Shopee Millionaire Seller: Guide to Make $2,561,974.22 Sales

 

I’ve sold more than 2 million dollars worth of products just on Shopee till date. Shopee has proven to be the fastest-growing eCommerce platform based on all my different sales channels. It has now become the 2nd largest sales channel after Lazada and has very much overtaken Qoo10.

However, I have a love/hate relationship with Shopee. Truthfully, a little more on the hate side (which you will find out soon). Nevertheless, Shopee is definitely still a marketplace you have to be selling on. Read on to find out how to sell in Shopee.

Why Should You be Going into eCommerce?

Do I even need to convince you? There’s only going to be more and more people shopping online. Research from Oberlo shows that 26.28% of today’s world population are digital buyers and it is expected to increase over the next few years! Isn’t it obvious that eCommerce is your golden ticket to success?

What is Shopee?

Shopee is an eCommerce platform that provides customers with an easy and secured online shopping experience. Shopee is known for its localized marketplaces and advertising that caters to the culture of the country such as using Phua Chu Kang(the popular persona of known Singapore comedian Gurmit Singh) and Black Pink in their advertising.

Shopee Singapore is owned by the tech giant, Sea which is founded by Mr. Forrest Li, their group chief executive. Sea also operates Garena and SeaMoney. Meanwhile, Chris Feng is the CEO of Shopee and SeaMoney, a digital payments and financial services provider in Southeast Asia where ShopeePay is administered.

To clarify things, Shopee is a China-backed company similar to Lazada but IT IS NOT owned by Lazada.

How Does Shopee Make Money?

Shopee makes money through the transaction fee and commission fee that they collect from sellers. The transaction fee covers the cost of the payment transactions. It is 2% of the total payment of an order after applying any Shopee vouchers and coins whereas the commission fee is for the maintenance of their business model and it ranges from 2-5% of the product listing price minus the seller-borne vouchers and discounts. They also gain money from the Ads. These Ads are paid by brands or Shopee sellers to promote their store and products.

Is Shopee Better Than Lazada?

The purpose of Shopee is to provide an easy and secure online shopping experience to consumers. I know from experience that Shopee ships faster than Lazada. Shopee mainly uses J&T Express as their courier service and they provide a slightly better and faster delivery compared to Lazada with Ninja Van.

Based on my experience, NinjaVan does not show up as regularly as J&T, as well as takes a long time to deliver after picking up the parcel from the seller. Faster delivery is why Shopee is better than Lazada as sellers receive their payout earlier when the customer receives their purchases faster, which the customers are happy as well.

Many brands who were previously distributing offline only to retail stores have also succumbed to the temptation of joining Shopee as well, such as Crocodile Apparels and Western Digital. The fact is that the change to eCommerce is quite sudden, and many of these brands are not able to transition fast enough while at the same time their profits are dropping very quickly.

I do detest their way of running their businesses as they have essentially cut out their retailers who have been supporting their products over the past few decades by deciding to take the easy way out but at least they are doing something to keep their business alive. This goes to show that Shopee is attracting more brands to their platform which in turn also continues to attract more buyers to them, fueling their growth.

Why Should You Sell On Shopee?

Shopee has now become the fast-growing marketplace. If you are still hesitant to sell on the Shopee platform, then you need to know why selling with them gives you more advantages.

Fast-Growing Marketplace with Lots of Buyers

One of the reasons why I love it is because my sales have grown tremendously this year. It is now 2.5 times bigger compared to last year! This could mean that the Shopee user base has increased 250% compared to last year. Shopee is also a mobile-first marketplace, which I foresee will only continue to grow with more people using their mobile phone over a laptop or PC. As a small business, compared to an Instagram shop, Facebook shop or Tiktok shop, you will likely get more sales through the Shopee marketplace instead.

Safe and Secure for Buyers

For shoppers, it is absolutely safe to buy in Shopee because of their Shopee Guarantee feature that protects its buyers and sellers (mostly on the buyer side) against fraudulent transactions. This helps us, sellers, as with better trust from the buyers, we will get more sales.

Shopee has cheaper items because they only charge transaction fees with their sellers while the commission fee is solely applied to Shopee Mall sellers. They also provide Cash on Delivery (COD) in other countries except for Singapore and Thailand. Customers from these countries can opt for debit/credit cards or bank transfers. It is safe to use a debit/credit card in Shopee. They are partnered with CyberSource, an eCommerce credit card payment system management company. This guarantees buyers that their credit card details are safe and secured in every purchase thereby leading to the seller’s high conversion rate.

Customers can also pay through ShopeePay. It is an electronic wallet that allows users to store money from their refunds or top-up. ShopeePay is safe to use and to lock this mobile wallet, users can set a passcode to verify their purchases. It is an upgraded version of the Shopee wallet. The main difference between Shopee wallet and ShopeePay is the top-up feature of the latter. Shopee wallet is now phased out. All refunds and proceeds will go to ShopeePay. Sellers can track and manage their transactions and revenue in the Seller Balance section.

