Optimize The Use of Voucher Products on Shopee

Chapter I

Introduction

Shopee is the number 1 e-commerce app in Southeast Asia and Taiwan, with the most active users, number of downloads, and total time spend on the app. Shopee users are dominated by women and the millennials generation. Shopee was launched in 2015 and aims to bridge sellers and buyers in one technology-based community followed by providing convenience, security, and a fast online shopping experience for customers.

Since the Covid-19 pandemic, Badan Pusat Statistik has recorded an increase in online sales, even up to 480% compared to before the pandemic. To meet the needs and desires of many customers and improve the shopping experience, Shopee provides several interesting products in its apps, one of them is voucher products. The types of vouchers provided include cashback vouchers, voucher toko, Shopee Pay merchant vouchers, and free shipping vouchers.

Objective

• Identify Shopee customer behavior in voucher usage
• Identify customer pain points and problems when using voucher
• Compose the solutions and recommendation of those problems

Method

This study uses quantitative research method by conduct 2 batch survey and polling on my personal Instagram stories

Chapter II

To find out how the preferences and behavior of users in using vouchers at Shopee, it is necessary to conduct a survey to obtain the data. According to BrandMentions.com, over the past 7 days (since this study was conducted), Shopee has received 563 mentions, 99.5K interactions, 225.9K reach, 99K shares, and 494 likes.

Sampler

For this study, there were more than 100 respondents in the first batch and more than 60 respondents in the second batch. The respondents are around 18–34 years old that already installed and have experience buy things in Shopee apps.

Mechanism

There were several open-ended and close-ended questions on my Instagram stories, and respondents would answer by chose their preference choices or give their suggestions on the suggestion box. To deepen the required information, a short interview was conducted with 3 respondents regarding their pain points, behavior, and suggestions.

Survey Result

How often do you use vouchers to shop at Shopee?

Based on the survey result, we found that only 1.3% of respondents rarely or never use vouchers when they shop, and 47.8% of respondents always use vouchers.

which is your team?

Based on the survey result, we found that 57.5% of respondents claim the voucher first without any plan of checkout.

which voucher do you use the most?

Based on the survey result, we found that 92.5% of respondents most frequently use free shipping vouchers than the other vouchers.

What makes you less satisfied when using vouchers?

Based on the survey result, we found that the existence of minimum spending was the main problem for 54.3% of respondents and it makes them felt less satisfied in using vouchers.

what makes you rarely use vouchers?

Based on the survey result, we found that 42.2% of respondents rarely use other vouchers than free shipping because of the complicated voucher requirements.

after claiming vouchers, your voucher will be ..

Based on the survey result, we found that 61.4% of respondents who claimed the voucher, left the voucher until it expired.

Will the experience gained in using vouchers affect the CSAT survey?

Based on the survey result, we found that 46.2% of respondents said that their experiences when using a voucher will affect their CSAT survey completion, and the rest are more focused on the products

What are the parts that make you less satisfied?

1. Sometimes there are fictitious voucher that couldn’t be used due to system error
2. Vouchers are the difference between Shopee and other e-commerce

Suggestions for Shopee vouchers products?

1. Offering more vouchers, especially free shipping
2. Give discount or cashback with no maximum nominal
3. Available for all payment method
4. No minimum spending

Define Problem

• Imbalance in the use of voucher types

Based on this study, it is known that from the 4 options of Shopee vouchers (cashback vouchers, shop vouchers, Shopee Pay merchant vouchers, and free shipping vouchers), 92.5% of respondents use free shipping vouchers the most compared to other vouchers. When asked why the other vouchers are rarely used, 42.2% of respondents feel that the terms given are too complicated. Meanwhile, some others feel uninterested, do not need, or even do not know that there are other types of vouchers.

• Dissatisfaction with the use of vouchers

Based on this study, it is known that 54.3% of respondents are not satisfied when using the voucher because of the minimum shopping requirement. While some other respondents choose a particular payment method, a certain seller/merchant, and the short validity period are the main factors they are not satisfied when using the voucher, it can even be a factor that makes users cancel their check out of their cart. Based on this study it is also known that 46.2% of respondents feel the experiences they get while using the voucher will also affect the customer satisfaction survey.

• Vouchers that have been claimed are left until they expired

Based on this study, it is known that 57.5% of respondents will claim the available voucher first without any checkout plan. Besides, it is also known that 61.4% of respondents don’t use the vouchers until it is expired.

Chapter III

Analysis

• Imbalance in the use of voucher types

With limited data, the authors assume that this imbalance can occur due to the conditions for using vouchers (minimum shopping, payment methods) and the focus of Shopee marketing who campaign for free shipping frequently.

If we open the cashback & voucher page on Shopee apps, we will find that most vouchers require the use of Shopee Pay, a minimum amount of shopping, and a maximum nominal value in the discount.

One of Voucher Requirements

On the other hand, this could be a form of Shopee’s movement to promote its e-wallet product, namely Shopee Pay, with promotion such as convenience offered and bonus Shopee coins.

