The Founder of Shopee and His Career Journey

Founder of Shopee Who doesn’t know the online shopping platform Shopee? Currently, it seems that almost everyone in Indonesia knows the online shopping application Shopee. But, has it ever crossed your mind about who is the figure who plays an important role in becoming the founder of Shopee? Currently, the Shopee marketplace is known as one of the largest marketplaces in Southeast Asia. Shopee’s success in becoming the best marketplace certainly cannot be separated from the intervention of its founders.

In the history of the establishment of Shopee, there are two people who are considered as the founders of Shopee, namely Chris Feng and Forrest Li. Chris Feng is now the CEO or Chief Executive Officer of Shopee. For the concept model itself, Shopee is an e-commerce that uses B2C or Business to Customer business capital.

Currently, Shopee is known as a marketplace that dominates markets in Southeast Asia, such as Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, and also Taiwan. So, in this article, we will discuss more about Chris Feng, the founder of Shopee. If you are curious about the history of Shopee and the life journey of its founder, watch it until it’s finished.

Shopee Founder Profile: Chris Feng

One of the people who contributed greatly to the development of Shopee has the full name Chris Zhimin Feng. This young man later became known as Chris Feng. He was born in December 1982. Chris Feng is a man from Singapore who is known to have studied at the National University of Singapore and majored in Computer Science.

It is known that Chris Feng received a college scholarship from the Singapore government. Then he became the best graduate at the National University of Singapore and continued his education in America to be precise at Stanford University in the field of Management Science and Engineering.

In his biography, Chris Feng is known to have worked for a long time at the management consulting firm McKinsey in Frankfurt, Germany. At his workplace, Chris Feng spent 7 years and after leaving McKinsey, he then moved to work at Rocket Internet. There, Chris Feng served as Zalora’s Regional Managing Director for the region in Southeast Asia.

In addition, Chris Feng also served as Chief Purchasing Officer at Lazada Southeast Asia. He held this position for about three years. After that, he then joined Garena which is under the auspices of Forrest Li’s SEA Ltd company. It was there that Chris Feng finally took the position of Garena’s Head of Mobile Business.

After one year in the position of Garena’s Head of Mobile Business, Chris Feng together with Forrest Li decided to establish a marketplace called Shopee in 2015. Chris Feng also later served as CEO of Shopee. The marketplace he made was the first to be inaugurated and launched in Singapore. Shopee is also under the auspices of the business group owned by SEA, Ltd which was previously named Garena.

What is Shopee?

Shopee is an online shop or marketplace application (electronic trading platform). By using Shopee, we can more easily shop, explore, and sell any products and services anywhere. Shopee can help sellers more easily offer their wares and assist buyers in making transactions and interacting directly with sellers through its live chat feature.

In addition, Shopee is also an online buying and selling facility that provides various types of products ranging from fashion, snacks, electronics, gadgets, automotive, and many more. Shopee has also been integrated with various logistical and payment supports which aim to make online shopping easier and safer, for both sellers and buyers.

When compared to other marketplace platforms, such as Tokopedia, Bukalapak, OLX, and others, Shopee is one of the youngest marketplace companies and still lacks experience. However, with vigorous promotions, this e-commerce can stand on par with existing competitors.

Shopee Business Form

Initially, Shopee was a platform that carried the concept of being a C2C market or customer for customer. However, then Shopee shifted to a hybrid model of C2C or customer for customer and B2C or business for customer. This has been going on since the launch of Shopee Mall, which is included in Shopee’s online shop platform to distribute products from well-known brands.

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So, even though they are both online stores, Shopee is actually slightly different from Tokopedia or Bukalapak. Where most of them only act as stall providers for traders. Whereas Shopee sells their own products. That is why some of the products on Shopee are sent from abroad, for example, China.

When was Shopee Established?

The first time Shopee was launched was in 2005 to be precise in Singapore. Since then, Shopee has started to expand its reach to Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Philippines and Taiwan. Shopee itself stands under the auspices of the SEA Group or previously known as Garena. Where the company was founded by Forrest Li in 2009. Now, Shopee has partnered with more than 70 courier service providers in all its markets. It aims to provide logistics for its users. In addition, Shopee also collaborates with various local logistics and online transportation service providers.

Purpose of Establishing Shopee

The initial goal of having a Shopee marketplace is to make it easier for sellers and buyers to meet in one online shop platform. Not only that, this one marketplace also has the goal of making it easier for buyers to meet their needs, ranging from daily necessities, fashion, electronics, and others. Meanwhile, Shopee’s target market is people who use the internet or social media.

At its inception, Shopee only operated in Singapore. Until not long after, Shopee founder, Chris Feng, began to expand Shopee’s expansion to several countries in Southeast Asia such as Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Taiwan, Malaysia, and others. In Malaysia itself, Shopee has become the third largest electronic marketplace most visited by internet users in 2017. Shopee has even beaten Lelong which is one of the largest electronic e-commerce in Malaysia.

Until 2018, Shopee users from Vietnam had reached 40 million users, where this number competed with Indonesia. Meanwhile in Thailand, the number of Shopee users has reached 28.4 million in 2019. In just a few years, the Shopee marketplace has transformed into one of the largest marketplaces in Southeast Asia and competes with Lazada and Tokopedia.

Shopee in Indonesia

Shopee officially entered Indonesia on December 1, 2015. Chris Feng as the founder of Shopee is targeting Indonesia because it has a very large population in Southeast Asia. In addition, Indonesian people who use the internet are also growing very rapidly and continue to grow every year. Since Shopee was launched in Indonesia, this marketplace has offered a variety of interesting programs to attract more new users in Indonesia.

