Amazon has established a subsidiary in Vietnam, Amazon Selling Vietnam’s CEO Tran Xuan Thuy told media at the recent Vietnam Online Marketing Forum.

This was the first official announcement of the subsidiary.

Amazon officially entered the Vietnamese market in March last year. The US e-commerce giant has cooperated with the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) on many programmes to enable local businesses to sell goods on its platform to expand their export potential.

Amazon’s representative said the company had long encouraged individuals to sell goods on the marketplace but now the trend was changing. Amazon was gearing up to help small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) do business on its e-commerce platform.

“Currently, about 50 percent of Amazon’s sales come from enterprises and individuals account for another 50 percent," Thuy was quoted as saying by ttvn.vn. "I think the proportion of individual sales will continue declining in the coming year."

He said companies had advantages over individuals in product quality and price as well as professional sales programmes.

Before working for Amazon Vietnam, Thuy spent eight years with Alibaba Group in the position of Country Manager. According to his description on Linkedln, he also served as vice president in charge of seller operation for Lazada Group for more than one year.

Alibaba and Amazon, both e-commerce giants, are taking steps to attract Vietnamese businesses to their platforms. Experts have said e-commerce is an effective channel to help Vietnamese SMEs export their goods.

Vietnam’s trade office in Houston, the United States, has provided detailed instruction for Vietnamese SMEs on how to take advantage of e-commerce to increase exports to the US.

According to data provided by the trade office, US customers spent 517.3 billion USD online in 2018, with the number continuing to rise every year.