Shopee may close its Polish business

Shopee, a Southeast Asian e-commerce giant owned by Singapore's Sea Group, is about to withdraw from Poland and completely withdraw from the European market. Shopee CEO Feng Zhimin said the company will close its Polish business on January 13. People familiar with the matter revealed that Shopee has about 200 employees in Poland.

It is worth mentioning that in December 2022, Michal Tykarski, Business Development Director of Shopee Poland, announced that Shopee plans to further increase its GMV, revenue and number of packages in the Polish market in 2023. Tykarski pointed out that the Polish e-commerce market in the second half of 2022 is more dynamic than in the first half of the year, and product prices are rising rapidly due to high inflation and rising energy costs. From the perspective of sellers selling in the Polish market, it is very important to strive to automate the company's internal processes in order processing and logistics transportation, which will help reduce costs.

Regarding Shopee's plans for 2023, Tykarski said at the time: "Whether the inflation rate will fall in the first half or second half of next year or even later has no impact on us. The most important thing for us is to respond to the current needs of consumers." However, Tykarski pointed out that in the Polish market, Shopee will continue to grow steadily. In 2023, we plan to continue to grow our GMV, revenue and the number of parcels delivered in Poland. According to Mediapanel data from Gemius Poland, in November 2022, Shopee had 10,884,618 users in Poland, ranking third.

In June 2022, it was reported that Southeast Asian e-commerce Shopee was launching a layoff plan, optimizing teams including ShopeeFood and ShopeePay teams in Southeast Asia, Shopee Mexico, Argentina and Chile teams, and supporting the cross-border team in Spain. In Europe, Shopee also decided to close its early pilot in Spain. It is reported that Shopee called this layoff "optimization" and it mainly targeted operations in certain market segments and markets.

In addition, in order to reallocate resources to other markets and provide maximum value to customers and the vast community of sellers, Shopee's Spanish site will cease operations from 23:59 local time on June 17, 2022.

The seller notification page shows: "After six months of trial operation, we have decided to reallocate resources to other markets to provide the greatest value to you and the wider seller community. Orders placed on or before 23:59 on June 17, 2022 will still be fulfilled as usual, and Shopee will ensure that every account is properly processed."

In September of the same year, Shopee, an e-commerce platform under Sea, notified its employees that it would close local businesses in Chile, Colombia and Mexico (retaining cross-border businesses) and completely withdraw from the Argentine market (both local and cross-border businesses would be closed).

People familiar with the matter said that Shopee will cut most of its teams in Chile, Colombia and Mexico and lay off dozens of employees. At the same time, Shopee's operations in Brazil will not be affected.

Shopee CEO Chris Feng said in an internal email that "given the current heightened macroeconomic uncertainties, the company needs to focus its resources on its core business and has decided to focus on cross-border business in Mexico, Colombia and Chile."

Another source revealed that Sea has issued an internal directive to Shopee’s management to achieve profitability in major Southeast Asian markets by 2023.