If you have never heard of Shopee before, you must be living under a rock. From Ronaldo to Jackie Chan, Shopee has virtually gotten every major celebrity to be the face of their monthly sales.
Nearing 1/1, 2/2, 3/3, 25th of every month, new Shopee jingles start to pop up everywhere from YouTube to local TV channels. These jingles are designed to be as catchy as possible to encourage spending, so that’s why your bank account is always drained (You know how it is).
Shopee can be a little overwhelming to use with all its features: Flash deals, Shopee Vouchers, Bank Discounts, ShopeePay, coins, membership tiers. The app is also filled with countless landing pages and buttons that may confuse many.
Despite that, there is a clear reason why Shopee is the most popular shopping app in Singapore: heavy discounts and a robust rewards programme.
Let’s cut through the noise and discuss 6 hacks you should know about to make the most out of Shopee in Singapore.
Vouchers And Bank Discounts
Vouchers are dangled at us during sales seasons, but they don’t automatically get credited to our accounts. There are 2 types of vouchers: Shopee vouchers and Seller vouchers.
Shopee vouchers are your 12% cashback, $8 off $150, $35 off $500 benefits that you have to collect from the event landing page via the home menu. Usually, Shopee will allow you to collect these vouchers about 5 days before the sale starts.
Besides the event landing page, other category landing pages like “Daily Cashback”, “Electronics Zone”, “Shopee Home” contain Shopee Vouchers that you can collect.
Shopee Vouchers l come in limited quantities and are scattered everywhere, so remember to collect them early and diligently.
Seller Vouchers are vouchers offered by individual shops like Watsons and Brands, and will also be scattered among the different landing pages.
But what’s different about Seller Vouchers, is that in addition to the landing pages, you are able to collect these vouchers on the product page of each store. This means you’ll have less chance of missing out collecting them.
Bank discounts are discounts that are applied when you pay with a particular bank’s debit/credit card. They are offered from Wednesdays to Sundays, featuring a different bank every day.
Bank discounts need not be collected from any landing page, and can be stacked with Seller and Shopee Vouchers. They run out really quickly though, so prepare your cart for checkout at 12AM sharp with your bank card of choice.
Save on Shipping
When you place an order from an overseas seller on Shopee in 2022, you are typically given 3 options for shipping:
- Standard Express (S$1)
- Standard Express – Collection Point (S$0)
- Standard Economy (S$0.60)
Standard Express employs couriers such as RoadBull and Shopee Xpress to perform the last mile delivery to your doorstep. This takes about 5 working days and costs S$1 per store.
Standard Express – Collection Point is basically Standard Express without the delivery to your doorstep. You can choose from many collection points islandwide to enjoy the speeds of Standard Express for free.
Standard Economy usually employs Singpost for its last mile delivery either to your letterbox or doorstep, depending on the size of the item. Shipping usually takes slightly longer, at around 7-8 working days and costs S$0.60 per store.
Notice how I usually mentioned “usually”? Turns out, sometimes when Shopee decides it would be cheaper to lump your Standard Economy item with other Standard Express items, they will do so.
In my personal experience, about 40% of my Standard Economy items have been delivered straight to my doorstep by third party couriers (not Singpost). The shipping speed was exactly the same as Standard Express, saving me S$0.40 in the process.
Take that as you may. If you need your item urgently, opt for Standard Express, or Standard Express – collection point. If you don’t want to go to a collection point and don’t need the item urgently, save that S$0.40. Who knows, your item may even get “upgraded” to Standard Express for free.
Shopee Membership Rewards
Because of the litany of menus on Shopee, it is easy to miss the membership landing page. Go to the “Me” Tab, then tap on the pill shaped button below your name. The button will differ in colour and name depending on your membership tier (I am a Gold Member).
In this landing page, you will discover even more vouchers for you to collect and use. The amount of vouchers available to you is dependent on your membership tier, with Classic Members having the least vouchers, and platinum members having the most vouchers.
Meet the criteria for a given membership tier within 6 months and you will have access to these additional vouchers.
Usually, vouchers offered by Shopee during sales events are more generous than ones in the membership landing page. But if you have multiple orders to place, and the other vouchers are already consumed, feel free to use the additional vouchers hidden in the membership landing page.
