Skip to Content
Back

Product Link Converter: turning around an S$8M revenue risk

Led the design response to an S$8M revenue risk by changing how users shop on Shopee. Saved 60% of it through the affiliate rule change, 20% above target.

2024 – 2025

The paste flow in three steps: copy a Shopee product link, open it in ShopBack, then buy from the same seller to earn cashback.
Role
Senior product designer, then design manager
Team
Product manager and engineers (mobile, backend and machine learning)
Stack
  • Figma
Outcome
Saved 60% of an S$8M revenue risk through Shopee's affiliate rule change, 20% above target

The shift

Shopee is ShopBack's biggest merchant across Southeast Asia and drives about 80% of revenue in ShopBack's emerging markets. It pays ShopBack through its affiliate programme, Affiliate Marketing Solutions (AMS). Until 2024, a user could fill a Shopee cart, come through ShopBack once and earn cashback on everything in it.

In 2023, Shopee announced a new rule that took effect in 2024. It now pays commission only on a direct order, where the user buys from the seller ShopBack sent them to. If they buy from any other seller, the order is indirect and earns nothing. About S$8M of revenue was at risk, and commissions in Indonesia and the Philippines fell by about 80% once the change took effect. The goal was to save as much of that revenue as possible before the rule started.

What made it hard

  • Root cause: Users added what they wanted to their cart first at Shopee, then came to ShopBack afterwards or not at all. More than 70% of AMS customers had never made a direct order.
  • Consequence: The first attempt was SKU search, where users searched ShopBack for a Shopee product. It did not change behaviour, because it only reached users who had already started at ShopBack. Raising the cashback did not change it either.
  • Constraint: ShopBack's product database held only the Shopee products in the affiliate programme, so search showed far fewer results than Shopee itself. Whatever replaced search had to be as simple as possible for users. Shopee might not pay for direct orders from sellers outside the programme, so those orders would earn the user no cashback.

What I did

Designed the Product Link Converter (PLC), a new flow that changed how ShopBack's Shopee users shop.
The paste flow: how to copy a link, the cashback up front, and the S$0.01 page that suggests similar products.
The paste flow: how to copy a link, the cashback up front, and the S$0.01 page that suggests similar products.
  • Showed S$0.01 cashback on products that earned no commission, so users still earned a reward instead of hitting a dead end. The same page also suggested similar products that earned more.
Every outcome of one paste: cashback, no commission, no item details, and a failed lookup.
Every outcome of one paste: cashback, no commission, no item details, and a failed lookup.
  • Led solution discovery with the research team to derisk the idea and understand our users.
  • Started one communication strategy and worked with a UX writer on content guidelines, so marketing and operations teams in every market explained the new rule the same way.
From the content guide: Shopee pays only when the order traces back to the seller ShopBack sent the user to.
Where we reach users before and after they shop: inform, remind and diagnose.
From the content guide: Shopee pays only when the order traces back to the seller ShopBack sent the user to.
  • Added reinforcement messages after each order. After a direct order, the message confirmed the user earned more cashback. After an indirect order, it explained why the order earned less and what to do next time.
After a direct order: the user tapped a store and bought from it, so they earned more cashback.
After a direct order: the user tapped a store and bought from it, so they earned more cashback.
After an indirect order: the store offers no higher cashback, so the message tells the user to check other stores next time.
After an indirect order: the store offers no higher cashback, so the message tells the user to check other stores next time.

What changed

PLC today: copy a Shopee link, paste it from the ShopBack home screen, see the cashback, then buy on Shopee while ShopBack tracks it.
  • PLC saved 60% of the revenue at risk through the affiliate rule change, 20% above target.
  • About 90% of orders through PLC are direct orders today, so they earn commission.
  • Users pasted 1.05 million links between 14 January and 9 April 2026, 20% above target.
  • ShopBack deprioritised SKU search. In some markets, PLC is now the only way to shop Shopee through ShopBack.
  • PLC expanded to Lazada, Taobao and AliExpress in 2024 and TikTok Shop in 2025, and the team tested a multi-item cart in 2026.