manager at Chinese strategy consulting firm Daxue Consulting, says one of the key differences between the two video platforms lies in their audiences.
YouTube’s users, particularly those who watch long-form content, tend to be older and “may have a higher disposable income” compared to TikTok’s younger market, Lai observes.
Influencer wars
Who will win?
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The tie-up with YouTube could strengthen Shopee’s position as a market leader, but can the video platform deliver in sales?
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