Local Sellers Still Have an Edge over Overseas Sellers

When it comes to the authenticity of the products, Shopee is definitely legit since they sell original items from its established brands especially from Shopee Mall that has a 100% Authentic Product Policy. On the flip side, some products from a few small sellers who are overseas may be counterfeit since Shopee doesn’t run a quality check because they don’t hold any inventories. This is why local sellers like us can still succeed due to the lack of trust in overseas sellers on Shopee.

Overseas sellers also take a longer time to ship to customers locally, and exchanges, refunds, and cancellations are much more troublesome to deal with. On top of that, claiming a warranty from an overseas seller is even tougher.

If you are looking to sell outside of Singapore, I recommend you to create an account in Shopee Malaysia or Shopee Indonesia instead.

Easy to Setup

Rather than setting up your own online store, you can easily register an account, put up products and start selling.

Why You May Not Want to Sell on Shopee?

Now let’s talk about why I hate Shopee. Shopee has decided to hide the customer’s phone number contact information. Clearly, not all customers constantly check their Shopee inbox thus in doing so, sellers have trouble reaching their customers in regards to issues with their orders. Then as a Seller, you only have limited shipping options. You are not allowed to use other alternatives except Shopee supported logistic companies. From my own experience, the platform’s way of implementing changes in their app is such a huge inconvenience for the buyers and sellers. Lastly, I hate how they penalize sellers.

For instance, a seller wasn’t able to ship the item on time, the system auto-cancels the order and gives penalty points to the seller. Shopee’s “Day to Ship” for normal listing is 2 days. This means that the orders for on-hand items must be shipped out within 2 days from the paid date.

You can of course use pre-order listings and set 7 to 30 days to ship. However, they are only limited to 5% or more of your active total number of pre-order listings as a Shopee Mall seller and 10% or more of the active total number of pre-order listings for the other sellers. With a long time to ship, these listings have terrible conversion rates.

In addition, sellers who violate the pre-order limit will receive penalties. Exclusion from official shop or Preferred Seller Programmes is the penalties for the Shopee Mall sellers while for the other sellers, they get to have a listing limit of 500.

To avoid any delays in shipment and penalties, you can pre-pack some of your best-selling items and make sure that you have enough stock. This will make your customers happy and it will earn you a good review rating plus you may gain some returning customers in doing so.

Even with all the horrible inconvenience to sellers (just join the Shopee Seller Facebook Group and you will know why I’m saying this), Shopee is still a substantial sales channel for eCommerce businesses. You are likely to be leaving money on the table if you’re selling with them unless you are a brand owner.

Getting Started on Shopee

How to Register a Shopee Seller Account?

Things you need:

• A local phone number that has not been previously registered with Shopee
• (Shopee Mall)ACRA BizFile of your business entity/company
• Physical business(or home) address
• Contact information
• (optional)Logo of your store
• (optional)Cover photo for your store

Whether you’re using Shopee through its mobile application or on a desktop, signing up for a Shopee account is quite simple.

When you access Shopee on a desktop:

1. You can register for an account by clicking the ‘Sign Up’ button in the upper right-hand corner of the page.

2. You will be asked for your phone number or connect your other social accounts in order to register. Provide needed information and verify your account.

3. After signing up, you will be redirected to Shopee’s Homepage.

When you access Shopee using the mobile application:

1. Click the ‘Me’ button found in the lower right-hand corner and you can register by clicking the ‘Sign Up’ button found on the next page for your Shopee account.

2. You will be asked for your phone number or connect your other social accounts in order to register. Provide needed information and verify your account.

3. After signing up, you will be redirected to Shopee’s Homepage.

Setting Up Your Seller Store and Information

On desktop:

1. You can access the Seller Centre and shop settings by clicking it in the upper left-hand corner of the homepage.

2. You will be redirected to the Seller Centre and if needed, you will be asked to provide your full name, address/pick-up address, and phone number.

3. Scroll down on the left tab to access the Shop Profile.

4. From here, you can input the information about your store. Make sure to add images that represent your business and give a concise description of your shop.

5. To add your products, choose ‘My Products’ on your left tab and click ‘Add a New Product’.

6. You will be prompted to input the name of your product and choose its category.

7. Input the basic information, photos, videos, and other important details of the item.

8. After doing so, select your shipping settings. Shopee automatically suggests logistic providers for your item. Once you’re done, click ‘Save and Publish’ to set your item public in the marketplace.

On mobile:

1. Indicate your pick-up address and verify your phone number so that your product listing will be visible in the Marketplace.

2. In the ‘Me’ tab, click ‘Start Selling’.

3. Start adding items to your store by clicking ‘Add Products’.

4. Start adding information about your product. Include high-quality images, accurate descriptions, and other important details. Once you’re done, click ‘Publish’ to make the product visible to buyers or ‘Save’ to store it.

