Retailers across industries ramping up user-friendly e-commerce offerings

Alibaba, one of the world’s largest e-commerce companies, is seeing huge opportunities in Vietnam, where the business-to-consumer e-commerce sector has double-digit growth annually and is being enhanced with accelerated digital transformation.

“Alibaba continues to offer specific services for the Vietnamese market to help local businesses to speed up their operation and bring opportunities for them to introduce their products to buyers globally,” said Vu The Tung, director of Business Development and Government Relations at Alibaba Vietnam, at an e-commerce workshop in late October.

The event, held by the Vietnam E-commerce and Digital Economy Agency, the Hanoi Centre for Investment, Trade, and Tourism Promotion, and the Hanoi Association of Small and Medium Enterprises, is among a series of activities to support businesses to increase their competitiveness, develop e-commerce, and expand their distribution network into e-commerce.

To promote digital transformation and e-commerce among Vietnamese groups seeking opportunities, Alibaba has been conducting training activities to improve operation capacity for businesses.

Clever Group, a pioneer in the next generation of advertising services and technologies in Vietnam, is also planning to tap into this growth, with sales manager Phan Thi Thanh Hai introducing businesses to digital transformation solutions with Google Workspace at the workshop. The Clever Group representative shared methods for businesses to be successful, including conducting market research and building in-depth development plans and roadmaps.

Following the digital trend, banks are also offering new and modern payment products and services to support businesses in e-commerce to benefit from growing demands.

Digital transformation brings about big opportunities to increase customer experiences. According to a representative of VPBank at the event, the bank is now deploying many solutions to support small- and medium-sized enterprises, such as opening an account online, online overdraft loans, and online business support.

VPBank has also introduced a modern payment solution to support businesses in their operation, innovation, and e-commerce integration, accompanied by free domain name server services and support for companies registering websites with the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

Similarly, BIDV is partnering with businesses in digital transformation. Pham Minh Chau from BIDV said that the bank also had comprehensive financial solutions to support exporters. “With a competitive collateral policy, and preferential interest rate policy, export firms get support to ease financial pressures in their business activities,” Chau said.

According to the Vietnam E-commerce White Paper 2022 by the Vietnam E-commerce and Digital Economy Agency (iDEA), over the past seven years, e-commerce in Vietnam had a growth rate of 16-30 per cent. It is estimated that the local retail e-commerce market will reach $16.4 billion in 2022, growing 20 per cent.

Bui Huy Hoang from the iDEA said there was much room for Vietnamese products to enter foreign markets, especially as new-generation free trade agreements become a new driving force for Vietnam’s economy in the new development period.

“Opportunities will open for businesses which have good products and meet demands of import markets, and tap into markets with developed e-commerce platforms, enabling them to enter strict markets. There are different cross-border e-commerce platforms for businesses to choose to meet their demands, such as Amazon, Shopee International, and others,” Hoang said.

With the fast development of digital commerce in the past few years, an adjusted decree from the Ministry of Finance and a new e-commerce tax portal are expected to facilitate better tax management for e-commerce platforms.

Possessing an average growth rate of 20 per cent per year, the e-commerce retail market is now not only a private land of e-commerce platforms but also a common game of tech solutions providers such as fintech.

Policymakers, businesses, and experts gathered at a workshop in October to discuss increasing opportunities to boost exports via cross-border e-commerce platforms.