Shopee hasn’t had its operations in India for very long, yet today in an exclusive post by Reuters it has been announced that India will be waving goodbye to the marketplace due to what has been defined as “global market uncertainties”
Shopee launched in India and a few European ecommerce markets in October of last year as part of their expansion. According to the reports, India had banned Sea’s popular “Free Fire” game leading to a $16 billion drop in market value which caused some investors to cut ties with the company. Sea was actively trying to get the ban lifted by the Indian authorities but to no avail. Shopee state they will focus on supporting buyers and sellers affected by this.
Shopee India had also fell victim to boycotting from traders due to the assumptions that big players in the country were ignoring strict regulations, damaging the smaller retailers. Brick-and-mortar stores and kiranas are very important to India. Often big retailers in India try to keep this in mind and offer incentives to create more balanced commerce.
India’s own Flipkart have their own reward program SuperCoin Pay enabling customers to pay through SuperCoins across a number of categories in brick-and-mortar stores across India, meaning consumers will continue to support local economies.
