According to Metric, a major e-commerce data company in Vietnam, the country's e-commerce market continued strong growth in the first nine months, with total revenue reaching $9.5 billion, up 37.7 per cent on-year.

TikTok Shop and Shopee were the two e-commerce platforms, recording growth of 110.6 per cent and 11.3 per cent in revenue, respectively. Tiki was also a surprising bright spot in the past quarter. After recording negative growth compared to 2023, Tiki showed a 38.1 per cent increase compared to Q2.

Photo: baodautu.vn

One of the market's notable highlights in Q3 was the strong rise of products in the low-price segment. Products priced under $8 accounted for more than half of total market revenue, with a 9 per cent increase in market share compared to last year. The under-$4 segment recorded a 5 per cent market share increase, while the $4-8 segment grew by 4 per cent.

In Q3, Vietnam's e-commerce market continued to see strong development in key categories such as beauty, men's footwear, and fashion accessories. Metric forecasts that the beauty industry will see strong growth in Q4, as Lunar New Year comes earlier than usual.

Additionally, Metric noted that Chinese e-commerce platforms are making moves to expand into the Vietnamese market. Specifically, Temu has recently entered the market, while the 1688 e-commerce app's iOS version now supports Vietnamese language. Taobao - Alibaba's e-commerce platform, although not yet supporting Vietnamese, now allows shipping to Vietnamese addresses.

"These moves further increase competitive pressure in the domestic market, which was already dominated by foreign platforms like Shopee, Lazada, and TikTok Shop," Metric assessed.

According to Dantri.vn, Pham Bao Trung, customer growth solutions advisor at Metric, suggested that in this competitive context, Vietnamese sellers need to quickly adjust their business strategies by focusing on brand building, enhancing product value, and improving customer service to create differentiation. Additionally, they need to utilise data and analytics from platforms to monitor market trends, understand customer needs, and flexibly respond to changes in the competitive environment.

"In summary, as Chinese goods increasingly flood into Vietnam, Vietnamese businesses need to not only optimise internal operations but also know how to leverage opportunities from global trends for sustainable development," Trung said.

Nguyen Binh Minh, member of the Executive Committee of the Vietnam E-commerce Association, believed that market competition is very normal. He said tha Vietnamese businesses have certain advantages on home turf to compete with Chinese goods, such as better understanding of the domestic market and consumer preferences, higher reliability, and potentially better product quality.

"Vietnamese businesses need to focus on brand building, promote the “Vietnamese people use Vietnamese goods” strategy, delve into product quality, focus on new technology, and upgrade services to serve customers faster and more effectively. This is a major pressure but also a motivation to help businesses improve their service capabilities," Minh said.