I "discovered" Shopee during this pandemic. In the early days of the lockdown I was in search of essential supplies and thus went on Shopee aside from Lazada. I say "discovered" because I had heard of the platform before (who hasn't) but had never gotten around to actually using it, until the desperate search for supplies in the early days of ECQ forced my hand. I had used Lazada before and also used it during the lockdown, but found myself relying quite a bit more on Shopee. My experience with the platform has been satisfying and I must say, unexpectedly fulfilling.
There were, however, some things I did find confusing about the app (since resolved) and I thought I'd share my discoveries and realizations here so that others can, perhaps, benefit from them.
Mystery # 1:
The product does not support the selected shipping option. Sometimes when checking out, you might encounter the error "the product does not support the selected shipping option". This can prove particularly confusing because you weren't asked to select a shipping option and have no way to do so, so you will find yourself questioning why they are telling you that the selected shipping option isn't supported when they didn't even have you select one. To make a long story short, this error shows up when Shopee cannot deliver to your address via its usual delivery/courier partners. Some sellers may have an option "seller's own shipping" activated and you can choose that. This would mean that the seller might have its own in-house delivery or its own delivery partner, in which case you would pay for the product on the Shopee platform and chat with the seller to figure out the logistics of how to have the product delivered to you. My very first Shopee purchase was made under such circumstances. I bought three 6L containers of drinking water on the app, paid for the water on the app, and then chatted with the seller regarding delivery. He arranged for a rider to deliver, and I paid the delivery fee, in cash, to the rider. In short, when you encounter this error, it means Shopee cannot deliver to your address via its usual means, and you should chat with the seller to explore possible delivery alternatives.
Mystery #2: Free shipping and/or shipping discount that isn't given to you. Many times when shopping you will see something like "P50 off shipping with min order of P199." but seem to receive no shipping discount upon checkout. Sometimes you will even see "P50 off shipping with no minimum" or something like that, but seem to receive no discount. This is because the discount is given only if you have the right voucher. Shopee, as a part of its promotional efforts, gives out vouchers that give buyers free shipping or shipping discounts. I have posted below images of two such vouchers that I have received and successfully used:
If you'll notice, the two particular vouchers I posted above are not applicable to all sellers on the Shopee platform but only to "Free Shipping Special Shops". How then would you know if the product you are interested in is being sold by one of these special shops? You would know because the product page would have the "P50 off shipping with... something" statement described in the paragraphs above. That statement marks, or indicates, that the product you are viewing is eligible for a Special Shop Free Shipping Voucher. Some might find this just a wee bit misleading, but well, the way I have come to see it, it is what it is. True, it would perhaps be clearer if the product pages instead say something like "Eligible for Special Shop Free Shipping Voucher." instead of a seemingly more definitive "P50 off shipping..." but at least I now know exactly how to understand the app and maximize my use of it. Note that there are also more special vouchers that get you free shipping for all shops, but keep in mind that if the voucher you have covers only "special shops", then to apply it to a purchase you will need to find a product that has been marked as being eligible.
Mystery #3: The mystery of the disappearing shop voucher.Shops or sellers within the Shopee platform also give out their own discount vouchers, and one of the the most frustrating experiences I encountered was when the shop voucher I received had been successfully applied (as shown on the left side below, P25 discount applied, bringing the price of a P110 item down to P85) only to have it disappear upon trying to checkout (as shown on the right below, price back to P110.00).
After being unable to understand this behavior on the app I was very curious and waited through a queue 407 long to finally reach a live agent on the Shopee help chatline. The gentleman I reached provided excellent service, really took the time to understand the situation, but found himself as stumped as I was. After a while we left it be.
I got obsessive of course, and finally was able to figure it out. It turns out my default address was un-deliverable, and so the app removed the shop discount, and its behavior was such that even after I picked an address from my list of delivery addresses that was deliverable, it could no longer return the removed shop voucher. There was an easy fix to this of course - I changed my default delivery address to one that I knew was deliverable, and wa-la! Discount applied.
Aside from the store voucher I also found two more Shopee vouchers, bringing my total to three as pictured, which could be used concurrently with the shop voucher, before finally finalizing my purchase.
I ended up getting these three mini-figures for the grand total of P196.00, shipping included. And while I admit it may seem a bit unbecoming for a 50 year old man, I found the process strangely fulfilling. 👴😁
