Just lose money as soon as you are the richest man

▍ Salt Finance

Author | Zhang Danjun

Edit | He Ziwei

"People are in Singapore, just got off the plane, took their wives, took the dog, received a call, and unemployed on the spot."

In the past year, the news of the layoffs of Internet factories is not uncommon. Nowadays, cold is approaching Southeast Asia. Recently, the "most tragic layoff" sample circulating on the Internet pointed to "Southeast Asian Version Pinduoduo" and "Southeast Asian version Taobao" -Shopee.

As the most visited e -commerce platform in Southeast Asia, Shopee has achieved very eye -catching results in the past few years. After the listed in the United States, its parent company, the market value of more than 100 billion US dollars, and its founder Li Xiaodong also became the richest man in Singapore in one fell swoop.

Li Xiaodong, the founder of Donghai Group

However, after a year, the wealth of the richest man Li Xiaodong has shrunk sharply, and he has become the fourth from Singapore.

what happened?

Suddenly destroy offer

According to the original plan, small fire will take a flight from Guangzhou to Singapore on August 26 to start his new foreign life.

But the change suddenly.

At the end of May this year, a small fire participated in the social recruitment of Shopee's Singapore headquarters, and the position was the server development. After two months and four -wheeled interviews, the fire finally received the offer from Shopee.

Today's employment situation is not as good as before. For every step of work, small fires are as stable as possible. After getting a work visa to Singapore, he filed an application for resignation to the previous company.

"Since August this year, the communication with them (Shopee) HR has been very pleasant," said low fire. Not long ago, Shopee's HR was still reminding the precautions when the small fire entered the country.

Not tight, not internally, advocate "Work Life Balance" -This is one of the reasons why low fire and many Internet technical talents in China went south to Singapore.

However, the turning point occurred on August 25. In the afternoon, Xiaohuo received a call from Singapore on the phone. At the beginning, he thought it was a scam call. Until the other party reported his name, work and other information, he believed that the phone did come from Shopee.

The staff on the phone notified the small fire that because of the adjustment of the SHOPEE company's structure, his position was canceled, and the offer issued was no longer effective.

In other words, the day before the small fire went to Singapore, it was unemployed.

Little fire quickly discovered that more than him was revoked by offer by Shopee in recent times.

In addition to the Singapore headquarters, the offer also includes the branch of Shopee in Shenzhen, Beijing and other places. To.

There are many related discussions on Shopee's extensive contract of offer

"A random killing", AMOS told Salt Finance reporters that he would have been in Shopee Shenzhen as a senior back -end development engineer. Now, his offer is also revoked.

AMOS's "Shopee Destroyer" WeChat group currently reaches 60.

In the group, AMOS met the friend who was "in Singapore, just got off the plane, with his wife, a dog, receiving a call, and unemployed on the spot."

The friend registered a personal WeChat public account in May this year, and the introduction was "recorded Nanyang experience".

On the morning of August 27, the public account pushed the first article displayed in Singapore. The article wrote: "I can only say that the degree of stimulus in life is far greater than your imagination."

For most people, OFFER was withdrawn before joining the job, which was unexpected. Just half a year ago, SHOPEE was still expanding on a large scale.

2021 is a year when Shopee expands global rapid expansion. In various domestic workplace social media, you can see the invitation information of Shopee employees in interior or HR.

This round of recruitment boom continued until the first half of this year. Low fire said that in April this year, he received a recruitment invitation from Shopee on social media.

In the context of other domestic Internet manufacturers' layoffs, the momentum of Shopee's expansion was extremely strong.

2021 is a year when Shopee expands globally

As the largest e -commerce company in Southeast Asia, Shopee is undoubtedly attractive.

Natural global soil provides the imagination of a diverse working environment. The more practical attractiveness comes from excellent salary and relatively easier work rhythm. Say.

In order to attract Chinese technicians, Shopee's salary is almost marked with China's head Internet company.

Little fire said that if he enrolled smoothly, his monthly salary should be between 35,000 and 40,000 yuan; in the offer cancellation group, some people said that the salary of its original job was increased by 70%.

However, the momentum was mighty during the expansion, and when layoffs, some people were still looking forward to turning after receiving a call from the offer, but they turned their heads and found that their Shopee mailbox was quickly canceled.

