Shopee, Sea Limited‘s e-commerce behemoth based in Singapore, reported a 600% leap in the number of local sellers in Brazil – today, Shopee has more than 1 million Brazilian sellers registered in its marketplace. This means that more than 85% of Shopee’s sales in the country are local.
According to Shopee, the range of sellers making between BRL 1,000 and BRL 5,000 per month grew by 50%. In addition, orders for local sellers who sold for the first time in 2021 increased by 40%.
Leila Carcagnoli, Business Development Manager at Shopee, said the company’s goal is to increasingly bolster its local business arm through a platform that connects millions of consumers. “With these Brazilian stores, Shopee offers easy access to a wide range of local products,” she said.
Shopee’s strategy of investing in local sellers is justified: to remain competitive and grow in Latin America, more and more international platforms are betting on a hybrid strategy that combines the operational efficiencies of a global brand with local sellers, such as Amazon and AliExpress.
The Beyond Borders 2021/2022 study, issued by Brazilian fintech company EBANX, which also owns LABS, shows that the hybridization of retail marketplaces is amplifying the product range offered in platforms, attracting small and medium businesses and entrepreneurs to the digital world. According to Beyond Borders analysis, the strategy allows global and local players to compete head-to-head for Latin Americans’ preferences.
The report looked at the full range of products offered by six different marketplaces in Brazil (half of them international and half local) as of early September 2021 – AliExpress, Shopee, Amazon, Mercado Libre, Americanas, and Casas Bahia –, considering the products from the first 100 pages on each site and classified the products and sellers into domestic and international.
Overall, more than 750,000 items, sold by more than 230,000 sellers, were considered in this analysis. At this point, data showed that this hybridization trend is definitely stronger among international marketplaces. The share of Brazilian sellers within these platforms reaches 28% overall – and, most importantly, local sellers are already responsible for 64% of the products available to the Brazilian customer.
Among local marketplaces, the share of international sellers is small, reaching less than 1% overall, although they already account for 8% of the products offered by the three players considered for this analysis. However, recent partnerships announced by companies such as Via (parent company of Casas Bahia) and Americanas are aimed at expanding their international offerings and have the potential to change this in the short term.