One program that is quite attractive to Shopee users is the free shipping program. Where the program is still valid today. With the attractive promotions and programs offered by Shopee, it has made it more likely to attract the hearts of Indonesians, especially those who use the internet. At first Shopee appeared in Indonesia, the application was downloaded by 1 million users. This can be obtained by Shopee in just four years. Until now, Shopee has been successfully downloaded by 100 million users.

Shopee As Marketplace No. 1 in Indonesia

At the end of 2019, the growth of the Shopee marketplace is growing very rapidly, especially in Indonesia. In the fourth quarter of 2019, Shopee has succeeded in shifting the Tokopedia marketplace as one of the most popular online shopping platforms in Indonesia. Here, Shopee can reach up to 72.9 million users.

In addition, the marketplace known as Si Oren is also one of the number one e-commerce applications on Google Playstore Indonesia. Meanwhile in the Southeast Asia region, Shopee has succeeded in shifting Lazada’s position in terms of app downloads and visits. Where Shopee is able to reach up to 2 billion visits. Then when viewed in terms of revenue, Shopee has been able to achieve revenue of up to 13.2 trillion rupiah.

Chris Feng himself is still the founder and CEO of the Shopee company. Even so, individual share ownership remains with Shopee and Sea, Ltd. Where the largest shareholder is still owned by Forrest Li. Meanwhile, Sea, Ltd, which is under the umbrella of Shopee, is majority owned by the Tencent Group, which was founded by Ma Huateng. But it is not known exactly how big Chris Feng’s shareholding is in the Shopee company. Apart from that, it is also unknown how much Chris Feng’s wealth is, which until now is still the CEO of Shopee.

Where is Shopee Main Office Location?

For those of you who may be curious about the main office location of the Shopee company, this time we will discuss it here. So, Shopee’s main office is located in Singapore. Until then the marketplace expanded to various ASEAN countries and started opening Shopee offices in Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Taiwan and Vietnam. For Indonesia itself, Shopee was officially launched in Indonesia in December 2015 and has its head office at Wisma 77 Tower 2, 11th Floor, Jl. Lt. Gen. S. Parman Kav. 77 Slipi, Palmerah, West Jakarta.

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The Advantages of Shopee

Shopee itself offers many advantages or advantages, including the following:

a. Shopee provides lots of promos and discounts which of course its users really like.
b. There is a live chat feature that allows sellers and buyers to interact directly about the products being sold.
c. There is a free shipping facility with several conditions that apply.
d. Has many product categories.

Shopee’s Weaknesses

The following are some of the weaknesses in the Shopee application, including:

a. Shopee has a weakness, namely the seller’s response which is sometimes long or slow.
b. Sites that sometimes have to be accessed at certain hours and at certain events.
c. There are many sellers who are no longer active.
d. Free shipping promos that are offered often have terms and conditions that are quite difficult for users.

The Best Features Available on Shopee

After knowing the various advantages that the Shopee application has, now we will discuss the best features in the Shopee application that make this marketplace attractive to its users. Here is a full explanation.

1. Free Shipping

The first feature on Shopee is the free shipping feature. As mentioned above, this feature is indeed one of the advantages possessed by Shopee. Where this free shipping program makes it very easy for its users to sell or buy products at more affordable prices, because we no longer need to pay shipping costs. Sellers can register their shops with this feature on Shopee in a fairly easy way. Generally it only takes a few days to activate the free shipping feature. If it has been approved, the product posting will say free shipping.

2. COD or Cash On Delivery

Furthermore, the features in the Shopee application are Cash on Delivery or what we usually know as COD. Where the COD feature is a feature that you can use to make payments on the spot or at home when the product arrives. To be able to use this feature, you must choose the J&T expedition. When you are about to checkout, choose to pay on the spot in the payment options.

3. Vouchers and Cashback

The next feature is in the Shopee application, where this one feature further spoils its users. This feature is a voucher or cashback feature, where Shopee will give you a discount when you make a purchase transaction. Cashback offered by Shopee itself is divided into two types. The first is in the form of Shopeepay and the second is in the form of Shopee coins. You can use both to get the next shopping discount. To be able to get this feature, you only need to make a claim under the offer and at checkout. Enter the voucher that you have claimed before agreeing to payment.

4. Shopeepay or Shopee Coins

The fourth feature in the Shopee application is Shopeepay and Shopee Koin. For Shopee Coins, it is usually used as a reward when getting vouchers or when playing Shopee Games. Meanwhile, Shopeepay is electronic money that is given by Shopee when you have a voucher or play a game. Almost the same as the money in your account, Shopeepay can also be used for various transactions. In fact, you can also send Shopeepay to your bank account. Not only that, there are several stores that provide special discounts for payments using Shopeepay.

5. Shopee Games

The last Shopee feature that you should know about is Shopee Game. This feature recently appeared in the Shopee application, but it has been able to make users feel more at home in this application. There are various types of games that you can play at Shopee. Starting from Goyang Shopee Shopee Poly, Shopee Planting, Shopee Cut, Shopee Candy, and many more. Apart from that, there are lots of rewards that you can get from Shopee Game. Starting from Shopeepay, Shopee coins, vouchers and other attractive prizes.

This is an explanation of the journey of the founder of Shopee in developing his online store business to become the largest marketplace in Southeast Asia.