Most sellers pick what to import by searching Shopee, spotting something that looks popular, and ordering the same thing. That is not entirely wrong, but stopping at "looks popular" skips the most useful part: which prices actually hold, where competitors are weak, and what the category is missing.
Why competitor research is a sourcing step
When you look at a competitor shop on Shopee with any structure, you are reading the result of an experiment someone else ran and paid for. They tried multiple products, the market voted with real money, and the outcome is sitting on their shop page, visible to anyone who knows how to read it.
Most people only see the surface: which products have the most stars, which listings have nice photos. The more valuable layer is the actual sales data, the real price band, and the gaps the shop has not filled.
Choosing the right shops to study
Not every shop is worth the time. You want shops with enough history to generate a readable signal, meaning they have already sold, not just listed.
A few filters that help:
- Shop age of at least one year. A shop under six months does not have enough history to tell you which products truly sell, versus which are just new.
- A few hundred to a few thousand total reviews. You do not need a mega-shop. A mid-size shop with a few thousand reviews already has enough signal.
- Same product category you plan to import. Do not study across categories. If you plan to sell small household goods, study household shops, not a fashion shop with a few household items mixed in.
- Not Shopee Mall. Mall stores have brand advantages and capital that a small shop cannot match. Regular shops are the closer comparison.
Start with three to five shops in your category. You do not need more at the beginning.
Reading a shop's catalog to see what is actually selling
Go to the shop page, open the full product list, and sort by "Best Selling" or "Sold." That list shows you the market's real ordering of priorities: which products lead, which sit in the middle, and which stay listed despite going nowhere.
A few things worth noting when you look at that list:
- Top-ranked products with few reviews. These may be new listings already selling well. That points to a product that sells itself, without needing a long history to build trust.
- The cluster of products in the middle with steady but unspectacular sales. These are typically evergreen items: not flashy, but consistent. For a first import, this group carries less risk than chasing whatever is spiking.
- Products with a pattern of bad reviews about quality. This is a gap you can step into: the same product from a better supplier, with more consistent output. You do not need a lower price to compete on a product where the current seller keeps disappointing buyers.
- Higher-priced items that still sell. If something is priced noticeably above the category average and still moves units, buyers are paying for something: quality, better photos, a clearer description. Worth understanding why.
Reading the price band to know which prices hold
The "market price" is what you see in Shopee search results. But not every price in the results is a price that actually sells. Many shops list low to rank in search, then require add-ons or only apply that price to a variant nobody picks.
To read the real price band:
- Go directly to the best-selling product page of each competitor shop, not the search results. The price on the product page, combined with the actual review count, tells you what buyers are really paying.
- Record three levels: the lowest price that is genuinely selling, the average across the three to five leading shops, and the highest price that still has steady volume. The spread between lowest and highest is the market range. Somewhere in that range is a position you can take without racing to the bottom.
- Pay attention to the price band for the top-selling items over recent weeks. If prices are falling compared to two months ago, the market may be saturating. If they are holding or ticking up slightly, supply has not yet caught demand.
One clear sign the market is broken: the gap between the highest shop and the lowest shop is under 15 to 20 percent, and both have solid reviews. When prices flatten like that, there is almost no margin left for someone entering late.
Finding the gaps in a competitor's catalog
This is the step most people skip, but it usually returns more useful information than the two steps above. After reading what is selling, shift to the question: what is the competitor missing?
A few ways to find the gaps:
- What the bad reviews are about. Read the one and two-star reviews on the competitor's best-selling products. If many buyers are complaining about the same specific thing (thin material, wrong color, poor packaging), that is a spec buyers would pay to have fixed. If you can source the same product with better quality at exactly that point, you can compete without needing a lower price.
- Missing variants. Many shops only import one or two colors or one size, because they are nervous about tying up capital in full range. If buyers are frequently asking about a color or size the shop does not carry, that shows up in the Q&A section or in the reviews. That is a position you can fill without cutting price.
- Low average order value. If a competitor sells items individually while buyers frequently ask about buying sets or bundles, they are leaving money on the table. You can enter with pre-packed combinations, a higher order value, and better margin per transaction.
- Weak photos and descriptions on a product that sells anyway. If a product moves despite poor content, that product is pulling buyers on its own merits. Entering with the same product but better photos and a clearer description can take share without needing a lower price.
Cross-checking 1688 to verify whether it is workable
Once you have identified products worth pursuing, the next step is checking whether you can source them from 1688 and what the real landed cost looks like.
Search 1688 for the equivalent product and note a few things:
- How many suppliers are selling the same item. If dozens of suppliers list it at the same low price, the barrier to entry is near zero and more local shops will import next month. Fewer suppliers at similar prices suggests slightly tighter supply and less immediate pressure on margins.
- Minimum order quantity against the test size you want to run. Some products have MOQs that are too large for a first test. If you want to start small but the MOQ forces a large batch, recalculate or find a different supplier.
- The 1688 price plus all costs: domestic China shipping to the consolidation warehouse, freight to Vietnam (by weight or volume, roughly 18 to 30 days by sea), customs fees, the order-agent service fee if you use one (typically a few percent of the order value). Convert everything to VND at the current rate, around VND 3,600 per yuan, but confirm it when you calculate. Add the Shopee platform fee (varies by category and shop tier), your expected ad spend per order, and an allowance for returns and defects. What remains after all of that is real profit.
If that final number is positive and the market price band still has room above your landed cost, the product is worth pursuing. If the real cost pushes you into a position where you have to price at the floor just to be competitive, the market opportunity does not matter: you will not make money.
Make this a recurring check, not a one-off
Competitor research is not something you do once. Shopee moves constantly: new shops enter, old ones fade, prices shift, products saturate, and new ones surface. Reading your competitors once gives you a snapshot. Reading them every few weeks gives you a sense of direction.
A practical approach: choose three to five shops in your category and revisit them every two to four weeks. You do not need a deep dive every time. A quick scan for new breakout products, notable price movements, and new gaps is enough. After a few months of doing this consistently, your read on that category will be sharper than any external tool can provide.
Bottom line
Reading competitors on Shopee is not about copying them. It is about learning from experiments they have already run. Which products are selling, which prices are holding, and where the gaps are: the answers to all three questions are sitting on their shop pages. Pair that with a real landed-cost check from 1688, and you have the data to choose imports on evidence rather than instinct.