Setting Up Multiple Users with Different Roles and Access

Managing a business is a daunting task especially when you do it as a side hustle while working on a full-time job. What’s great nowadays is that you can hire people while being in the comfort of your own home! 

Did you know that you can hire a virtual employee for as low as $300 a month to grow your business for you? Find out more here.

Shopee has a feature called Sub-Account Platform that allows sellers to add members or roles that have different access to handle daily transactions. It is available to sellers with at least 1 completed order in the last 30 days. 

In the Sub-Account Platform, you will have Main and Member Accounts. The Main Account has full access to the Seller Centre and Sub-Account Platform. He can create or edit Member Accounts and give them permissions to particular features. Meanwhile, the Member Accounts are created by the Main Account. It only has access to certain Seller Centre features granted by the Main Account.

When you have multiple shops, you can bind these in your Main Account. You may assign different tasks for different shops to all of your members.

To know more about the Sub-Account Platform, check this article. 

Wondering how to create a Main Account for the Sub-Account Platform? Click here.

To add a Member Account, read this.

Have multiple shops and you need to bind them? Check this out.

How to Find Products that Fly Off the Shelves?

Shopee’s Best Seller List is clearly a record of the products that make a good profit. It shows the top few results of every single category. 

The Top Products can be found just below your Shopee homepage and you can check more items by clicking ‘See All’.

You can choose to view top products of a specific kind by selecting the category as you click on ‘See More’.

Just to give you an example, below are the top 10 products that fall under the category of Computer Table.

Finding product opportunities and verifying them is an in-depth process. If you would learn my laser-targeted profitable product research formula, you can check out my Decisive Marketplaces Program in more detail.

In short, these are the 2 conditions to find profitable products.

1. High demand
2. Low competition

Listing of Products

To effectively sell and manage your products, you need to consider a couple of things.

Branding

Establish a brand that represents your business and always be consistent with it. Create a logo to attach to the images of your products. You can also use the logo as your shop’s profile photo. Construct a template for your products to lessen the work and add ‘Sale’ badges to attract customers.

Do you need a logo or template for your product thumbnails? Click here to know about our services.

Take High-Quality Images of the Product

These images are the first thing that your customers see. Make sure that your photos are clear and pleasing to the eyes. Most of the time, your suppliers would already have photos of the products. However, would you know if the rights to those product images are shared with you? If not you may get into legal trouble. Hence, you will want to take your own photos of your products. To take attractive photos of your products, you will need a camera or smartphone, sufficient lighting, and a solid white background.

To make it easier, you should use the following:

1. Photo Tent and Light Cube Kit

2. Camera or Smartphone

3. Small Tripod

Always try to upload as many photos as possible, Shopee allows up to 9 photos per product listing. These images should have different angles, features should be clearly shown and with people of different demographics such as age, gender, occupation who are using the product. You can also use the influence of celebrities or public figures by adding their testimonials to endorse your products. This will be the best way to improve your conversion rate. 

These images are taken from different angles while showcasing the Shopee product specifications and adding feedback from an influencer.

Meanwhile, the photos shown below are a good example of promoting an item with people from different demographics i.e., race and gender.

Product Copywriting

Descriptions are important. Always keep in mind that you are trying to persuade your reader to buy the item, so be informative yet convincing. Focus on the benefits that it can give to your customer. Do not forget to add relevant keywords in your Product Title. This will help you improve your presence on search results. Use Google Keyword Planner to help you build a strong keyword list. Google Keyword Planner will only show exact search volume when you run ads with them.

Make sure to include these keywords in your product name and select the right product category.

An example below shows keyword ideas for ‘Gaming Mouse’. Google Keyword Planner gives its average monthly searches, competition, and filters such as brand or use.

Learn how to run Google Ads with my Google Ads course to your eCommerce store and unlock this feature in your Keyword Planner.

Make Use of Shopee Selling Features

Shopee has a wide range of promotional features not limited to Shopee Live, Flash Sale and their Shopee ads. These tools help you to get more better reach and conversions which is incredibly important as you’re starting out on Shopee.

How to Add Your Bank Account?

Getting paid in Shopee is simple and only takes a few steps. This guide will show you how to add a bank account to ensure your payments are processed successfully. 

1. Go to My Account

2. Click on Banks and Cards

3. Click on Add New Bank Account. You can also add your credit card if you want to include it. 

4. Enter your account name and number as well as the name of the bank. Then, click on Submit. 

How to Get/Withdraw Your Payment? 

When your product is delivered to your customers, your payment will first go to the Shopee Guarantee Account. It will be credited to your Seller Balance within 2 or 3 days once the buyers confirm that they received the items or when the Shopee Guarantee period ends. When the payment is available, you can withdraw it by transferring it to your bank account. 