Shopee Pay Promotion and Campaign

As for marketing, Shopee often campaigns for Free Shipping which is carried out on certain days of each month, such as 1.1, 2.2, and so on.

Shopee 12.12 Birthday Sale Campaign

• Dissatisfaction with the use of vouchers

With limited data, the authors assume that dissatisfaction with the use of vouchers can be caused by the conditions for using vouchers (minimum shopping, payment methods), limitations of appropriate merchants/sellers, nominal vouchers, and system errors on vouchers. It is often found that merchant vouchers are not valid in the city the users are in.

how Shope Pay merchant vouchers look like

• Vouchers that have been claimed are left until they expired

With limited data, the author assumes that the abandonment of vouchers is due to users who have not felt the need to check. With limited data, the authors assume that the abandonment of these vouchers can be because users do not feel the need to check out goods and forget that they have claimed vouchers.

how expired vouchers look like

From the interviewee, they did not feel there was a certain reminder to use a voucher before the expiration date.

Solutions

Based on the problems that users have expressed regarding the use of vouchers, the authors compose several solutions that can be applied to optimize the use of voucher products at Shopee.

• Held a special vouchers day

The special vouchers day here is intended to increase sales of certain types of vouchers on certain days. For example, “Tuesday is Merchant day!”, Where on Tuesday there is a promotion on Shopee Pay merchant vouchers. With that, it is hoped that Tuesday will be the day that users look forward to using merchant vouchers. Besides, Shopee can also sell gift vouchers on special days such as Valentine’s, Eid, Christmas, etc.

example of a merchant gift voucher prototype

• Pop-up voucher reminder

Users’ forgetfulness of vouchers is one of the problems that can be minimized with a reminder to users. This reminder can be in the form of a pop-up notification on the cellphone when the voucher expiration period is approaching (for example, one or two days before the voucher expires). That way, it is hoped that users will not want to miss the opportunity to redeem these vouchers.

example of a pop-up reminder notification prototype

• Optimize the implementation of the AIDA model in promoting vouchers

Awareness: Some respondents do not know that there are other types of vouchers besides free shipping, so a campaign can be carried out which aims to introduce the Shopee voucher product further. The campaign form can be in the form of banners on the application, games with Shopee coins as prizes, etc. Other than that, the campaign can also be using Facebook Ads that direct to the Shopee website/app.

Interest: Some respondents are still not interested in the voucher other than free shipping, so an ad promotion can be done for the special voucher day. Because it is a new product, using paid social media such as Facebook Ads and Instagram Ads will make it easier to increase engagement cause its super high scalability with targets that are more in line with demographics.

Desire: Promotions can be strengthened by the presence of the pop-up product image or picture of someone who is enjoying the product when opening the application, special vouchers day countdown, etc.

Action: This section could be a banner that says “Makan Enak Hari Ini!” or another persuasive call to action sentence for users to immediately buy the vouchers.

example of a promotional banner prototype

Recommendations

• More in-depth research can be done regarding the use of each type of Shopee voucher
• More in-depth interviews can be carried out with more survey respondents to find out the priority order of the problems that are of concern to users
• Sales and marketing analysis of other app’s gift vouchers product
• Perform feature analysis and improvement of the Shopee Pay service
• Compare voucher usage before and after campaign or promotion program

Chapter IV

Writer’s Profile

Nadya Sasmitha Haryanto is a second-year student in food and agricultural product technology at Gadjah Mada University. She is an INTJ personality kind of person that passionate about cooking, foods and beverages business, and the education field.

As a generalist, she strives to explore many things and skills in her college period, while maintaining strong academic performance. To upscale her soft skills, she is being active as Secretary at International Association of students in Agricultural and related Sciences (IAAS) Local Committee UGM and Advocacy at Student Executive Board on Faculty of Agricultural Technology. Other than that, she had several volunteer experiences, such as Educational Team at PPID Mengabdi Madiun, Event Planner Volunteer at Be The Better Platform, and Coordinator of Curriculum and Assignments at Project of Leadership BEM FTP UGM. Even though she had many activities carried out, but she keeps her responsibility and commitment to complete her job perfectly.

In the future, she dreams to be an entrepreneur or business analyst in FnB field or a company. She desires to give improvement to the Indonesian food business with a mission to develop the economy and improve public nutrition. She will never stop learning and be resilient to everything she faces, cause she believes we are never perfect, but there is always room for improvement.

Finally, she is really grateful to get the opportunity to learn so many insightful things as one of the mentees in Indonesian Bright Future Mentoring Program. This assignment is her mentoring project result with a lot of imperfection, so she really opens to any discussion and criticism. For more conversation, you can reach her out through :

Email: nd.sasmitha@gmail.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nadyasasmitha

Thanks for reading and have a nice day!

Note: I am not affiliated with Shopee, but I love to use Shopee app and products. From this study, I just want to share my perspective and thoughts to give users experience improvement on one of my favorite app!