VietNamNet Bridge - Amazon is pursuing a two-step strategy to enter the Vietnamese e-commerce market. 

Amazon is about to arrive in Vietnam

According to the chair of VECOM (Vietnam E-commerce Association) Nguyen Thanh Hung, the association met a representative of Amazon last week. Hung said Amazon’s strategy is to export goods across borders and import goods from Vietnam.

“Consumers want to buy goods on Amazon. Amazon is also considering selling Vietnam’s goods. They want to help Vietnam’s small and medium enterprises export products through Amazon,” Hung said, characterizing this as a “wonderful thing”.  

Chinese billionaire Jack Ma said Alibaba considers Vietnam an important market. Just half a year ago, Alibaba had one exclusive agent, but now has several agents. 

Tens of thousands of Vietnamese businesses are Alibaba members, including several thousand golden members.

Alibaba has taken over Lazada, a move that allowed it to penetrate more deeply into Vietnam’s e-commerce and bring products directly to Vietnamese consumers through the B2C (business to consumer) model.

Hung commented that participation of foreign enterprises, especially Lazada, has made the market hotter than ever. 

Lazada, together with Alibaba, with strength in sources of goods, financial capability and experience, has great opportunities to become the No 1 e-commerce floor in Vietnam.

Tens of thousands of Vietnamese businesses are Alibaba members, including several thousand golden members.

Vietnamese e-commerce firms are not afraid of the competition. 

“There’s nothing to worry about if we have giant rivals like Amazon or Alibaba,” said Tran Ngoc Thai Son, CEO of Tiki, a Vietnamese e-commerce firm.

“There is no permanent enemy. Someone who competes with you today may become your partner tomorrow,” he said.

Son believes that it is the appearance of giant rivals which prompted large investment funds to come to Vietnam and pour money into Vietnamese e-commerce firms. 

Tiki has been developing well amid Alibaba’s purchase of Lazada.

Nguyen Thi Hanh from Sen Do Technology JSC said the company doesn’t consider anyone as a rival because the e-commerce market is still very large.

According to Hanh, revenue from B2C e-commerce in 2016 was $5 billion, or 3 percent of total retail revenue. 

“Competition will occur when the market develops to a certain level. In other countries, competition breaks out when e-commerce revenue reaches 10-20 percent of total retail revenue. But Vietnam is still far from that figure,” she said.

Vietnam e-commerce is among the fastest growing globally, according to a report released by Kantar Worldpanel. The percentage of e-commerce shoppers grew from 5.4 percent to 8.8 per cent in four cities in the last year alone.