RANT | My Buyer vs. Seller Experience on Shopee PH

credits to @ShopeePh

credits to R23RF.com

 You may have seen before one of my posts announcing Shopee PH's extended FREE SHIPPING promo... hmm that was when I was very happy with their service.

I am the kind of customer / consumer who does not voice out complain right away If I am not really negatively affected.

Now, to be fair I have been happy (still am happy as a buyer but not so much as a seller) with their service, so I will talk about my buying experience first.

AS A BUYER

Pros:

• A variety of apparel and beauty products to choose from. Depending on what you are looking for, you can find a lot of products listed on their mobile app or website.
• Ease of payment. They also have a number of payment options to choose from, namely: Cash on Delivery, Remittance / Payment Centers, Over-the-counter, Bank Transfer (via ATM or i-Banking), Buyer-Seller-Self Arrange.
• Free Shipping & COD promo. You can save on shipping fees from selected sellers. COD is limited to a few sellers but you can definitely use this if you have a good buyer rating. 
• Shopee Guarantee. This service protects both buyers and sellers since Shopee receives and holds the payment from the buyer and then sends the payment to the seller only after the order has been received by it's buyer.
• (New) Earn Shopee Coins! This is simply a rebate, BUT you can only spend these coins on Shopee's "Preferred Sellers."

Cons:

• The mobile app keeps on crashing! As of this writing, even if you auto-update the app, it would still crash a number of times. This is the reason why I prefer using the web version. The web version was built for sellers in mind, while the mobile app is basically built for buyers/shoppers.
• Free Shipping & COD promo delivery may take some time! So far the longest time it took for my orders to arrive was about six (6) days, but I have read about others who received their orders after fifteen (15) days or more! This may not be necessarily the seller's fault since the seller has plenty of time to prepare for the order (see respective shop's "Days to ship"). The volume of orders to be picked up by the courier is usually the culprit, or simply the courier's fault. If you are in a rush, or do not have patience to wait for your orders, I highly suggest paying for the shipping fee instead.
• They currently do not have a way, or rather they do not to check product authenticity. As we all know, replicas / imitation / Class A products, whatever they want to call these things are everywhere and Shopee PH is no exemption!
• Some Sellers Do Not Reply on Chat! Yes, it is a fact! But I hope things are getting better and sellers would really find time to answer most queries from customer or potential customers.

AS A SELLER

Pros:

• Product listing is currently FREE! You can post one item up to sawa (your heart's content). Kidding aside I am not sure how many at a time but they made it clear that it is free to sell on their platform.
• Ease of Payment. Buyer-Seller-Self Arrange may not be the first choice for buyers since it is not under "Shopee Guarantee" but it is quite handy for those who have had a number of successful transactions with the seller. So to say, this payment method is only advisable to those who have trusted sellers.
• Earnings are remitted to one's registered bank account. But it may take some time depending on your bank, or season (?)
• FS and COD promo. A chance to become a successful online store, or maybe grow your business or simply gain more followers! Sad to say, this is only advantageous for some sellers... more on this later!
• Regular Shopee pakulos or promos. Some examples are Weekly sale, Current or "It" items sale, Flash Deals, etc. that you can participate in. Shopee will usually inform / ask if you want to participate in any sale campaign both via app and web.
• Ease of sharing one's product listing across different Social Media. You can share your listing to your Facebook page, Instagram, Twitter and more!

Cons:

• The only issue I have had with Shopee PH so far is something to do with their FREE SHIPPING promo.

I no longer remember when did I requested to be included in their FS promo, but I did remember I filled out a form for that. The green FS icon appeared on my listings after two (2) days, or so but there was no notification that accompanied it. Later on, I found have read somewhere on Shopee that if one of your shipping fee options is set to "0" and you have requested for the FS promo, you will automatically have the green FS icon on your product listing. I could not quote Shopee on this one since I did not read this info on their actual Help Centre or FAQs section.

