Why does e-commerce expose many weaknesses?

The incomplete legal environment, weak and insufficient policies and conditions to support the development of electronic payment services, cash payment habits... are the shortcomings that cause e-commerce in Vietnam to develop inconsistently with its potential.

Online shopping is a world trend and is growing strongly.

According to Dr. Nguyen Thi Nhieu - Institute of Trade Research (Ministry of Industry and Trade), e-commerce in Vietnam has developed quite strongly recently, but due to many reasons, both objective and subjective, the development of e-commerce is not commensurate with its potential and advantages, affecting the development of e-commerce in particular and socio-economic development in general. Currently, domestic cash management costs are still a burden for the economy.

E-commerce in Vietnam is forecasted to have great potential and will develop very quickly in the near future because Vietnam has a high proportion of young population, the rate of mobile phone usage and internet access is increasing rapidly along with a good and constantly improving technology infrastructure.

According to the Vietnam E-commerce Report 2015 of the Department of E-commerce and Information Technology, the scale of B2C e-commerce in Vietnam reached about 4.07 billion USD in sales, an increase of 37% compared to 2014, accounting for about 2.8% of the total retail sales of goods and consumer service revenue nationwide. The purchase value of an online shopper in the year is estimated at 160 USD.

E-commerce in Vietnam is forecasted to have great potential and will develop very quickly in the near future because Vietnam has a high proportion of young population, and the rate of mobile phone usage and internet access is increasing rapidly.

The majority of online shoppers still choose cash payment with 91%, followed by 48% using bank transfer, 20% of e-commerce participants use payment cards.

Regarding the development of e-commerce services, despite the rapid growth in recent times, e-commerce in Vietnam is still in its potential form, far behind many countries in the region and in the world. According to Visanet - e-commerce network - Vietnam's e-commerce index in 2015 was 37%, this index is equivalent to Thailand's, lower than many countries in the region such as Indonesia (45%) or Malaysia (47%) and much lower than countries with high e-commerce index in Asia such as Singapore (55%), China (60%) or Korea (70%)...

According to Dr. Nguyen Thi Nhieu, the development of e-commerce services in Vietnam is also facing many challenges and major barriers, the legal environment is not yet complete, adequate and synchronous, policies and conditions to support the development of e-commerce services are still weak and lacking, the level of economic and social development is still low, the level of technology is still limited, the habit of paying in cash and the lack of trust of society in e-commerce...

From the research experience of three selected countries, China, Korea, Thailand and based on the current development practice of e-commerce and e-information in Vietnam, Dr. Nhieu recommends that it is necessary to clearly recognize the important and decisive role of the government in the development of e-information services of a country.

Second, Vietnam needs to continue to supplement and complete the legal framework and policy mechanisms for the development of e-commerce. In particular, a clear and transparent legal framework and reasonable supervision by the State Bank of Vietnam over the e-commerce system will be an important factor in enhancing the trust of users and businesses in the e-commerce system.

Third, it is necessary to strengthen coordination and cooperation in policies for developing e-commerce services domestically and internationally, internationally and interdisciplinary. This stems from the fact that e-commerce is a payment method for all goods and services bought and sold over the internet, involving a global customer network.

Fourth, the Government needs to invest directly and have policies to continue to encourage and attract social and private investment to develop technical infrastructure for e-commerce.

Fifth, the Government has policies to encourage the development of potential markets for applying e-commerce such as the transportation market: highway systems, subways, elevated railways, public transportation systems, etc.

Sixth, strengthen network security, confidentiality and information safety of electronic information.

Finally, but indispensable is to promote communication and education activities, increase promotion, propaganda, and disseminate instructions throughout society so that e-commerce becomes a familiar means of payment for people and train and develop human resources to meet the requirements of e-commerce service development.

According to Labor