Sea Limited used its wildly popular game, Free Fire, to build brand presence and a user base in Brazil before even launching its e-commerce platform, Shopee. This unconventional strategy provided a massive, low-cost customer acquisition channel.

By initially focusing on unbranded fashion and beauty, Shopee attracted female consumers who tend to buy more frequently and write more product reviews. This behavior accelerated platform trust and improved logistics efficiency in its early days.

In markets with poor infrastructure, such as Southeast Asia's incomplete address systems, building proprietary logistics is a key differentiator. Sea assigned its best talent to solve this "hard problem," creating a sustainable advantage over competitors by owning the customer experience from click to delivery.

While competitors burned cash fighting over major hubs, delivery startup Fancy focused on Tier 2 cities. This strategy gave them a local monopoly, leading to far better unit economics and retention. This strong performance was a key factor in their acquisition by GoPuff.

To manage its 18 international markets, Walmart is moving from bespoke tech stacks to a single, multi-tenant global platform. The key to this strategy is allowing local markets to build custom extensions on top of the core platform, balancing global efficiency with the need for hyper-local innovation.

Just Eat Takeaway observes strong demand for new services like grocery in specific markets first. They develop solutions there, gaining insights and building features that are ready to deploy globally as consumer demand emerges elsewhere, turning regional trends into a strategic advantage.

Sea Limited's highly profitable gaming division, Garena, served as a cash cow, subsidizing the aggressive, loss-making expansion of its e-commerce arm, Shopee, into competitive markets like Brazil. This highlights the power of a diversified business model.

By ensuring over 90% of its Brazilian GMV comes from local sellers, Shopee built a significant defense against protectionist policies. This insulates them from regulations targeting foreign imports, a risk faced by competitors like Temu and AliExpress.

With experience at both eBay and Temu, Jennifer Deal warns that sellers must treat each marketplace as a unique ecosystem. A successful strategy on one platform won't work on another due to different business models, customer bases, and tools. Success requires a tailored approach for each specific marketplace, as the landscape is highly fragmented.