Shopee is trying its luck in Poland and India. Although the effort has only just begun, this experiment seems to hint at Shopee's global ambitions. This e-commerce giant has dominated the Southeast Asian market, and is growing quite rapidly in Latin America.
Poland could serve as an entry point for greater expansion into Europe. The country is located at the crossroads of major European transport routes. In 2018, as quoted by id.techinasia.com, Polish companies transported almost 23% of the total volume of road transport in the European Union (EU).
In Poland itself, business expert are skeptical whether Shopee can effectively challenge local e-commerce champion Allegro. Neither Amazon nor AliExpress proved successful in doing so, and all platforms were affected by the new EU tax rules on cross-border e-commerce originating from sellers outside the EU.
However, due to the pandemic, e-commerce is believed to be growing in Poland. At least it can be seen from the way the people there spend their money.
Currently, Allegro and AliExpress are the most popular platforms for buying new items. Meanwhile, used goods are often purchased on the OLX and Lithunian Vinted platforms. The latter name is more popular for categories such as fashion, accessories and toys (thelowdown.momentum.asia).
In India, Shopee attracts both sellers and buyers to join by offering free shipping to customers, as well as charging merchants no commission. Given that incumbents out there, such as Flipkart and Amazon, are already offering products at various price levels, this may mean that Shopee is looking to quickly expand its market share while keeping costs as low as possible for users for now.
India's e-commerce market is currently dominated by Flipkart and Amazon. Its market value, according to analysts at Bernstein in techcrunch.com, in 2018 was US$24 billion. In the next seven years, or in 2025, the value of this market will grow almost 500% to US$133 billion. So, very promising. (Ruhmaya Nida Wathoni. Illustration: www.quora.com)
