Soon, the e-commerce giant retailers like Amazon International, Alibaba, eBay… will attack Vietnam market aggressively. If domestic enterprises aren’t connected strongly and thoroughly, they will be defeated very quickly.
Amazon Has No Opportunity with Vietnam market?
Mr. Nguyen Tuan Ha, CEO Vinalink once said that Amazon does not stand a chance in Vietnam, because of 1 million Facebook users who do sales business on the social platform. Did we underestimate U.S.’s biggest B2C online retailer?
Everyone is crazy about Amazon’s professional business model. This giant also constantly expands its business with product diversification and different warehouses. Amazon offers a professional procurement method, many choices, accurate information, and a very efficient payment process and delivery.
Meanwhile, Vietnam retailers are forever running around with the story of “trust” and “quality”. Recently, Shopping Day 2016 offered many “special discounts”, yet customers had pointed out that the prices were actually higher than the normal market. Getting certified quality check, not having their own factories, and having to rely on 3rd parties are weaknesses for Vietnam B2C retailers.
According to 2015 business view of more than 20,000 small and medium retailers by Bizweb, nearly 40% of the businesses did not grow. This means 40 out of every 100 retailers had the same or worse business growth compared to 2014.
Bizweb’s CEO said that this is understandable, when even though local retailers tried baby-steps with doing e-commerce, they did not know how to take advantage of this business model. Win-win collaboration also was not given the right attention. Everything seems to be stuck at “use what you have”.
Take omni-channels sales method – which has not been favoured enough by retailers – as an example. Online shops still do marketing mostly via their website and Facebook, while other channels such as Zalo, e-commerce platforms… are forgotten.
While Amazon is experimenting with Amazon Prime Air – a future delivery system from Amazon designed to safely get packages to customers in 30 minutes or less using small unmanned aerial vehicles, also called drones – B2C retailers in Vietnam still stuck with old-fashioned, time-consuming shipping modes, or even hire a motorbike to do the work.
Also from the business review in 2015, 75% retailers are still using traditional delivery method via trains, only 48% hired a 3rd-party professional transport partner.
The weaknesses of Vietnamese retailers can be mentioned as following: input products are depended on 3rd parties, online marketing has not been done thoroughly, post-production process is still very unprofessional and trust issue for online products from customers.
Therefore, if appears a foreign company who can solve all the above issues, will it be embraced by Vietnam consumers, when “foreign favouritism” is a trend in the market?
Light At The End of The Road for Vietnamese Players??
“Integration” has been a trend recently, not just in Vietnam but also the world. Vietnam e-commerce is no exception to this trend when more collaborations and partnerships are built, such as the cooperation amongst sales platforms like Zalo, Sendo, Lazada, Adayroi, Viettel…
Collaboration or cooperation amongst businesses is vital in development. Especially when we are deeply affected by global recession and the intense competition brought by foreign players. Therefore, Vietnam businesses need to partner together, in various ways, to survive and develop.
This article was translated and summarized from CafeBiz.Vn