What to Do When Your Shopee Sales Drop? A Practical Guide for Sellers

Seeing your sales numbers dip can feel pretty discouraging—especially if you’re just starting out on Shopee. Many new sellers panic when orders suddenly decline, not knowing where to begin with troubleshooting. But here’s the good news: sales fluctuations are common in e-commerce, and there’s usually a clear reason behind them.

In this post, I’ll walk you through a systematic framework to analyze why sales may be dropping and what you can do about it. This isn’t theory—I’ve dealt with these issues myself and seen what actually works in practice.

Two Major Categories of Problems

1.1External Factors: Market Conditions

a) Holidays and Big Campaigns
Shopee sales often rise and fall in sync with seasonal holidays and platform-wide promotions. During Christmas, Thanksgiving, or local public holidays in Southeast Asia, shoppers tend to pause online shopping and spend more time offline with family.

Similarly, around mega-campaigns like 11.11 or 12.12, buying behavior shifts dramatically. Customers may hold off on purchases before the sale, then splurge on the event day, which makes sales drop both before and after the peak. These patterns are completely normal—they’re simply part of the holiday effect.

b) Weather and Natural Disasters
Southeast Asia is prone to typhoons, floods, and other extreme weather. When these events happen, logistics get disrupted and consumer spending slows down. No matter how well-prepared you are, external shocks like this will inevitably impact your order volume.

1.2 External Factors: Platform Changes

Beyond market shifts, Shopee itself changes constantly. If you’ve been selling this year, you’ve probably noticed updates rolling out almost every month.

For example, advertising once required manual keyword setup, but then Shopee introduced automatic campaigns. Soon after, the algorithm for product ranking was also updated, leading to sudden swings in exposure and traffic.

When this happens, don’t rush to blame yourself. First, check whether your competitors are experiencing the same dip. If everyone’s traffic and conversion are down, chances are it’s due to platform adjustments. These are systemic changes, and the best response is to stay updated on official announcements and adapt, rather than panic.

2. Internal Factors: Store-Specific Issues

If your competitors’ sales are stable or even growing while yours keep sliding, then it’s time to take a hard look at your own operations.

The Three Core Drivers of Sales

At the end of the day, sales come down to three key elements:

Traffic ✖ Conversion Rate ✖ Average Order Value (AOV)

Breaking these down one by one makes it easier to pinpoint what’s wrong and how to fix it.

1. Traffic

The best way to judge traffic health is by looking at Click-Through Rate (CTR). If CTR is low, check:

• Search ranking on Shopee’s homepage: Are your products appearing high enough?
• Impact of recent ad changes: Did the latest ad update affect your campaigns?
• Optimization of main images and titles: Are your images highlighting the right product features? Do your titles use the right keywords?

Also review whether your product’s weighting or trust score has dropped. Violations, severe negative reviews, or outdated listings can hurt your ranking significantly.

If your ads are performing poorly (low ROAS), it’s time to refine your ad strategy. Keep an eye on official tutorials and case studies from experienced Shopee sellers—they often reveal small adjustments that make a big difference.

2. Conversion Rate

Conversion depends on three main things:

• Listing quality (product page optimization)
• Customer service & review management
• Competitive pricing

👉 Listing quality: Take a look at your competitors’ product pages. Are they adding better videos, improving their bullet points, or adopting stronger branding elements? If so, you need to level up as well—whether by upgrading your main image video, refining descriptions, or redesigning the layout.

👉 Customer service & reviews: A skilled customer service rep can act like a top salesperson. Beyond replying quickly, they need to understand the product thoroughly, answer questions clearly, and guide buyers toward making a purchase. This not only boosts conversions but also encourages satisfied buyers to leave positive reviews.

👉 Pricing competition: If competitors start slashing prices, you don’t always have to join the race to the bottom. Instead, try:

• Price matrix strategies (entry-level “traffic products” + mid/high-tier profit products)
• Bundle offers (sets, add-ons, or cross-sells)
• Differentiated price anchors (keep one low-cost option while upselling upgraded versions with better packaging, features, or added value)

3. Average Order Value (AOV)

Finally, don’t overlook AOV. A sudden drop in GMV may simply be because customers are spending less per order.

Check whether your bundled discounts, add-on promotions, or cross-sell incentives have expired. If so, update them quickly—these small changes can have a big impact on overall revenue.

Final Thoughts

There are many reasons why Shopee sales decline—some beyond your control, others within it. But with this framework in hand, you’ll be better prepared.

Next time your sales dip, don’t panic. Go through the checklist: external market shifts, platform changes, and internal store issues. Then analyze your traffic, conversion rate, and AOV step by step.

With a structured approach, you’ll be able to identify the root cause and take the right action, instead of guessing in the dark.

👉 Quick tip: If you want to dig deeper into keyword research and product analytics, tools like shopdora (a data analysis and product selection tool for Shopee sellers) can save you a lot of time. It helps track competitor trends, optimize listings, and uncover hidden opportunities.