Now, why it this a CON again? Well, to continue my story... I eventually received the notification from Shopee that I am already one of their FS sellers after about two (2) - three (3) months. I was not able to see the effects on my shop right away. I had to send an email to them asking what was that all about even after religiously following the steps written on their info-graphic, but to no avail. I then got a response saying I should wait it out after a day or two for the changes to take effect, and so I waited and the changes were put into effect.

All seemed to be good and I was excited to have my very first customer under their FS promo but I was eventually disappointed BIG time! It turns out I should have not been included in the said promo simply because I have a provincial address and most provincial addresses are not eligible for item pick-up from the courier Black Arrow Express--or any courier under their FS promo for this matter.

I REALLY felt disappointed! I wonder who approved my request in the first place, and why did that person decided to approve my request even if "I am not qualified". Tsk, tsk... They even stated that they will check on the person responsible for that..yeah, like it will do me any good. 

Then I requested them to cancel the order for me, since I did not want to cancel it myself... I felt embarrassed since she paid for the items promptly, and she was also a first-time buyer on my shop! 

Shopee staff replied on my email saying they could not do it themselves (cancel the order on my behalf), so I was left with no choice but to try to contact the buyer myself first and explain why I have to cancel her order. 

BUT again, to my dismay more than four (4) of my chat messages were not sent to the said buyer! WTF. At this point, I was already angry but I not send Shopee an email anymore. I was already tired of emailing complaints. I waited for about a day or two to pass and see if I can already contact the buyer BUT STILL TO NO AVAIL. My chat messages cannot get through her... IDKW. I tried searching for her profile and "send chat" but still I had the same outcome. I also tried adding a "note" to the order details, so she can see the update, but I was also UNABLE to edit the note. It kept on saying I went past the number of characters allowed even when if it was a very short message already! At that point, I lost my motivation so I had simply hit the "cancel (order)" button. :'-( It was also weird to note that I did not receive any message from the buyer, too.

It was NOT THE END OF MY BAD LUCK on Shopee at that time though!

On the same day, one of my product listings (APRILSKIN Fixing Lip Tint) was BANNED for the (lame) reason that I used pictures from the manufacturer's own website! I was beginning to think I am being pranked by one of Shopee's staff! WHO DOESN'T USE PHOTOS from the manufacturer?! Just WTF! T-T Good thing I was able to put the listing back.. I learned it is very easy to report a product listing or user if anyone really wants to ruin a person's day on Shopee. Grrrr... 

I WAS SO TEMPTED TO FIGHT BACK and/or seeks vengeance by doing the same thing on Shopee marketplace, but NO I DID NOT! It is even more tempting to do so since SG or fake cosmetics abound the place already! WHY CAN'T THEY DO SOMETHING ABOUT THESE INSTEAD!!! To emphasize my point, I quote from their Community Rules 

"5. Counterfeit & imitation products

Only genuine products can be listed on Shopee. Please be aware that counterfeit products are prohibited. Shopee reserves the right to report and delete any listing of a counterfeit nature."

In addition to that, even USED COSMETICS are listed as prohibited in their PROHIBITED AND RESTRICTED ITEMS POLICY but we can see A TON of these on their marketplace.. duh.

To that person with a malicious intent who reported me, you are an effin CRAB.. Bless you more because you need more of that. Gee.

To Ms. L. C.: I am so sorry about the inconvenience ma'am.. I hope we can still have a successful transaction next time.

TO SHOPEE: Please improve your service... I am still on Shopee as of this writing. If there is going to be another weird and/or bad experience I will simply blog about that in another post since this one is too long already! HAHA.

*Note: I checked back a while ago and I was finally able to edit the note on the cancelled order and also send a message to Ms. LC via Shopee chat... I hope to see that she got my message and maybe even get a response from her.

If you are looking for Shopee's Help Centre / FAQs, look it up here.

~End of rant~

What do you think of my experience? Do you have a similar one?

For any blog-related question, feel free to write it down below on the comments section.

Thanks for passing by!