Vietnam E-commerce: The Rich Also Cry

(Baonghean.vn) - On the occasion of Alibaba, the e-commerce group of billionaire Jack Ma, just acquired Vietnam's number 1 online shopping site Lazada, we discuss the story of Vietnam's e-commerce - a potential playground but also fraught with many risks.

The rich also cry

Vietnam is currently among the top 20 countries with the highest Internet user rate in the world. About a third of Vietnam's population regularly uses the Internet, meaning e-commerce businesses own a potential market of 30 million customers. Yet a series of big names in the world such as Foodpanda, Zalora or even Lazada are having difficulties in Vietnam and have had to 'sell themselves'.

Vietnam's No. 1 e-commerce website Lazada 'sold itself' to Alibaba after 4 years of 'dominating' the Vietnamese e-commerce playground.

Putting aside the startups of small e-commerce sites, even the 'big guys' with strong capital have not yet gained much profit from online business in Vietnam. Consumer psychology; limited payment ability; difficulty finding sources of supply are forcing most e-commerce companies to attract users with discount strategies, spending money to gain market share. But spending money to reduce prices to attract users is a double-edged sword.

In 2015, deca.vn,beyeu.comand many other websites launched 'a lot' of discount promotion codes for customers to get a certain market share - these websites eventually closed down. Deca.vn is a product of 24h, beyeu.com is a big project of Project Lana and webtretho - it seems that these 'big guys' also do not have enough capital to 'bear the heat' to gain market share. Many other famous sites such as Cucre or Ohrequa also quickly disappeared from the market after "shockingly priced products".

beyeu's haunting message as it closes: 'E-commerce is so money-intensive, many companies will decide to stop burning money on it. Good luck to those who are still hanging on.'

Currently, Adayroi, an e-commerce website backed by the powerful Vingroup corporation, seems to be following the same path. Adayroi is making positive initial steps as users compete to share discount codes. The characteristic of Vietnamese people is that they are not 'loyal' to any retailer or e-commerce website, they buy whoever sells cheap. But how long will Vingroup let Adayroi "sell blood", or will it have to withdraw from the e-commerce playground? However, it seems that reducing prices to gain market share is still the only solution for businesses.

Hope from Alibaba

In commerce, capital is an extremely important factor but not enough to succeed in e-commerce, but requires ideas and creativity of the business. Can Alibaba bring these things to the e-commerce playground in Vietnam after replacing Lazada? Jack Ma founded the world's largest e-commerce empire with extremely little capital, so he will most likely bring the answer to the current deadlock of Vietnamese e-commerce.

Jack Ma, China's richest billionaire, not only has a lot of money but also a lot of ideas - 2 factors that Vietnamese e-commerce is lacking...

It is a matter of consumer trust with the fear of being cheated when shopping online, the habit of paying by receiving goods first and paying later (COD - Cash on Delivery) brings many risks to businesses. Besides, there are also difficulties from suppliers, from the delivery side, from fierce competition...

Obviously, this problem is not simple at all and requires ideas and breakthrough steps. The Vietnamese e-commerce playground is probably only for the rich, but not rich in capital but rich in ideas.

Thanh Hien