You have two options to withdraw your payment: via the Shopee app or via Seller Center. Here is the step-by-step process: 

Via Shopee App

1. Open the app and go to My Shop

2. Click on Seller Wallet

3. Click on Withdraw. 

4. Enter the amount you want to withdraw. Then, click on Confirm.

5. Check the details. When everything is good, click the Confirm button. 

6. Afterward, you need to enter your Shopee Wallet PIN. Confirm it to finish your transaction. 

Via Seller Center

1. In the Seller Center, go to Finances and select My Balance. 

2. Enter your password and click on Verify.

3. Your Balance Overview will appear. Here, you can see your balance and your bank account. Click on Withdraw. 

4. Enter the amount you want to withdraw. Please note, however, that the daily withdrawal limit is $40,000.00. Then, click on Confirm to finish your transaction. 

For both processes, you need to check your Wallet Updates because Shopee will notify you to ask for your confirmation of your withdrawal. Once confirmed, wait 2-3 working days for your payment to be reflected on your bank account.  Please note that you are entitled to a single weekly withdrawal from your Seller Balance. This is free of charge. If you wish to withdraw more than that in a week, you will be charged approximately SGD 0.4158. This amount will be deducted from the amount you are withdrawing. 

How to Access Seller Wallet to View and Keep Track of Your Income?

Another way to monitor your revenue is via Seller Wallet. Your profit will be credited here within 2 to 3 days after the item is delivered to or received by your buyer. You have two options to access your seller wallet: via the Shopee app or via Seller Center. See the guide below: 

Via Shopee App

1. Open your Shopee app and go to My Shop. 

2. Then, select the Seller Wallet.

3. When you open it, you will see your Wallet Balance. You can view your Withdrawal and your Transaction history here. As stated in the picture below, your wallet balance will be automatically deposited to your default bank account every first day of the month. 

Via Seller Center

1. Log in to your seller account. Under Finance, select My Balance. 

2. Enter your password. Then, click on Verify. 

3. You need to select a date using the Select Date dropdown menu to filter the transaction data. Click on Export to download your latest sales proceeds report. 

How to Handle Refunds?

When you receive a refund request from your buyer, you have 2 days to accept, counter, or submit a dispute. If you fail to respond within the given date, the system will auto-accept this request. 

1. Go to the Seller Center and click on Order. Then, click on Return/Refund. 

2. You can see all the orders that you have requested for a refund. Click on Respond to the item you want to check.

 

3. On the next page, you will see the reason and proof of your buyer for his/her request. You can “Accept Return” with a condition that your item shall be returned to you first or “Refund” immediately without any condition. You can also “Submit Dispute to Shopee” which means that you disagree with your buyer’s claim. 

Read more about Accept Refund here

Learn what supporting documents to attach when you need to submit for dispute here. 

How to Check your Tax Invoice?

Shopee also allows you to check your Tax Invoice which includes the following itemized billings: 

• Withdrawal Fees
• Shipping Fees
• Transaction Fees
• Commission Fees. 

To access, follow the steps below:

1. Upon logging in to the Seller Center, click on Finances, then on My Income. 

2. Enter your password and click on Verify. 

3. Click on My Tax Invoice that you will see on the right side of your page.

4. Click on the dropdown menu to see your monthly tax invoice. Please note, however, that you will get two tax invoices for each month. Your transactions from the 1st to the 15th of the month will be uploaded on the 16th day of the month. Moreover, your transactions from the 16th until the end of the month will be uploaded on the 1st day of the following month. You can also download your tax invoices. Simply click on the download icon under Action.

Run Ads on Shopee

Running some ads helps you promote your products to a wider market. You can start with a small budget and use keyword ads.

How to Run Shopee Keyword Ads?

Shopee Keyword Ads help improve your exposure and increase your sales by bidding for keywords. When buyers use these keywords, your ad will appear on the search results page. Below are quick steps on how to run this type of ad.

Choose the Products You Want to Promote 

Shopee suggests selecting items with a ‘thumbs up’ icon. These are recommended items with high sales and conversion rates. You can also try to advertise new products to test their marketability.

Set Your Budget 

This is the amount that you are willing to pay for your ads. You will be charged when shoppers click on them. If the amount is depleted, your ad will stop running. Select its default ‘No Limit’, if you want your ads to have consistent exposure otherwise you can set a budget to cap expenses. The minimum daily budget required is $2 while the minimum total budget required is $20.

Set Time Length

This is the duration of your ad. Your ad will stop running when the end date is reached. Choose ‘No Time Limit’ if you want your ads to have sustained exposure or schedule a ‘Start/End Date’ if you want it advertised on certain days.

Set Your Keywords

You can auto-select or manually choose your keywords. In ‘Auto-Selected Keywords’, Shopee will pick keywords that are relevant to your product. Use this if you want minimal effort and time in setting up your ad. This option is automatically toggled on if you’re setting keywords using Shopee App. Meanwhile, manually choosing your keywords allows you to enter your own keywords that you think people might use when looking for your product. You can choose different match types for keywords, Broad Match, and Exact Match. 

Broad Match lets your ad show on the search results page when shoppers use relevant variations of your keywords while Exact Match lets your ad appear on the search results page when shoppers look for the exact keyword you’ve bid for.