Leave reviews to earn coins
Shopee incentivises people to leave reviews on items by offering coins. Coins represent Shopee’s native currency that can be redeemed for a discount. 1 coin equals S$0.01, or 1 cent.
The fastest way you can earn coins besides using cashback vouchers, is by leaving photo and video reviews. Reviews above 50 characters with a photo gets you 5 coins, and reviews with both a photo and a video gives you 7 coins.
Make sure you upload relevant media of the product as Shopee may claw back coins awarded to fraudulent reviews. Also, ensure you review the product within 5 days for the coins to be rewarded.
Paying out up to 7 coins (cents) per review with video and image? Sounds like a really money-efficient program for Shopee to run. Anyway, contribute to reviews to help future buyers make an informed decision. Most people do it for free on other sites anyway, so why not get rewarded for doing it?
Use ShopeePay As a QR payment method
ShopeePay is one of the newest players in the QR payment space. Just like GrabPay, ShopeePay utilises an e-wallet that can be topped up using PayNow or Credit/Debit cards. Monies can also be transferred between ShopeePay users using their number.
ShopeePay offers awesome discounts for QR transactions you make at all merchants. The way this works is through vouchers (again!). From the main menu, click on “$0.01 ShopeePay Near Me”. You will be directed to a landing page that sells discount vouchers for various merchants for just S$0.01.
In its current iteration, all merchants that accept ShopeePay will sell S$0.50 discount vouchers at S$0.01. These vouchers do not require any minimum spend and 3 vouchers can be redeemed a day (cannot be stacked).
Some merchants may offer higher value vouchers that come with minimum spends, in addition to the S$0.50 one they already offer, so take note of the terms.
A diverse mix of merchants are onboard ShopeePay, so you can expect buying discount vouchers for food establishments, shopping centres, and even mobile shops.
New to ShopeePay users will be offered higher valued vouchers for their first purchase. Examples would be: S$2 voucher at Encik Tan by paying S$0.01, S$1.50 voucher at Old Chang Kee by paying S$0.01 and so on.
These vouchers are time limited, so different merchants may be featured at the time you read this article.
Vouchers have purchase limits and a waiting time until the same voucher is available for purchase again. While this waiting time is not specified, it is around 3-4 days based on my experience. Vouchers also expire within 3 days of purchase, so only purchase them when you plan on transacting at the merchant.
So go explore ShopeePay deals near you, you might be able to get a coffee at a Coffee Shop for less than S$0.40 (after applying the S$0.50 voucher), or 14% off your usual Cai Png order (S$0.50 off S$3.50).
SPayLater
Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) services are all the hype now for the increasingly cash-flow conscious consumer. Firms like Atome, Pace, Rely and Hoolah have carved out entire business models to provide interest free, short term repayments to consumers to help retailers attain higher check-out figures.
SPayLater is Shopee’s foray into the BNPL space, and undercuts the competition in terms of late fees. While other BNPL firms charge monthly late fees starting from S$10, SPayLater charges only a flat S$5 for each late payment and no interest is levied.
Currently, only selected users are offered SPayLater. Presumably only people above 18 with a decent spending on Shopee will be offered this service. A debt limit of S$1500 is also set.
SPayLater allows you to spread out repayment to 1 month, 2 months, or 3 months (selected items) with no interest. Repayment will be done through a link debit/credit card.
SPayLater is great for consumers with limited cash flow or consumers who want to invest their money into a short term fund to gain interest before paying the arrears. But be warned, these interest free repayments add up quickly, so always purchase within your own means.
Conclusion
Shopee, despite its late entry to the Singapore market (when compared to Lazada) has managed to capture the lion’s share of local e-commerce spending. And with no signs of the monthly Shopee Jingles and dances slowing down, it is clear that Shopee is here to stay.
And while it is still in its acquisition phase with its newer products like Standard Express – Self Collection, ShopeePay and SPayLater, users like you and I should take advantage of the heavy discounts and rewards being offered.
Are there any more Shopee Hacks you would like to add to this list? Let me know in the comments below.
Derrick (Yip Hern) founded Tech Composition to provide valuable insights into the tech and finance world. He loves to scour the web for the best deals and embark on software projects during his free time, a typical geek, right?
