Shopee is a Singaporean multinational technology company specialising in e-commerce. Launched in the year 2015 at Singapore, Shopee is a subsidiary of Sea Limited, a tech conglomerate based in Singapore. The company started as an online consumer-to-consumer marketplace but later adopted business-to-consumer model as well. Shopee has a network of over 70 courier partners in markets where it is currently operating. It offers a wide range of product categories, right from fashion and consumer electronics to baby products and home and living.
Shopee is the largest e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia, with a total gross merchandise value of $47.9 billion in the year 2023. The platform also facilitates online buying and selling for buyers and sellers in Latin America and East Asia. Shopee’s main features include an escrow system to hold payments till buyers confirm delivery, a large array of seller tools, robust logistics and strong payment support.
Status in India
Shopee was not banned in India. However, on 28th March 2022, Shopee announced its exit from the Indian market. The platform voluntarily ceased its operations in India, less than six months after its launch in the country in October 2021. In a statement released by Shopee, the company said that it had decided to close its early-stage initiative in India due to ‘global uncertainties’. Shopee stopped its operations on 29th March 2022. However, the company clarified that its logistic partners would continue to pickup/deliver existing orders and process returns.
Shopee had reached over a million app downloads on Google Play Store and was getting 100,000 orders a day, within weeks of its launch in India in October 2021. The platform was being viewed as a serious challenge to e-commerce giants like Amazon and Flipkart, when it abruptly exited India.
Reasons for the Exit
Reasons for Shopee’s exit from India are unclear. Whether the Government of India had any role to play in the platform’s rollback is also a matter of speculation. However, some possible reasons given by industry experts are worth mentioning.
The Confederation of All India Traders had been pressurising the Government of India to ban Shopee. As per the allegations levelled by CAIT, since Shopee is controlled by its Chinese founder and Chinese company Tencent, which holds 18.7% in Sea Limited, the parent company of Shopee, the platform stores all its data on Tencent cloud. The CAIT had also alleged predatory pricing practices by Shopee.
Intense competition from not only Amazon and Flipkart but also other platforms like Meesho, Snapdeal, Udaan, Dealshare and others, alongside cash burnout due to its high discounts, may have contributed to Shopee’s exit from India.
Since Shopee exited within weeks of the ban on Garena Free Fire, also owned by Sea Limited, there were speculations that Shopee shut its operations in anticipation of a ban. However, there are no credible reports regarding this angle.
Santosh Kumar is a Professional SEO and Blogger, With the help of this blog he is trying to share top 10 lists, facts, entertainment news from India and all around the world.