The layoffs also involved the interior of Shopee. A Shopee Shenzhen employee told Salt Finance: "Fully lock HC (personnel compile), there are layoffs inside." And the employee was worried that the crisis was probably just beginning.

Cost of cost

Shopee reduces HC without warning.

On August 16th, SHOPEE's parent company Sea Group released the second quarter of 2022's financial report. According to the financial report, Shopee's total revenue in the second quarter of this year was 1.75 billion US dollars, an increase of 51.4%year -on -year, and GMV (total product transaction) was 19 billion US dollars, slightly lower than the expected $ 19.9 billion.

Shopee's total revenue in the second quarter of this year was 1.75 billion US dollars, an increase of 51.4%year -on -year, GMV was $ 19 billion, slightly lower than the expected 19.9 billion US dollars

The slowdown in the growth of e -commerce business is losing money. According to financial reports, SHOPEE loses about $ 650 million in EBITDA in the second quarter. Despite the adjustment, the cost is still high. Due to "the increase in the cost of research and development personnel and server custody", the cost of the headquarters of Shopee has increased by $ 27.5 million a month -on -month.

On the whole, in the second quarter of this year, Donghai Group's spending on two links of administrative expenses and R & D expenses increased significantly, an increase of 95.9%and 115%year -on -year. Among them, for the growth of R & D costs, Donghai Group explained in the financial report as "the increase in the number of employees led to an increase in the cost of employees."

The financial report also mentioned: "When trying to adapt to the increasing macro uncertainty, we are actively changing our strategy and further attention to efficiency and optimization to improve the long -term strength and profitability of e -commerce business. In view of this Strategic transformation, we will suspend the revenue guidance of e -commerce GAAP (General Accounting Standards) in 2022. "

In other words, Shopee will no longer set up expected revenue targets in 2022.

On the second day of the public financial report, the capital market immediately voted with foot -SEA stocks plummeted 14%. As of 16 o'clock on August 26th, the stock price of SEA was $ 63.82 per share, which was US $ 372.7 in October last year, a drop of more than 80%.

As of 16 o'clock on August 26, the stock price trend of SEA. Picture source: Tiger Securities

In fact, as early as June this year, the CEO of Shopee's CEO Feng Yan issued an internal letter to announce the layoffs. The scope of layoffs includes Shopee's takeaway, payment business, and e -commerce business in Mexico, Argentina and Chile. However, because it did not affect Chinese employees, there was not much attention caused by the Chinese Internet at that time.

It can be said that since 2022, Shopee has rarely heard good news.

In 2021, Shopee expanded the pace of globalization, entering Mexico, Chile, Colombia and Argentina in Latin America, Poland, Spain and France in Europe, and India in Asia.

In just one year, the sites of France, India, and Spain have been closed, of which French stations have only maintained 4 months; earlier this year, major shareholders Tencent also reduced its holdings of Donghai Group, from 21.3%to 18.7%, and announced that it was announced It will continue to be reduced to less than 10%.

Tencent announced the reduction of equity (source: Tencent's official website)

Why is Shopee here?

You know, the SHOPEE established in 2015 later lived in the Southeast Asian e -commerce market, and Lazada, who defeated Ali Holdings, established a leading position. SHOPEE, which adheres to the fine localized operations, is like the "King of Flow". Each entering a new country, it develops an independent app that adapts to the local market. Usually, it is at the top of the shopping download ranking of shopping applications as soon as it goes online.

The global epidemic that broke out in 2020 created a huge opportunity for the e -commerce industry. In addition to the transformation of consumer channels, the economic downturn has made people from various countries more interested in cheap products other than big brands.

Salt Financial reporter found on the SHOPEE client in Malaysia version of the SHOPEE client that its style is closer to "Pinduoduo". Merchants sell less than 2 March (1 MIT of 1.5 RMB) and a sample of perfume samples. Registered users can receive cash coupons of brands such as Starbucks, KFC and other brands and free shipping vouchers.

The price of extremely low commodity and various preferential policies attracts the vast consumers of various countries. From 2019 to 2021, Shopee's GMV was US $ 17.6 billion, US $ 35.4 billion, and US $ 62.5 billion, a year -on -year increase of 71%, 101.1%, and 76.8%.

Source: Guanyan World Data Center organizes

However, the high -speed growth and expansion are inseparable from burning money.

At the beginning of the market, Shopee was quite generous to sellers and buyers.

