Online purchasing power stable: Lazada CEO

At a forum held earlier this month in Singapore, James Dong, CEO of online trading platform Lazada, said Vietnamese still actively engage in online shopping because the local economy is developing soundly.

A survey conducted among 134,000 consumers from 13 markets released in July by Japanese market research firm Rakuten Insight Global showed that 47% of Vietnamese online shoppers said they bought more goods in the last three months, while 32% said they their current online spending was similar to last year.

Facing higher inflation, consumers are opting for products with lower prices or packed in smaller bags or boxes, or buy goods in combo to enjoy discounts, Dong said.

Shifting from offline to online shopping is not short-lived amid Covid-19 outbreaks, but has partly become a long-term habit, he added. For years, online trading platforms have spent big on creating the habit among consumers.

Now, the four biggest online trading platforms in Vietnam, namely Shopee, Lazada, Tiki and Sendo, are competing for higher rankings. In April, a new player named TikTok Shop entered the Vietnamese e-commerce market.

Social media companies will enter e-commerce markets sooner or later, Dong stated, noting that in the early stage, they would focus on goods that easily attract consumers like fashion and cosmetics items.

Vietnam’s e-commerce market is currently worth $13 billion a year, and would increase to $39 billion by 2025, surpassing Thailand to become Southeast Asia’s second biggest market after Indonesia, a recent report by Google, Temasek and Bain & Co report titled ‘e-Economy SEA 2021,’ said.