Shopee, the marketplace that connects consumers, sellers, and major brands, has chosen Pernambuco to host the company’s 13th distribution center. This is the second facility in the fulfillment model, joining the one in São Paulo. Located in the metropolitan region of Recife, the new space will store products from Brazilian sellers, who currently represent over 90% of sales on the platform. The goal is to speed up deliveries and improve the user experience.
“We want to deliver an increasingly better experience for consumers and sellers on our platform. Sellers also benefit from this model, as the platform takes responsibility for the storage, packaging, and shipping processes,” explains Rafael Flores, Head of Expansion at Shopee.
Shopee Fulfillment
The new distribution center will be multi-category, focusing on the main products purchased in the region and will initially serve sellers from Pernambuco and São Paulo. The expectation is that with the scaling up of operations, the facility will also accommodate sellers from other states, primarily from the Southeast and South of the country. In addition to the positive logistical impact on the state, the arrival of the fulfillment center is expected to generate over thousand jobs, direct and indirect, by December 2025.
In operation since October 2024, the São Paulo Fulfillment facility has more than 600 sellers and already shows over 30% optimization in delivery time for consumers in the state. As a result, sellers have gained more visibility, with increased traffic and sales.
Impact on the region
With the third-largest GDP in Brazil by region, the Northeast also ranks third in the number of sellers on Shopee. “We have been following the development of business digitization in the Northeast. Pernambuco, for example, is among the states with the highest concentration of sellers in the region, alongside Bahia and Ceará, with sales mainly in the Beauty, Women’s Clothing, and Toys categories. The arrival of this distribution center expands entrepreneurs’ access to opportunities to grow their sales nationwide,” comments Flores.
Present in all Northeastern capitals, the platform also recently announced the opening of the logistics hub in Juazeiro do Norte, Ceará, which joined the more than 30 other hubs in the Northeast and the two cross-docking distribution centers, in Recife (PE) and Salvador (BA).
Shopee’s logistics structure in Brazil
In total, there are already 13 distribution centers (11 in the cross-docking model and two in fulfillment) and more than 150 first and last-mile hubs operating in Brazil. The physical journey of an order on the platform begins with the seller preparing the merchandise after the purchase is confirmed. The products are collected from the sellers’ locations by first-mile vehicles or taken by the sellers to collection points, the Shopee Agencies — today, the company has over 2,500 units in this model. Orders are forwarded to distribution centers, where they are sorted and sent to last-mile hubs, units responsible for routing and dispatching to the over 30,000 partner drivers to deliver to consumers.
