Amazon, Lazada, Shopee, Qoo10: Which E-Commerce Platform should you use to sell your products?

Unveiled by Enterprise Singapore earlier this month, the E-Commerce Booster Package aims to diversify revenue streams for retail businesses in an era of social distancing and stay-at-home advisories due to COVID-19.

If you are a registered retail business in Singapore targeting the domestic market, you can receive a S$9,000 subsidy for selling your products on one of the four approved platform providers (Amazon, Lazada Singapore, Qoo10 and Shopee). This is provided that you do not have an existing account with a particular partner yet.

Now before you get started, here are some factors to help you decide which e-commerce platform is most suitable for your business.

#1 Cost of setting up shop

Lazada Singapore: If you are an individual seller on Lazada Marketplace, you do not need to pay any fee to create an account.

Qoo10: You will need to pay a regular upfront fee of S$100 to register for a Qoo10 account. If you decide to register for a Qstore, you will have to pay S$500. Your initial setup fees will be used to boost and advertise posts.

If you are opting for the “Premium List” advertisement method, Qoo10 will raise the display rank of your items a little higher in the search result list, along with red premium icons to help your products garner more attention from customers. You can apply for this service when you’re listing your products. Simply choose the relevant amount of Q-cash as per display duration. (1 day: 500 Q-cash / 2 days: 1,000 Q-cash / 7 days: 3,000 Q-cash / 2 week: 5,000 Q-cash / 1 month: 8,000 Q-cash).

Shopee: You can only register your business with Shopee Mall if you are already a recognised brand or high-ranking seller.

Amazon Singapore: The professional selling account fee for Amazon Singapore is currently waived until 31 December 2020. Normally, sellers under the professional plan will have to pay a S$29.99 monthly subscription fee to sell an unlimited number of products

#2 Commission fee structure

Lazada Singapore: Lazada Marketplace does not charge sellers any commission. However, LazMall sellers will have to pay a commission between 3% to 5%, depending on the category. For both areas, there is a 2% payment gateway fee to facilitate the online credit card payment processing.

Qoo10: Compared to the other three e-commerce platforms, Qoo10 charges a relatively higher commission fee of 12%. This means that you’ll have to increase your prices to ensure that profit margins remain the same. That being said, Qoo10 will help you market your brand when you pay for these higher prices.

An interesting thing to note is that Qoo10 charges a service fee according to the seller’s account grade and the basic item price (Qprice). This service fee is calculated based on the total transaction amount (basic item price + option price + shipping fee), with the credit card service fee already included in it. Any additional tax incurred from the service fee will be borne by the seller. Read the full service fee rate.

Shopee: Shopee Marketplace does not charge any commission. However, since August 2018, Shopee has begun to charge a 1% transaction fee on processing and payment matters for every successful order.

Amazon Singapore: Depending on the category, Amazon’s Singapore marketplace charges a varying fee for each product sold. Refer to the full fee schedule.

If you are using Fulfilment by Amazon for customer service and shipping purposes, you will have to pay another per-unit fee, based on your product’s weight and dimensions.

#3 Delivery Options

Lazada Singapore: To deliver your products on Lazada Singapore, you can choose between SingPost or Ninja Van. If you are opting for Fulfillment by Lazada, you will have to pay additional fees ranging from S$1.60 to S$9.00 per cubic metre, per item, to cover the manpower, storage and packaging costs.

For shipping fees, sellers will have to pay a flat rate of S$2.49 (inclusive of GST) for all orders, regardless of shipping tier and parcel weight. Ensure you key in an accurate parcel weight as Lazada will recover any differences from inaccuracies directly from the seller’s payouts.

Refer to the following image for the different shipping tiers.

Image taken from: lazada.sg

Qoo10: If you are a seller on Qoo10, you will have to use Qxpress to deliver your products. There are 2 types of delivery services to choose from – standard delivery or quick delivery (which is more expensive). For the standard option, there is no same-day order and delivery.

Instead, you’ll have to choose a pickup date from the subsequent day after the order goes through. Your goods can be delivered anytime from Mondays to Saturdays, 10am to 7pm.

For the quick delivery option, simply choose a pickup time slot. Check out coupons from Qxpress store to enjoy any possible savings.

Shopee: If you are a Shopee seller, you can pick either Speedpost economy or Ninja Van for your logistics and delivery services. To get started, indicate the weight and dimensions of your product before choosing an option to ship it out. It is important that you indicate the dimensions correctly, otherwise your final chargeable shipping fee by Ninja Van will not align with the shipping fee calculated on Shopee’s system.

Amazon Singapore: Indicate a local Merchant Fulfilled Network (MFN) item by the “Ships from and sold by (seller name)” messaging on the product detail page. There’ll be additional fees charged if you are using the Fulfilment by Amazon scheme to have your products packed and distributed.

#4 Penalties for errant sellers

Lazada Singapore: Lazada measures sellers on a metric called the Seller Fault Cancellation Rate, to maximise customers’ purchase experiences on the platform. Either sellers or Lazada itself can cancel orders. Lazada will cancel orders when sellers fail to comply with their Ship On Time service level agreements on the platform. Having a high cancellation rate will adversely affect your reputation as a seller and the ability to sell on Lazada. Consequences of having numerous cancellation rates include but are not limited to exclusion from Lazada’s campaigns as well as a Lazada-imposed restriction of the amount of orders you can transact for a period of around 2 weeks, following your cancellations.

Qoo10: Upon the buyer’s payment, Qoo10 sellers must ship and input delivery information such as the name of the delivery company and tracking number through the Qoo10 Sales Manager (“QSM”) within 3 business days from the date of the delivery instruction. If you fail to do so, Qoo10 may cancel the transaction and shall not be responsible or liable for any loss or damage incurred by the seller due to such cancellation. Moreover, sellers will have to bear all liabilities relating to failed deliveries because of reasons not due to buyers.

Shopee: For Shopee, if you do not abide by the duration of days to ship as agreed upon, or if you are inactive for more than 7 days on your Shopee account, your order will automatically be cancelled by the platform. You will then be subjected to a late shipment rate penalty as well if you do not ship your products within 2 days.

Amazon Singapore: If your late shipments exceed a certain percentage, your account might get deactivated and you“ll have to pay additional fees. Check out the latest Amazon Singapore resources and updates for sellers.

Choosing the right e-commerce platform for your business

Each of the four e-commerce platforms have different features to cater to different retail businesses. Look at your specific needs when choosing an e-commerce platform for your business. This includes the type of products you sell, your target demographic and your customer service requirements.

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