E-commerce grew by 25 percent in 2017

The Vietnam E-commerce Association (Vecom) said that e-commerce grew by 25 percent in 2017 compared with the year before, and the same growth rate is predicted for 2018 and upcoming years.

As for online retail, the revenue in 2017 grew by 35 percent. A survey of leading forwarding service companies found surprisingly high growth rates of 62-200 percent in the sector.

Analysts say that e-commerce is witnessing a boom in Vietnam. Khoa from Nielsen Vietnam, a market analysis firm, said at Vietnam Web Summit 2018 that the trend of buying goods online was the biggest change in consumers’ behavior in the last few years. Vietnamese buy goods online at least once a month.

At least 37 percent of consumers shop via smartphones and 41 percent use smartphones to scan QR to check product information. 

Vu Kim Oanh, CEO of Omega Media Worldwide, said the total expenditures on ads in Vietnam has increased by 2-3 times, reaching $2.98 billion. Of this, the revenue from ads on the internet was $872 million, amounting to 29 percent of total spending on ads, while the figure was 3-5 percent only 10 years ago.

Meanwhile, a local newspaper quoted its sources as reporting that businesses’ budgets for online advertising are exceeding the budget allocated for TV commercials or billboards.

Social networks are the ad channel most favored by advertisers because of a high number of users. In Vietnam, 55 million users have active social network accounts. Previously, users were aged 18-35, but now, are of different ages. 

The Vietnam E-commerce Index Report 2018 showed that 39 percent of businesses prefer online sales via social networks, the highest level compared with other online channels. Sales via businesses’ websites make up 35 percent.

However, while online ads bring benefits to many people, they also cause inconveniences to others. 

Nguyen Quoc Trung, who has been using Facebook for many years, said he feels increasingly bothered when using the social network.

“I use Facebook because I want to update information from my friends and relatives. But ads are now everywhere,” he said, adding that ad block tools do not help much.

“The appearance of ads everywhere and anytime may bring adverse effects. People will ignore all ads,” he warned.

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