'Barriers' make it difficult for Nghe An products to sell on e-commerce platforms

Browse through thee-commerce sitesuch as: Lazada, Sendo, Shopee, Tiki... just type the phrase "Nghe An specialties", and thousands of Nghe An branded specialty products will be displayed for sale here. From veal sausage, soy sauce, peanuts, rice paper, black plum, pickled cucumbers, etc. to unique products with the brand of each unit. However, most of these products are posted for sale by each agent and retailer. Even the same original product, but posted by agents in Nghe An, Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, and through each agent, the selling price is different.

Give a lot but sell very little

As a manufacturer of medicinal products, Pu Mat Medicinal Materials Joint Stock Company is a pioneer in Con Cuong district in bringing products to e-commerce platforms such as: Tiki, Voso, Lazada, Shopee, Sendo, Alibaba... Currently, this unit has 7 OCOP products recognized as meeting 4-star standards and are being sold on these platforms, but sales are facing difficulties.

Mr. Phan Xuan Dien - Director of Pu Mat Pharmaceutical Joint Stock Company said: Although participating in thee-commerce platformsince more than 2 years ago, but the sales efficiency through this channel is still limited. Mr. Dien cited that according to the company's statistics, each year, sales through Lazada and Shopee are less than 10 boxes (each box has 24 boxes), while Sendo has almost no interaction. Because it does not expect much from e-commerce, almost all of this unit's products are being sold through traditional agents, retailers on Facebook or offered at trade fairs...

E-commerce is a growing trend, but selling goods on this system is not a simple matter. Photo: Tien Dong

According to Mr. Dien, currently, in addition to the Alibaba trading floor, which requires a fee of 10 million VND/year to maintain a booth, almost all e-commerce floors in Vietnam are free to post products for sale. After deducting shipping costs, these floors only collect a percentage of each successful transaction order. However, due to the lack of interaction, along with the competition from hundreds of similar items in the same category, the products are almost just "hanging" up and no orders are selected.

The most obvious example is that during the recent orange season, although Vinh oranges were widely promoted and known by many people, when they were put on the e-commerce platform, they faced huge competition from Hoa Binh and Ha Tinh oranges. Therefore, sales efficiency was not high, and gardeners and businesses had to return to traditional sales methods and rely on traders.

Last orange season, although many activities and programs were promoted to promote the consumption of Vinh oranges, it was still almost entirely dependent on traders. Photo: Tien Dong

According to statistics, during each Vinh orange season, gardeners sell online via the internet and e-commerce platforms, accounting for only about 15-20%, the rest are purchased and sold by local traders to markets inside and outside the province, accounting for up to 75-80%.

Mr. Truong Van Bien, owner of an orange farm in Dong Thanh (Yen Thanh), shared that although he had posted his products on e-commerce platforms, when the orange harvest season came, he still had to wait for traders to bring them to the market to sell. The reason Mr. Bien gave was that there was no one in charge of sales to actively interact with customers. The dependence on traders caused the products to be priced down, and it was more difficult to sell during the epidemic season.

According to the report of Nghe An Department of Industry and Trade, since 2012, this unit has been assigned by the province to manage Nghe An E-commerce Exchange with the access address at http://37nghean.com. Up to now, more than 463 businesses and traders have registered to participate and set up booths. Introducing and offering 3,681 products and services. However, most of them still only stop at the level of information, product promotion, direct exchange and sale is still limited.

Many units are focusing on improving product quality without really paying attention to marketing and selling on e-commerce platforms. Photo: Tien Dong

Support manufacturers to sell effectively

Competition on e-commerce platforms is inevitable. An inherent weakness of businesses and retailers in Nghe An is that they do not dare to invest human resources and money to build marketing and advertising campaigns. Because in reality, to sell well on e-commerce platforms such as Shoppee, Lazada..., they must have a strong interactive team, when customers view and order, they must respond and close the order immediately. Not to mention, businesses and agents must spend money to run ads on other social networking applications so that the product can be on top of the platform to be known by many people.

People like Mr. Phan Xuan Dien - Pu Mat Pharmaceutical Joint Stock Company, Mr. Trinh Xuan Giao - Owner of Thien Son orange farm (Dong Thanh - Yen Thanh) also admitted that the unit is focusing on production, trying to create quality products without really investing human resources in developing the e-commerce sector.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Thanh Hieu - Head of Planning - Finance - General Department, Department of Industry and Trade said: To support enterprises, cooperatives, craft villages, and production and business households step by stepdigital transformation, approaching modern business forms, bringing products to e-commerce trading floors, the Department has advised the Provincial People's Committee to issue and is implementing the Nghe An E-commerce Development Plan for the period 2021-2025 and a number of plans to support bringing agricultural production households to e-commerce trading floors, promoting the development of Nghe An's agricultural and rural digital economy in 2021, 2022 and orientation to 2025. In particular, the goal is that by 2025, 80% of Nghe An's typical and typical products will participate in domestic and foreign e-commerce trading floors.

Signing ceremony of cooperation to promote consumption of Nghe An agricultural products on the e-commerce platform voso.vn. Photo: Phu Huong

Currently, Nghe An Department of Industry and Trade is coordinating with the Department of E-commerce and Digital Economy of the Ministry of Industry and Trade and related units to support individuals and units to register to participate in domestic and foreign e-commerce platforms to connect, introduce products, expand domestic and international markets as well as train knowledge and skills to promote and sell products online.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Thanh Hieu - Head of Science, Technology and Training Department, Nghe An Department of Industry and Trade

In addition, the Department of Industry and Trade also coordinates with sectors and localities to select groups of qualified production households with products certified for food safety, products with certificates such as OCOP, VietGAP, GlobalGAP... to introduce, promote and consume on the Nghe An e-commerce trading floor. At the same time, cooperate, share and link with reputable e-commerce floors at home and abroad.

In the immediate future, the Department will support localities in posting products on the platform, then transfer the booth management account to localities, and at the same time require localities to send staff to coordinate and connect to manage and update information and products at booths of districts, cities and towns.

Many specialties of Nghe An have been introduced and promoted by Livestream on modern platforms. Photo: Quang An

Ms. Hieu also said that in the coming time, the Department of Industry and Trade and other relevant agencies will complete the steps to bring many of Nghe An's specialty agricultural products to existing e-commerce platforms. Coordinate with the Ministry of Industry and Trade to guide people on the process of online sales, marketing, customer care through online markets... At the same time, promote consumption connections through channels: organize forums to connect agricultural product consumption...

Along with putting agricultural products on the market, in recent years, the Department of Industry and Trade has also supported organizations and units to build many e-commerce websites; transferred dozens of customer management and smart sales management software packages, organized training and coaching for thousands of students. “However, it must be admitted that the Internet is an equal environment, regardless of size, individual or business organization. Whoever does better in advertising, marketing, customer support interaction, pricing... will sell products. The market is just a means, the deciding factor is still people” – Ms. Hieu affirmed.