Set Bid Price

This is the highest amount that you want to pay per each click of your ad. The ranking of your ad depends on its quality score and bid price. You can still adjust this even if your ad is live.

My Recommendations

Start with a small budget like $3-5 per day and increase your budget if they are making sense to you. In terms of bids, start with what works for you and see how your ads turn out. If you are still not converting sales, try increasing your bid to more than the top bid and see if you’re still profitable. If this method still doesn’t work, then you should abandon this product in Shopee altogether.

Start by running ads with Broad Match first to gather data on which keywords are converting. After 2 weeks or a month, export the data, and those that do not convert at all, delete them. Those that convert but are not profitable, change them to exact match and monitor the results again. Keep repeating this process until you get a very solid list of highly converting keywords.

Before you start running ads as well, set some threshold for what is highly profitable, profitable, breaking even, and losing money. Here’s a simple guideline and example to manage your Shopee Ads to keep them profitable or scale them quickly when they are.

	Highly Profitable	Profitable	Breakeven	Making Losses
Ad Budget	⬆️ Increase Budget	➖ Maintain Budget	⬇️ Reduce Budget	❌ Cut Ad

You should be adjusting your ads every couple of days. When you are highly profitable, this is time to bank and increase your budget to start raking in tons of sales. When you are making a small profit, just keep the budget the way it is as when you start increasing your budget, Shopee Ads will start showing your ads more aggressively, and that’s when you start getting lots of clicks that don’t convert into sales, bringing down your profitability. Reduce budget when you’re breaking even and cut your ads without hesitation if they are losing money.

Always look at your keywords on a weekly and monthly basis and negative those which are irrelevant and those that don’t convert well.

This method works for all Shopee PPC ads. By following this simple strategy, you should see better results with your Shopee Ads.

Downsides of Running Shopee Keyword Ads

Like with what happened with Qoo10 Keyword Plus ads, as it shows to provide good results, more and more sellers will advertise on it with higher bids thereby increasing the cost per click. This can lead to the cost per acquisition (cost of advertising to get a sale) increasing tremendously and severely impacting your profit margin over time. This is definitely not a long-term method of running a business.

Do you also think customers are more or less likely to click on paid results? Do you think they will buy from someone who paid their way to the top? Do they have the best-selling product?

Based on research done by ZeroLimitWeb, 71% of searches results are of organic click and only 15% of all traffic is from Paid Ads (PPC).

Would you like to waste money on getting people to click on your listing? What eCommerce should not be is to spend more money on ads than the profit that this is making. It is a waste of money.

In the meantime, I have a method that helps you get on top of search results and I will share them with you. Click here to find out more.

Must-Know Metrics to Keep Your Shopee Business Lucrative and How to Make Use of Them

What gets measured gets done. Monitoring these metrics on a regular basis will keep you focused on your objectives and aware of what needs to be improved. 

Click-Through Rate (CTR)

Click-Through Rate (CTR) is the percentage of people who clicked on your ad. Here’s how to compute for your CTR: 

CTR = (Total Number of Clicks / Total Number of Impressions) x 100

For example, if your ad has 1000 impressions (people who saw your ad) and 50 of them clicked it, your ad’s CTR is 5%.

A good benchmark for Click-Through Rate is 5% and you shouldn’t go lower than that. In fact, you should even aim for 10%. Why? Because higher CTR means that many people are interested in your ad which will help you increase your Conversion Rate (we’ll talk more about this below). This also helps you increase your ranking on the search results page. 

On the contrary, a low CTR simply tells that people are not clicking on your ad. They may not find it appealing, you might be using the wrong keyword, there’s no call-to-action and the list goes on. Click-Through Rate is an important factor to gain orders and because of that.

How Can You Improve Your CTR? 

Optimize Your Product Thumbnail Images

Provide high-quality images of the product and showcase its features. Catch your customer’s attention by being creative with your thumbnail images. You could also add some of its benefits so that the consumers are aware of what they’ll gain when they purchase the item.

Use Relevant Keywords

Look for keywords that people use in searching for your product. Add these in your headline and description while making it sound interesting. Do not fill in keywords for the sake of it. Remember that your customers will read everything and you don’t want them to leave just because of a poorly written headline and description.

Be More Price-Competitive

Learn to compete. If other merchants are selling the same item as you, adjust your price without compromising your profit in return. You can also carry out sales or give discount vouchers to your followers. Create a strategy to improve your visibility and reach. 

Study your target audience and learn how to promote your product well. Click-Through Rate is an important factor to have a good Conversion Rate (CVR).

Conversion Rate (CVR)

Conversion Rate (CVR) in sales refers to the portion of people who took a particular action or purchased an item after clicking an ad. This is how to compute for CVR: 

CVR = (Total Number of Conversions / Total Number of Clicks) x 100

When 80 people clicked on your ad and 5 of them “converted” into buying your product, your CVR is 6.25%.

