Nearly 80% of online shoppers are office clerks

The survey of online shoppers in four major cities, Hanoi, HCMC, Da Nang, and Hai Phong, in 2023 found most of them to be young — average age 31 — 58% to be women, 83% having a university degree or higher, and 12% to be freelancers.

Around 68% have a household income of over VND15 million (US$600) a month.

Shoppertainment, or shopping combined with entertainment, typically livestreaming on e-commerce floors, has been the trend recently, attracting many users.

Some 64% of respondents said they make “unconscious” purchases while watching livestreams, especially during highly entertaining sessions.

The digital economy can be considered one of the country’s main growth drivers, with e-commerce being one of the largest segments, Le Minh Trang of Nielsen Vietnam said at an e-commerce event organized by TikTok last weekend in Hanoi.

The e-commerce retail market grew by 16-25% a year from 2018 to 2023, reaching an estimated US$20.5 billion last year.

At the e-commerce event, a TikTok Vietnam manager said shoppertainment, along with short videos, has impacted users’ purchasing behavior.

According to TikTok’s statistics, there are more than 2.8 million micro, small and medium-sized businesses in the country operating on its platform.

The convenience of shopping and the variety of products facilitate online shopping, but Vietnamese users still have many concerns, especially about product quality.

Some 84% of people surveyed were concerned about the quality of goods as well as the inability to check the goods, 68% were concerned about delivery factors such as high costs and long time, and 59% said they do not trust online sellers or have had a bad experience.