Vietnamese spend US$1.3B on Shopee, Lazada, TikTok, Tiki

EcomHeat, which is provided by the e-commerce intelligence solution company YouNetECI, compiles, processes, and analyzes data from 2.6 million online sellers across the four aforementioned major e-commerce platforms.

It found that 405,000 sellers received new orders over the month thanks to multiple promotional events, most notably the Singles’ Day super-sale centered around November 11.

In terms of market share, Shopee took the lead with 72.7%, equivalent to VND22.7 trillion, followed by TikTok Shop and Lazada at 17.2% and 9%, respectively. That left Tiki at the bottom with a market share of only 1.1%.

Shopee also surpassed all other sites in all categories of products by a large margin.

Lazada experienced large sales of high-value technology products like household appliances and electronic devices.

Sales of these products, which totaled VND385 billion in value, contributed the most to Lazada’s revenue in November.

Meanwhile, people usually turn to TikTok Shop for low-value products like cheap clothes, accessories, cosmetics, and food and beverages.

Due to this, the average value of products sold on TikTok Shop was the lowest, at only VND108,000, while the figure on Shopee was VND116,000, and VND162,000 on Lazada.

The two most common tactics used by all four platforms to attract buyers in November were livestreaming and affiliate marketing.

During Shopee’s Singles’ Day super-sale, which ran from October 20 to November 15, livestreams on the site received a total of 722 million interactions and 603 views, according to data from EcomHeat.

On the single day that offered the most promotions, November 11, the number of stream viewers on Shopee was estimated at 11 times the normal figure, with the average seller livestreaming for seven hours.

Sales through Shopee Live, the platform’s livestreaming channel, jumped 44 times that day.

Tran Tuan Anh, CEO of Shopee Vietnam, said revenue from the event was proof that investing in livestreaming was the correct strategy. Livestreaming was also the key focus of TikTokShop.

According to its report for the first half of 2023, the number of livestreaming sellers and content creators on the platform grew 210% and 330%, respectively.

Affiliate marketing is a model in which the marketers, usually key opinion leaders (KOL) and key opinion customers (KOL), promote products and share a link to the seller’s webpage on their social network sites, and get a commission whenever a consumer buys the products.

Shopee says this is one of its most effective tools to boost sales during promotional campaigns.

For example, on November 11, the number of KOLs active on the site increased by 79 times.

In a survey conducted as part of the Green Shoots Radar study by payment services provider Visa, 59% of Vietnamese consumers said the last few months of the year was usually the best time to buy expensive products like furniture, household appliances and electronic devices.

The survey also demonstrated that 75% of local consumers in Vietnam were optimistic about the country’s economic growth.

Hence, 55% of Vietnamese consumers said they would spend even more money in 2024.

However, a large portion of Vietnamese consumers will still put more money into savings, with 43% of the participants who prioritized savings said they would save 10-29% of their income.