Like Click-Through Rate, the good benchmark for CVR is 5% above. Having a high Conversion Rate means that you’re gaining sales from your ad. Anything below 5% just states that your product is not doing well. Low CVR shows that people do not like what they see after clicking your ad or it isn’t convincing enough to buy. Make it your goal to achieve 10% in your Conversion Rate to obtain bigger revenue. 

Tips on How You Can Increase Your CVR

Answer All Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) 

Replying to queries about the product in your product listing will let your customers find what they’re looking for. It saves you time answering repetitive questions. Giving answers builds trust in your business. 

Respond Quickly

Respond to messages quickly. This reduces your response time which is shown in your Shopee profile and it will help boost customers’ confidence in your business. Response time is important simply because people want instant answers. Set a time each day to check on your messages and answer their concerns.

Improve Your Credibility

Complete your shop’s profile. Provide your contact information and physical address. This ensures buyers that you are not a ghost seller. Ship fast to avoid penalties and delays. By doing so, you avoid low review ratings as well. 

Use Photos with Different Angles 

Presenting your product from different angles allows your customers to see the item from another viewpoint, giving them an idea of what it looks like in real life. They manage their expectations as they order based on what they have seen.

These two metrics, Click-Through Rate (CTR) and Conversion Rate (CVR) will give you a better understanding of your ad campaign. Tracking these will give you an idea of what’s working and what’s not.

Shipping of Products

Set Shipping Options

You can set this via the Shopee App or Seller Centre. Choose your preferred courier service from the list and update the number of days you need to prepare the orders in the ‘Days to Ship’.

When you receive an order, you need to arrange the shipping and pick up. After doing so, pack the products, print and attach the waiver and wait for the courier for pick up. Always ship on time to avoid cancellation of orders and penalty points. To learn more about order cancellation, refer to this article.

Order Fulfillment Process

After setting your shipping options, these are the following steps to fulfill your Shopee orders:

1. Check the orders you need to ship. You can access this through Seller Centre> Orders> My Orders> To Ship

2. Select an order to prepare for shipping and click Arrange Pickup.

3. Prepare the needed information and print the waybill.

4. Pack the orders and attach a waybill to the parcel.

5. Update order status and schedule pick-up date in Seller Centre.

6. Courier picks up packages and delivers them to customers.

For more information on Shopee’s Fulfillment Process, check this article.

Prepare Orders

Listed below are some of the materials you’ll be needing in packing your orders. Take note that it depends on your preference and your actual item; its size, weight, material, etc.

1. Poly mailers

2. Bubble wrap

3. Label papers

4. Boxes

5. Envelope with bubble wrap

Shopee Preferred Seller

Store Performance and Preferred Seller Requirement

Your store’s performance matters. With excellent performance, you will be invited to join the Shopee’s Preferred Seller Program. This is only for top-performing sellers. But before digging deeper into this, Shopee uses their 4 Key Performance Metrics in assessing a Seller/Store. These metrics are as follows:

1. Listing Violations – Number of listings that are prohibited or removed by Shopee.
2. Fulfillment – Calculates completion of orders (canceled, returned, or late shipment).
3. Customer Service – Measures your response rate and response time to your customers.
4. Customer Satisfaction – General review rating of your buyers.

You can find these on your Seller Centre page under the ‘Account Health’ on the left tab.

Knowing these, here are some things to keep in mind:

• Avoid spam listings. Do not add irrelevant details, keywords, or duplication.
• Check Shopee’s guidelines on the prohibited listing.
• Prevent cancellation of orders by shipping your products on time. 
• Avoid returns or refunds by ensuring that the right item is sent and in a good condition.
• Respond to customers on time and always treat them with respect.
• Review your performance weekly and work on things that need improvement.

Aside from the 4 Key Performance Metrics, there is ‘The Preferred Seller Criteria’. The Preferred Seller Criteria can be found under the ‘Preferred Seller’ on the left tab of your Seller Centre. You can monitor your Onboard Targets here:

Generally speaking, providing an awesome experience to your customers will help you be invited to the Preferred Seller Program by Shopee and you will then have the Preferred Seller Badge on all your listings. This helps improve your conversion rate. 

However, a Preferred Seller is an Obedient Seller but it does not actually equate to having more revenue. A small seller with small orders can earn a bigger profit even without the badge. In my experience, the difference between having and not having the badge is very minimal and as a huge business with many orders, maintaining it is aggravating! My advice is this, run your business as usual, and don’t fret over maintaining your Preferred Seller status.

Review Your Business

After selling for a while, evaluate your business. This gives you a clear direction on where you’re going and it is important to know if you’re doing great or not.

Product Sellability 

Minimum Order Quantity

Determine the Minimum Order Quantity (MOQ) of your product. This is the lowest amount of products that you can buy from your supplier. For instance, your supplier’s MOQ is 100 units, this means you cannot make a purchase that is less than 100 units. A high MOQ demands higher capital and could lead to a higher risk of obsolescence especially when it is not selling well while a low MOQ requires lower capital investment but can also cause stockout if these are fast-moving items. Considering this helps you distinguish if the product is worth acquiring.

