Shopee: marketplace guide
About this guide
This is a ChannelEngine guide on the Singapore-based marketplace Shopee. Here you can find information on how to request a Shopee account, how to configure this marketplace on ChannelEngine, what the specific requirements are, and more.
Table of contents
Marketplace-specific requirements and exceptions
Commercial information
Founded | 2015 |
Founder | Forrest Li |
Headquarters | Singapore |
Area served (orders) | Brazil, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam |
Revenue | circa USD 8.8 billion |
Number of monthly visits | circa 16 Million (Q4 2021, Shopee Singapore) |
Website | Shopee |
Setup cost | none |
Commission | 3.21-5.35%, depending on the category |
Other costs | none |
Payment | weekly |
Product categories |
fashion, cooking, DIY/gardening, electronics, furniture/interior design, games/toys, household appliances, kids/babies, cosmetics, pets, shoes, bags, luggage, office supplies/professional equipment, video games and more |
Input language | Bahasa Indonesia, Bahasa Malay, English, Polish, Portuguese, Tagalog, Thai, Vietnamese |
Input currency | Brazilian real, Indonesian rupiah, Malaysian ringgit, Philippine peso, Polish złoty, Singapore dollar, Thai baht, Vietnamese dong |
Content creation | yes |
Minimum number of SKUs | no |
Advertisement options | yes |
Profile on ChannelEngine | Shopee |
How to request an account
To start selling on Shopee you need to request an account. Download the Shopee Partner app and create your Shopee Seller account.
On the Shopee app:
- Go to the Me tab.
- Tap Sign up.
- Enter a valid Phone number and tap Next.
- Enter the six-digit verification code sent to the phone via SMS.
- Set a password and tap Sign up.
More information on this can be found on Shopee's eLearning guide under Creating your Shopee account.
Associated costs
Shopee does not charge a setup or monthly fee. However, it does charge a commission fee that varies according to the product category – as well as whether you are qualified to sell on Shopee Mall or not. For more information on the differences between Shopee Marketplace and Shopee Mall, refer to your contact person at Shopee.
Marketplace features
Supported | Not supported |
Product offers | Returns (merchant) |
Product content | Repricing |
Orders | Volume discounts |
Cancelations (marketplace)* | Marketplace fulfillment service |
Cancelations (merchant) | Refurbished products |
Shipments | HTML formatting |
Carrier mapping | Sales channels |
Variations | |
Returns (marketplace) | |
Last-mile delivery | |
Multiple stock locations** |
* Shopee allows buyers to cancel orders up to the time they are delivered.
** Shopee's multiple stock locations feature works independently from ChannelEngine's stock locations feature.
Settings and configuration
Setting up each marketplace on ChannelEngine follows the same flow, though not every marketplace includes the steps listed below.
- Go through the Setup.
- Create a Product selection.
- Complete the Categorization.
- Set up the Mappings: content, offers, and carriers.
- Configure the Pricing: rules and currency conversion.
- Finish the Activation.
- Check the Listed products overview.
Marketplace-specific requirements and exceptions
Setup
On ChannelEngine
- Go to the Setup page of your Shopee marketplace and configure the following settings accordingly.
Setting Description Shop ID
The ID of your Shopee shop
User token Automatically filled out when the connection is authorized Refresh token Automatically filled out when the connection is authorized User token expires The date when the User token expires Use sandbox Indicate with 0 (no) or 1 (yes) whether you use the sandbox functionality Refresh token expires The date when the Refresh token expires Dispute email Enter an email address to be used in case of disputes Dispute image fallback Enter the URL to the image to be used when no image is available Fulfillment type Select the fulfillment type for your orders - Scroll down to the Advanced settings section and click Authorize. You are directed to the Shopee Open Platform.
- Proceed to sign in and authorize ChannelEngine.
Once the authorization process is complete, ChannelEngine automatically fills out the stock location fields within the Advanced settings (i.e.: Location #1-10). You can then map the stock per product per location in the Offer mappings.
Additional settings
-
Get buyer invoice info - enable it to retrieve additional details for each order, such as the tax ID on B2B and B2C orders – and the company details on B2B orders. These details are only available for Shopee Argentina, Poland, and Thailand. Depending on the order, the following company details can be retrieved:
- Head office
- Branch name
- Branch ID
- Company type
-
Set stock to 0 instead of remove product - enable it to send Shopee stock equal to zero for products that are removed from the product selection. This way, products are shown as unavailable on Shopee – instead of being deleted.
