Can Shopee win in India?

In India, a black T-shirt from Shopee, the ecommerce arm of Southeast Asia’s internet giant Sea Group, can cost something like 149 rupees (US$1.98). But the array of discount vouchers and promotions on the platform can bring the price down significantly.

The only drawback: Packages take over a week to be delivered, which is long considering ecommerce has entered the superfast lane all over the world.

But if Shopee targets customers who value money more than delivery speed, then it has a huge audience in India, Santosh Pai, partner at law firm Link Legal, tells Tech in Asia.

“There are millions of first-time customers in Tier 2 and Tier 3 who are willing to wait for 10 days for a parcel and save money with deep discounts that a platform like Shopee offers,” he points out.

The ecommerce giant entered India silently in November last year, without any big campaigns before its launch. That said, it definitely looks to be invested in the vast ecommerce opportunity in India.

According to a RedSeer report, the Covid-19 pandemic has added tailwinds to the country’s ecommerce sector, with the market opportunity likely to top US$140 billion by 2025.

And in 2020, for the first time in India, over 50% of online shoppers were from Tier 2 cities. This means ecommerce is increasingly reaching the length and breadth of India and is ripe for the taking by companies who can crack the country’s supply chain.

Shopee’s India plan

During Sea’s Q3 earnings call in November, group CEO Forest Li spoke about the ecommerce firm’s expansion plans, including in India.

“From time to time, we may test the waters in new markets where we believe there may be an opportunity to use our experience in a highly diverse environment to reach underserved buyers and sellers,” he said at the time.

However, Shopee’s India initiative seems to go beyond just testing the waters.

Quickly after its rollout in November last year, the Shopee app has seen over 20 million downloads in India, according to Sensor Tower data. For perspective, local ecommerce firms Meesho and Flipkart netted over 160 million and 115 million downloads in 2021, respectively.

However, according to App Annie data, Shopee was the second most downloaded shopping app in India for the months of December 2021 and January 2022, coming in just after Meesho.

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