Sales Velocity

With every order from your supplier, how fast are you selling off the inventory in each batch? Notice your sales velocity, does it accelerate growth? Knowing how fast you’re selling gives you an insight into the overall status of your business and effectivity of your sales. 

There are four factors that affect sales velocity:

1. Opportunities. The total number of deals in your pipeline. 
2. Average Deal Size. The total number of deals in your pipeline is divided by the total amount of all those deals.
3. Win or Conversion Rate. The number of leads converted to customers over a given period. 
4. Length of Sales Cycle. The number of days it takes to close a deal.

To cut it short, 

Sales Velocity = How Fast Are You Selling Off An Entire Batch of Goods Each Time

In any case, the best scenario is when your product’s capital investment is 10% of your annual revenue. For instance, Product A has an annual revenue of $100,000, the ideal capital to maintain it is $10,000. This is my recommendation for the most optimized way to maximize your ROI on your capital. 

It is best to measure your sales velocity regularly to compare results and work on modifying your strategies. 

Storage

Do you have enough space in your warehouse? Think about this, an increase in the number of orders results in an increase in the quantity of your on-hand stock. Always assess your product’s sellability and consider the space it is taking up in your storage. If it is not doing well, look for other profitable products that can also take up less space.

At the same time, do not leave the number of your products unchecked. This could lead to stockouts or over-purchasing. Stockouts and over-purchasing usually happen when there is inaccurate inventory data.

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Product Quality 

Product Return Rate

Every returned product is a profit loss. Be aware of your product’s return rate. This could negatively affect your business in the long run if ignored. Take some time to gauge if this item is worth the effort and most importantly if it is still making you money even after deducting other expenses such as shipping fee and replacement. 

Aside from these charges, include your customer service. How much time are you spending on dealing with them? Let us assume that you have a customer service officer, take his salary in hours and deduct it to the profit of this product. Are you still earning from it? If so, consider changing your supplier that offers a lower price otherwise decide if it’s time to let this product go.

How to Avoid Product Returns?

Provide Detailed Product Description

Online shoppers rely on product descriptions. It is best to give them accurate information so that they’ll know more about the item and what it offers. Highlight the benefits and features without any exaggeration. Make sure to provide the right measurements and specifications especially if it’s a technical product so that they can have a clear idea of what they’re buying.

Make Use of Great Photos and Videos

As I have said, photos and videos are the very first thing that your customers see. Take photos from different angles and showcase its features or even create a video that demonstrates how to use it. This is a great way to bring your products to life.

Take Advantage of Product Reviews

Product reviews are important. Your potential customers would want to gather details that your previous buyers can only give such as their personal experience with your products. This helps them decide if the item would also fit them. Through these reviews, you can identify problems that your consumers encountered and work on how you can improve them.

Focus on Your Packaging

Make this one of your top priorities. Include details about your items so that the courier has an idea of how to handle the parcels. Prevent damage by packaging your products properly. Take into account the weather and fragility of your items. Use waterproof packaging, add enough padding and bubble wrap to ensure that your products will arrive at your customer’s doorsteps looking just fine. 

Overview of Your Business

Occasionally check the performance of your business. On the left tab of your Shopee Seller Centre page, you can find the Business Insights. It gives you an overview of your sales and performance. 

In the Dashboard Tab, you will find the key metrics and trends for your entire shop. You can also choose to filter the data by time period using the Real-Time dropdown Menu and sort order type with Paid Order dropdown menu. As you scroll down, Product and Category Ranking are also shown.

Product Ranking provides product performance based on sales, units, page view, and conversion while Category Ranking shows which category of products are performing the best.

Meanwhile, besides your Dashboard is the Product Tab. You can find a comprehensive overview of your products, their performance, and their diagnosis. This will help you know which products are in high demand.

Navigate through Business Insights and you will learn more about how your business is doing and figure out areas that need improvement.

For now, let me ask you this: Are you spending time on the right task? As a business owner, knowing what to do and when to do it is crucial. You’ll need a set structure to guide you in achieving your goals.

If you don’t know where to start, My Project Management Course is perfect for you! Click here to learn more.

Goal Setting

Shopee is a great eCommerce platform for entrepreneurs like you who want to reach a wider pool of customers. However, for your business to grow you need to strategically set up your goals. Goal setting is a vital component in expanding your market. But how can you be sure that you are setting realistic and achievable goals?

Want to plot out your success roadmap? Download this template for free.

Set milestones as I do. My first goal was to gain $1,000. This was my first four-digit sale. In this manner, I know that my business is growing. Next are $3,000 and $5,000 and it means that my business structure is working for me. Following $10,000, my first five-digit income in one month. Then $30,000 and finally, $80,000 per and if you multiply it by 12 months, you’ll almost have a million dollars.