Order processing time in hours
Specify the order processing time, in hours. ChannelEngine adds this time to the shipment creation time to calculate when Shopee must pick up the order. This setting is required if you use Shopee's last-mile delivery feature.
The process is as follows:
- Shopee provides the available pickup slots to ChannelEngine.
- ChannelEngine adds the order processing time that you specified to the shipment creation time. E.g.: if the shipment was created on 7 June at 04:00 and you set the processing time to 2 hours, the pickup time is set to 7 June at 06:00.
- ChannelEngine selects the most suitable pickup slot based on Shopee's availability and the calculated pickup time.
- If all available pickup slots are earlier than the calculated pickup time, the latest pickup slot is selected, and the
IS_EARLY_PICKUP
extra data field is added to the shipment.
Categorization
Categorization is mandatory if you want to create or update existing product information on Shopee. Both categorizations and mappings only result in updates if the content connection is enabled, and the relevant credentials have been entered (see the Setup section).
Although your product content must be written in the target language of the specific Shopee channel you are using, the categorization and attributes are in English.
If you are unsure of what category to choose, refer to Shopee's category list.
Mappings
Content
All products (required)
- Complaint policy address - enter an address to be used in case of complaints.
- Complaint policy warranty time - the product's warranty, in years.
- Condition - the product's condition. The options are New and Used.
- Description - the product's main description, written in the language of the market where it is sold. It is important to include:
- Product specifications.
- Use and benefits of the product.
- Specific warranties, if applicable.
- Enabled carrier - the carrier that offers free shipping. Note that 40018 stands for J&T Express.
- Enabled carrier - standard local - select “Fixed Value” = Yes. Note that 4000 stands for Standard local.
- Free shipping - indicates whether shipping is free. The options are Yes and No.
- Image - the product's main image. The minimum dimensions supported are 600x600 px and the minimum resolution is 72 dpi. The guidelines are:
- The image must show the product and its brand clearly.
- The image must show only the product featured in this listing.
- Avoid adding text or graphics to the image.
- Make sure the product covers at least 70% of the image.
- Use a frontal or 30-degree angle shot.
- Avoid zoomed-in and cropped images.
- The image must not distort the product's proportions.
- Name - the product's title. A structured and accurate name informs consumers clearly, improves its discoverability, and increases product exposure. The structure of a quality title is: brand + model + specifications + size.
-
Package height (cm) - the height of the package that contains the product, in centimeters. This value must be higher than zero.
NB: dimensions are rounded up to the nearest integer. E.g.: a height of 3.5 cm becomes 4 cm on Shopee.
- Package length (cm) - the length of the package that contains the product, in centimeters. This value must be higher than zero.
-
Package weight (kg) - the weight of the packaged product, in kilograms. This value must be higher than zero.
NB: Shopee only recognizes weight values in kilograms, so you cannot use the replacement tag RoundCeiling for the weight.
- Package width (cm) - the width of the package that contains the product, in centimeters. This value must be higher than zero.
- Pre-order - whether consumers can place an order for a product that is not yet released. When enabled, it is mandatory to specify a value for the attribute Pre-order days to ship. When disabled, it is mandatory to specify a value for Non pre-order days to ship.
- SKU - the product’s internal identifier.
- Tax information invoice option - how the product's tax information is handled. The options are: No invoices, Non-VAT invoices, VAT invoices, and VAT margin scheme invoices.
- Tax information VAT rate - the product's tax rate.
All products (optional)
- Extra image 1-8 - the product's additional images. The requirements listed for Image 1 also apply to additional images.
- Is dangerous - indicate whether the product includes batteries, is flammable, etc.
-
Variation theme name 1 - the name of the first variation. E.g.: color. The maximum number of characters is 14.
NB: although the Variation theme name 1 and Variation theme value 1 attributes are optional, it is important to map them. E.g.: if it is a child product, Color can be used for Variation theme name 1 and {CE:Color} for Variation theme value 1. Make sure color is available for all of your products on ChannelEngine.
- Variation theme name 2 - the name of the second variation. E.g.: size. The maximum number of characters is 14.
- Variation theme value 1 - the value of the first variation, e.g.: red, blue, and green. The maximum number of characters is 20.
