E-commerce still the brightest economic sector

Vecom estimated that last year, the retail e-commerce transaction scale comprised about 8.5 per cent of the total retail sales of consumer goods and services of VNĐ5,680 trillion ($240.5 billion).

E-commerce will remain the fastest growing and most stable economic sector this year, according to the Việt Nam Online Business Forum 2023 in Hà Nội on Tuesday.

During the event, the Việt Nam E-commerce Association (Vecom) highlighted that global and domestic economic challenges had adversely impacted trade.

Nonetheless, maintaining the momentum from the two previous waves of growth, Vecom has predicted that e-commerce in our country will still grow at a rate of more than 25 per cent, reaching a scale of over US$20 billion.

Vecom estimated that last year, the retail e-commerce transaction scale comprised about 8.5 per cent of the total retail sales of consumer goods and services of VNĐ5,680 trillion ($240.5 billion).

Regarding retailing of goods alone, the proportion of online retail sales of goods compared to the total retail sales of goods was about 7.2 per cent last year, higher than the corresponding rate of 6.7 per cent in 2021.

According to the General Statistics Office, the national gross domestic product increased by 3.3 per cent in the first three months of this year over the same period last year.

The total retail sales of consumer goods and services were estimated at VNĐ1,505.3 trillion, up 13.9 per cent over the same period last year. If excluding the price factor, it rose by 10.3 per cent.

The two fastest-growing service sectors are accommodation and food services, up 26.0 per cent, and wholesale and retail, up 8.1 per cent.

The economy's great difficulties from mid-2022 have extended to the first quarter and possibly until the end of this year.

Vecom assessed that e-commerce grew by over 22 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter and could still reach over 25 per cent for the whole year.

Nguyễn Ngọc Dũng, Vecom Chairman, said that in the context of businesses facing difficulties due to the economic recession and difficulties in accessing credit capital, it was urgent to provide smart financial solutions to help businesses make better use of the capital of financial institutions.

In the context that our country's e-commerce still accounts for a small scale, about 8.5 per cent of total retail sales of consumer goods and services, efforts to bring more Vietnamese goods and products, including seafood, that could be listed on e-commerce platforms, were very important, he added.

Business on social networks about to surpass e-commerce floors

More and more businesses were choosing to do business on social networks, especially TikTok Shop, reported Vecom.

In terms of e-commerce business activities of e-commerce floors and social networks, a survey by Vecom shows that up to 65 per cent of businesses have implemented business activities on social networks.

The number of employees at enterprises who regularly use tools such as Zalo, Whatsapp, Viber, and Facebook Messenger has continuously grown.

Selling on social networks is also considered the most effective, surpassing other forms such as websites or business applications, as well as e-commerce.

A representative of Vecom said that the most prominent among social networks was the birth and strong growth of TikTok Shop.

Doing business on this platform had great appeal to many traders across the country, said the representative.

Besides, business activities on e-commerce floors continued to grow steadily. According to a survey by Vecom, 23 per cent of businesses sold products on e-commerce floors last year.

According to Data Science Joint Stock Company, the total sales of the top four e-commerce platforms, along with Tiktok Shop, amounted to about $6 billion.

Shopee and Lazada are the two largest e-commerce platforms.

Although only operating since mid-2022, Tiktok Shop has become the third largest retail e-commerce platform in Việt Nam.