Echelon Commerce — Stop Building Shopee's Business. Build Yours.

Every time Shopee raises fees, you absorb it. Every time they change the algorithm, your sales fluctuate. Every time they run a mega-sale, your margins evaporate.

You don't own your customers on Shopee. You don't even get their email addresses. You are renting an audience on someone else's platform, and the rent keeps going up.

2% take rate in 2019. 12% in 2025. Where does it stop?

2019

2021

2023

2025

12%

2027

Think about what you've handed over. Your customer list belongs to Shopee. Your repeat purchase data belongs to Shopee. Your pricing power erodes every time a competitor undercuts you by RM 2 and the algorithm rewards them for it. You built the brand. They keep the relationship.

And the worst part: when Shopee decides to push their own competing products or favorites a cheaper alternative, you have no recourse. Your visibility drops overnight. Your sales follow. You have no email list to fall back on, no direct channel to reach the customers you spent years acquiring.

The Brands That Are Pulling Ahead

The smartest DTC brands in Malaysia and Singapore aren't quitting Shopee. They're making it optional. They're building Shopify stores that actually convert -- not brochure sites that exist as an afterthought next to their Shopee listing.

These brands own their customer data. They run email sequences that bring buyers back without paying for another ad click. They control their pricing, their margins, and their brand experience from end to end. When Shopee raises fees again -- and they will -- these brands shrug. Because Shopee is 30% of their revenue, not 80%.

The revenue split is the number that matters. Brands with 70%+ marketplace dependency are one policy change away from crisis. Brands with a healthy DTC channel have leverage, margin, and optionality.

Every ringgit you earn on brand.com is a ringgit Shopee doesn't take 12% of.

What We Do

DTC Channel Audit

We score your Shopify store against brands that already outsell their own Shopee listings. You'll see exactly where you fall short -- mobile, checkout, email capture, trust -- and what each gap costs you in margin every month.

Revenue Split Analysis

You think your marketplace dependency is "normal." We'll show you the revenue split of every brand in your category that's already made the shift. When you see where you sit on that spectrum, you'll understand why their margins look nothing like yours.

Migration Roadmap

Not a strategy deck. Not a 90-day transformation pitch. A ranked list of changes ordered by how much margin they recover, starting with the ones you can ship this week. You keep selling on Shopee. You just stop depending on it.

THESE AREN'T HYPOTHETICAL BRANDS. HERE'S WHAT THE SHIFT LOOKED LIKE.

Brands That Made the Shift

Boarding Gate was doing 75% of revenue through Shopee. After optimizing their Shopify store -- mobile checkout, email capture, loyalty program -- their brand.com share flipped to 70% in 8 months.

From 25% DTC to 70% DTC in 8 months.

Margins improved because Shopee was no longer taking 12-15% per transaction. Every dollar that shifted to brand.com went straight to the bottom line.

"We should have done this three years ago. Every month we stayed dependent on Shopee cost us 12-15% of margin we'll never get back."-- Founder, Boarding Gate

The Planet Traveller's Shopify store went from 15% of total revenue to 55% in 12 months. Their Shopee and Lazada revenue stayed flat -- meaning every dollar of DTC growth was net new margin.

DTC channel: 15% to 55%. Marketplace revenue unchanged.

They didn't quit marketplaces. They made them optional. That's the difference between leverage and dependency.

"Our Shopify revenue went from 15% to 55% in a year. Shopee revenue stayed flat. Every dollar of growth was pure margin."-- Marketing Director, The Planet Traveller

MEET THE PERSON BEHIND SHELF STRATEGY

Faisal Hourani, Founder

9 years helping MY/SG brands build DTC channels

I founded Echelon Commerce because I kept watching great Malaysian brands pour everything into Shopee and own nothing. No customer emails, no repeat purchase data, no control over margins. I help brands build their Shopify store into a real revenue channel — not a brochure that sits next to their Shopee listing. I'm not saying quit Shopee. I'm saying make it optional.

The work is specific: audit your DTC readiness, show you how your revenue split compares to brands that have made the shift, and build a roadmap to get there. No vague strategy decks. No 90-day transformation promises. Just a clear-eyed look at where you are and what to do next.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia · faisal@echeloncommerce.com · +60 11-2345-6789

WHERE DOES YOUR BRAND SIT ON THE INDEPENDENCE SPECTRUM?

The DTC Independence Scorecard

Score your brand across 10 dimensions that determine whether you could survive without Shopee. Takes 5 minutes. Most brands score under 40% -- which means Shopee has more leverage over your business than you think.

Got it. Faisal will send your DTC Independence Scorecard within 24 hours.

OR, IF YOU ALREADY KNOW IT'S TIME TO BUILD THE ALTERNATIVE:

Stop Building Shopee's Business. Build Yours.