Shopee expands in Latin America with silent launches in Chile, Colombia

Shopee, the ecommerce arm of Southeast Asian tech giant Sea Group, appears to be continuing its aggressive push into the Latin American market with the silent launches of websites in two more South American countries: Chile and Colombia.

Tech in Asia understands that the recent rollouts are part of an “asset-light” pilot program, which doesn’t involve heavy on-ground investment and focuses on the shipping of products to these countries. Shopee’s cross-border team is testing the waters in Chile and Colombia.

Photo credit: Shopee

Sea Group declined to comment to Tech in Asia’s queries.

Earlier, in Sea Group’s Q4 2020 earnings call the management had stated that its operations in Brazil were initiated by Shopee’s cross-border team so it can offer more markets to cross-border sellers. Since Sea’s gaming platform Garena is already present in Brazil, the company said it was generally efficient to give more value-adds to their sellers.

“However, it’s still very preliminary work for us, and we’ll continue to observe the market and let the team run with it and see how that progresses over time,” Sea’s management said in the call.

Tech in Asia also understands that Shopee is still concentrating on Brazil as its main market in Latin America, while other markets such as Mexico are part of the asset-light approach that the company is taking in the region.

Shopee entered Brazil in October 2019, initially aiming to boost the country’s cross-border business. But after a year of operations, not only did it scale up in the country, but it had also expanded to Mexico.

See also: Is Shopee a threat to MercadoLibre’s dominance in Brazil?

In just a year, Shopee’s Brazil unit went from a pilot initiative to a team of over 250. The ecommerce player had also started to work with local sellers, according to its website.

The ecommerce market in Latin America is dominated by regional companies like Argentina-based MercadoLibre. International heavyweights such as US-based Amazon and China’s Alibaba are vying for a share of the market as well.

Correction (June 9, 2021 17:30pm SGT): The article has incorrectly stated that it as Sea Group’s Q1 2021 earnings call instead of Q4 2020 earnings call.