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Also, whether it is a short-term or long-term goal, it is useful to think and consider the SMART technique to measure your progress. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound. I’m going to break each of these words down so you can see how they may help them in achieving your goals. 

Specific

Your goals should be clear and specific. You should be able to identify what you really want to accomplish and how this would contribute to your success. For example, your specific goal could be “I sell my products in Shopee.” 

Measurable

Your goals should be measurable so that you would know if you are progressing or now. Measurable goals can also help you stay motivated and focused. For example, your measurable goal could be “I will earn $1,000,000 per year.”

Attainable

Attainable goals are made after considering your resources and identifying your limitations. You have to make sure that you can actually achieve them within a certain timeframe. For example, it could be “I will make social media pages to advertise my products I am selling on Shopee.” 

Relevant

Relevant goals could be the little goals you do to achieve your bigger and long-term goals. This should align with your business’ mission and vision as well as values. If these goals would not contribute towards reaching your objectives, you should drop these down so that you won’t waste your time, energy, and resources achieving them. One of the relevant goals you could have would be “I will earn $1,000 in my first three months, $5,000 after 8 months, $10,000 after 10 months, and $80,000 after 20 months being in the business.” 

Time-bound

In setting your goals, you should be able to set their deadlines or target dates. This is to give you a practical sense of urgency and create a healthy pressure to push you to work harder. For example, your goal could be “I will earn $1,000,000 profit in a year.” 

Now that I have discussed each component one by one, your goal could be summarized like this: 

“I will sell my products in Shopee. I will create social media pages to help me promote my products. In my first three months, I will earn $1,000. Then, I will keep increasing my target sales to $5,000, to $10,000, to $80,000 until I am able to earn my $1,000,000 profit in a year.” 

Setting milestones and using the SMART technique allow you to build an actionable plan and help you track your progress. You can also follow these few simple steps to turn your goals into actionable plans. 

• Prioritize Your Goals. An out-of-control list of goals can often feel like a never-ending battle. There’s always the temptation to add more things to your list. This is where goal prioritization comes in. It is a method that can help you prioritize your goals and choose which ones will be your focus, and which ones you can leave for another day.  By doing this, you can cut down on the amount of stress and pressure you put on yourself and ensure that you are moving in the right direction. 
• Break Goals into Tasks. Part of the reason why we fail to achieve our goals is that they’re out of reach. Instead, break your overarching goal into specific tasks that you can accomplish. For example, if your goal is to earn $1,000,000 profit in a year, you could start by setting a number of tasks such as improving your online presence, create brand awareness among customers, and engage with customers to get a higher retention rate. Once you’ve set these tasks, write them down and indicate a deadline of how long you are working on them. 
• Assign Specific Deadlines and Resources to Tasks. When you are running a growing business, it is absolutely essential to make sure that you don’t let deadlines slip. Deadlines are what direct and prioritize your work. Assigning specific deadlines and resources to tasks won’t overwhelm you. These can also help you ensure that you don’t leave a single task unfinished. 
• Evaluate Tasks Progress. Among all the tasks you’ve set, which of those are you able to do? What tasks are you having a hard time completing? Evaluating tasks progress is necessary to ensure that you are achieving your goals. This step will help you gauge how you are performing and decide whether you need to make adjustments to your plan of action. 
• Adjust Your Actions as Needed. Upon evaluating the progress of your tasks, you would be able to identify what needs to be done in order to achieve your goal. When you notice that your actions are not bringing the expected results, you have to make necessary adjustments to make sure that you can achieve your goals. 

Routine and Activities

Try your best to handle all the troublesome tasks first – the sales and customer service. As I’ve said in my other article, it may be tedious but it is the core function of your business. Getting rid of these mundane tasks helps you to clear your mind for fresh ideas to grow your business. When it’s all good, then you can start looking for more new products to buy and sell. 

What’s Next?

As great as it sounds in Shopee, there are actually a lot of problems as well.

Price war. There are many sellers on the platform, there’s a possibility that you’ll be meeting some that sell the same product as you. Since you’re all competing for customers, you might start lowering your prices just to have these items sold while compromising your shot of gaining big profit.

Little to no chance of getting recurring customers. As I said earlier, there are many sellers on Shopee and they might be offering great deals as well. It is difficult to have loyal customers since they have a lot of options to shop from.

While Shopee University does teach you how to use their platform, they do not actually teach you how to succeed on their platform.

The ultimate solution to this is to create a sales channel that you have control over and not compete with other people on prices and actually have repeat customers! Most of the sellers often overlooked the essential role of the sales channel. Perhaps, the reason why you are losing orders or market share is that you do not have the right channel that is fit for your customer’s needs. 

So, here is my recommendation for you: 

Conduct thorough background research to know your buyers and always take advantage of the technology to reach them. 

If this is a problem for you when you’re selling on the marketplace right now, I have the perfect program for you! Check out my Decisive eCommerce course here.