- Variation theme value 2 - the value of the second variation. E.g.: 43, 44, 45. The maximum number of characters is 20.
- Wholesale max. count - the maximum count of this tier.
- Wholesale min. count - the minimum count of this tier.
- Wholesale unit price - the unit price of this tier.
- Brand - select a brand for your product, or choose No brand if your brand is not in the list.
Offer
There are no offer attributes on Shopee.
Carrier
Carrier mapping is not required on Shopee. However, you can map your carrier to a specific list of carriers maintained by Shopee.
Make sure to map the shipping method in your shipments to a value the channel recognizes. You can also leave it empty to use the default mapping.
You can assign the preferred carrier in the seller center on a product level or store level:
- Assign preferred carrier on store level - when the buyer selects Standard delivery, Shopee automatically decides which carrier is used for the whole store.
- Assign preferred carrier on product level - when More shipping options is selected and the product weight and dimensions are entered, customers can view which Shopee logistic partners are available per product.
Shipping labels
In order to request shipping labels (aka air waybills), ChannelEngine must export the exact name of the marketplace (i.e.: Shopee) – otherwise the request fails. The Method name should be added to the Your shipping method column, and the Marketplace name should be added under the Channel column (as shown below).
Note that the customer delivery country is set to All countries when using shipping labels. If this rule is not set, the real-time export is not triggered.
Pricing
Shopee requires the prices to be submitted in the currency of the market where you are selling. If you do not have pricing attributes in that currency, you need to set up a currency conversion.
Listed products
Shopee provides little information in terms of validation and feedback. Check the status of your products and failed exports on the Listed products page.
Additional information
Order extra data items
When an order is imported to ChannelEngine, ChannelEngine also fetches extra data items related to the order itself – or to order lines. This extra data is specific to this marketplace. An explanation of each can be found below:
Order extra data
Key |
Conditional* |
Description |
shipping_method |
No |
The shipping carrier that will fulfill the delivery of the order, as indicated in the channel order. |
Order line extra data
Key |
Conditional* |
Description |
location_id_{0} |
No |
The list of warehouse ID's for the item. |
* Conditional fields are only displayed if the marketplace provides a value.
FAQs
Why is my Shopee order address data masked in ChannelEngine?
In August 2021, Shopee introduced a buyer information masking function in their Open API to enhance buyer privacy. As a result, order data received by ChannelEngine from Shopee is now masked for all countries to prevent sellers from viewing detailed buyer information. Shopee has no plans to change this policy. For more information, see Shopee's buyer information masking announcement.
If you have any concerns or questions regarding this matter, please contact Shopee support directly.
How does Shopee handle variations?
Shopee supports parent and grandparent variations, using the following terms to define them:
Term | Example |
Product | Wallet |
Model | Wallet green recycled leather |
Option | Green/Recycled leather |
Variation | Color/Material |
Can I connect offers with variants to existing products on Shopee?
Yes, it is possible to connect offers with variants to existing products on Shopee. However, the following requirements apply:
- The SKUs of the grandparent, parent, and child products on ChannelEngine must match exactly with the SKUs on Shopee.
- All products must have at least three valid image URLs.
- The grandparent and parent SKUs must have stock and price values.
- All variation theme attributes must be mapped. See the Mappings section.
How can I improve my listings on Shopee?
A structured and accurate product title tells buyers what the product is about, improves its discoverability, and increases product exposure.
The guidelines below can help you create a quality product title:
- Capitalize the first letter of each word.
- Do not use all caps for a single word, except for brand names written like that. E.g. ZARA, ASUS, etc.
- Do not include subjective commentary and promotional messages. E.g.: best seller, sale, free shipping, etc.).
- Avoid keyword spam (i.e.: irrelevant words).
- Do not use emoji, hashtags, or symbols (e.g.: }, ~, $, ^, {, <, !, *, #, @, ;, %, >, etc.).
How often does each task run on Shopee?
Tasks run according to the following schedule on Shopee:
Task | Schedule |
Export product data to the marketplace | every 60 minutes |
Export product offers to the marketplace | every 15 minutes |
Import orders from the marketplace | every 10 minutes |
Import returns from the marketplace | every 60 minutes |
Export returns to the marketplace | every 60 minutes |
Export shipments to the marketplace | every 60 minutes |
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