For example, in Poland, in order to attract merchants to settle in, Shopee promises not to charge platform fees and commissions within 6 months, and provide consumers with free shipping services regardless of order size.

In terms of marketing, Shopee also signed international stars such as Blackpink and Cristiano Ronaldo as the spokesperson in each region.

Shopee has signed BLACKPINK as a regional spokesperson

Doing e -commerce means that you need to spend money on each link of logistics, payment, marketing, and operation.

According to the Indian Times, Shopee spends 4,000 to 50 million US dollars per month in India. But at present, all these burned money drifted in vain. After entering India, Shopee has been attacked due to its "blood" of China and too low commodity pricing. On March 28, the SHOPEE India site, which has only been operating for half a year, announced its closure. This decision was quite sudden, because SHOPEE India was still promoting promotional activities in early April. From the perspective of financial reports, the loss caused by the burning of money was still expanding, and the scale of losses in the second quarter of this year increased by 21%compared with the same period last year.

I do n’t know when the strong wind will stop. After experiencing an ambitious expansion, Shopee turns to the situation of growth blocking and losing losses.

Greater crisis

And the greater crisis of Shopee comes from the company.

According to the Pinpin report, in March last year, after the SHOPEE CTO Huang Yicheng took office in Shenzhen, he introduced the OKR system of byte beating and conducted performance assessment in the quarter. In addition, Singapore's management is required to report ideas to the Chinese management team every two weeks in the form of written reports.

At the first employee meeting of Huang Yicheng after taking office, some employees reported that the technical department often had to work overtime to 9.30.

The CTO asked: Is it late to get off work at 9:30?

The remarks caused strong dissatisfaction with Singaporean employees at the time.

From the founder Li Xiaodong, to CEO Feng Yan, the digital key figures of Shopee are all native Chinese. Since birth, Chinese genes have flowed. Shopee's work intensity has always been among most foreign companies and domestic Internet manufacturers.

For domestic Internet employees, Shopee may not be a very "volume". However, Shopee is often rated as a foreign job -seeking platform. The work pressure is too long, the working time is too long, and the management is chaotic.

SHOPEE negative evaluation on foreign job search platforms

The cultural conflict at work is just one aspect. Different management models also make Shopee fall into "the internal personnel struggle and business problems."

Last year, Shopee's core business gradually shifted from Singapore to Shenzhen. The number of employees on both sides changed from the original flat to the current four to one. Therefore, more and more Singapore employees and backbones left Shopee.

Personnel changes and struggles are usually considered negatively impact on the development of enterprises. Some Shopee employees speculate in an interview that the management may be busy with power struggle, causing unable to solve business problems for the time being.

In addition to cost issues, another challenge facing Shopee is the loss of merchants.

Many cross -border e -commerce said that a few years ago, the business on Shopee was still very good, but now, whether it is traffic or profits, it has become less and less.

In order to control the cost of burning money, Shopee also announced at the beginning of this year that platform commission was raised from about 4%to 6%.

At the same time, there are also Shopee employees and businesses that the platform's activity rules and policy rules have changed frequently, which has created a big burden on store operations.

Various phenomena reflect the changes in Shopee's internal decision -making.

Looking out, Shopee's competitive environment is becoming more intense.

In Southeast Asia, in addition to veteran e -commerce Lazada, the e -commerce business of other Internet giants is also developing rapidly, such as TIKTOK.

Tiktok

SHOPEE has always been known as a foreign company that is "the most like a large Chinese Internet factory", and its parent company covering e -commerce, games, and finance Donghai Group is also known as "Southeast Asia Tencent".

It copied the successful experience of Chinese e -commerce, but also embarked on their twists and turns -from attaching importance to expansion to paying attention to profitability.

For enterprises, control costs are inevitable to survive. However, the tension between individual destiny and corporate development is ubiquitous.

In the past, in the wave of layoffs of the major Internet factories, Shopee was one of the hope of many Internet people. I did not expect that this company has collapsed so quickly, which makes people feel confused and confused.

At present, the compensation scheme provided by Shopee to the offer is: one month's salary compensation.

On August 26, AMOS, who lost OFFER, signed a compensation agreement, which wrote: The two parties reached a settlement after the discarding of Party B was negotiated by equal negotiation.

At present, the compensation scheme provided by Shopee to the offer by the offer is a monthly salary compensation

"There is no sense of security", someone said in the destruction group.

The road ahead is long, and they will continue to find jobs again.

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