SEA (formerly known as Garena)

[Big Toe]

From a buyers perspective, buyer will just buy from any reputable platform/vendor with the lowest price.

From a sellers perspective, if a brand/product is strong enough, it no longer needs a platform once the fees no longer makes it attractive. This is especially true when the brand owns a physical outlet(instant gratification for purchases) . Setting up a stand alone ecommerce site isnt difficult, the difficult part is getting traffic/conversion.

The platforms relied heavily on subsidizing, cash burning for growth. I would reckon some of the bigger brands may leave the platform if the higher cost burden is passed on to the seller(which is usually the case), this is especially so for higher value purchases. An extreme example would be Apple, they dont need shopee to sell its products.

So what you would see is more and more cheapo china items. Or if a brand is sold by multiple vendors, vendors fighting tooth and nail to race to the bottom. it would still make it a decently good business once all platforms come to their senses.

[CY09]

One thing Sea Group has done really well is executing the monetisation of its customers.

Sea Money/Maribank has branched into the credit card segment where it has released a general spend credit card with 1.7% cashback, the highest in Singapore with a mastercard network, better than UOB's. It has additional benefits in cashback if one shops on Shopee using the card.

Similarly, on the platfrom front, the magnitude of the daily voucher's discount has fallen with the cashback vouchers now only capping at $2-$3 at "50% off" coupons. Similarly, the amount of coins won has now reduced drastically till I find its not worth playing much, best to ability its only 15 coins per day ($0.15). I dont expend too much effort now playing and go for the low hanging fruits which yields me only 5-8 coins per day. This minimises cash outflow from the shopee ecosystem*, shopeepay can be used to buy hawker food via the SGQR from which I use it to spend my shopee coins

I have met people who still continue to shop on shopee despite the reduced discount vouchers though buying not many useful stuff but seemingly addicted to just buying for the thrill/pleasure of doing online shopping. My father too just buys on shopee 2-3 times a week on products which has not much use, to the extent that I have 8 spatulas, fitting for a spider chef

It is quite a journey to see how shopee has done remarkably well. First captivating its audience, then removing the carrots and still hooking them onto its products. Subsequently Sea used its capitvated audience to branch out to other vertical such as financials to entice them to use more products. While at the back ground, Garena continues to operate independently from these 02 products and producing albeit declining profits.

Sea Money/Maribank for I would even say might be able to rival one of the large 3 local banks if it continues on its expansion campaign. Its quite a journey to see how Sea Group first captured market share through losses, then moved on to monetisation and then being margin focused. Now the journey is to see how the conglomerate turns profitable.