Cheap Chinese goods are about to flood into Vietnam?

(Dan Tri) - Supporting Vietnamese and offering free shipping are new moves by Alibaba - the Chinese e-commerce giant - to help sellers access the Asian market, including Vietnam.

Faced with a fierce "war" in the domestic market, Chinese e-commerce companies have begun to expand their market share to foreign markets with many attractive services. Recently, 1688.com - a Chinese wholesale platform belonging to Alibaba Group, mainly serving the domestic market, has suddenly added Vietnamese language on the iOS version and supports delivery to users' addresses in Vietnam. Previously, this application was only available in Chinese. Accordingly, when accessing the application, Vietnamese users can see interfaces such as payment, shipping, return... are displayed in Vietnamese. Notably, this e-commerce platform also created a Vietnamese WhatsApp group to support and update new features. With this change, Vietnamese people can choose and make purchases similar to when using other e-commerce applications. In addition, this platform also supports international cards, in addition to the domestic Chinese wallet channel Alipay.

1688 application on iOS suddenly has a Vietnamese version (Photo: Minh Huyen).

In addition, many shipping instructions are also displayed in Vietnamese alongside Chinese. However, the Vietnamese content is only limited to a small part, when selecting a product, the application will still switch to Chinese, causing difficulties for Vietnamese users. Previously, since August, Taobao - Alibaba's e-commerce platform - has also launched a free international shipping program for fashion products. These are the latest moves by the online retail giant Taobao to combat fierce competition from rivals such as Temu and Shein. This program is only applicable to users in Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao (China). Sellers will only need to ship goods to Taobao's designated warehouse in China and Alibaba's logistics department, Cainiao, will handle most of the remaining process. Specifically, in Hong Kong (China), Taobao will deliver free of charge to customers with a minimum order of 99 yuan (CNY), equivalent to 14.1 USD from October 1. Including all items such as clothing accessories, electronics, sportswear, cosmetics..., according to Yicai. In Singapore, Taobao has also launched an English interface on iOS and Android versions to serve users in this country. Singapore is the second market that the online retail giant Taobao has applied after the neighboring market of Malaysia.

Taobao app in Malaysia has had an English version since mid-September (Photo: Vulcan Post).

In Vietnam, the Taobao application does not support Vietnamese, but it allows shipping to users' addresses in Vietnam. Regarding shipping costs, the online retail giant applies a free domestic shipping policy and charges a fee for shipping to Vietnam. Specifically, an order placed on the application will be shipped to Taobao's warehouse, this shipping process will be free of charge. Then, the goods from the warehouse will be shipped to Vietnam, during which the buyer will have to pay the shipping fee. For example, an order costing 39.9 yuan, equivalent to more than 140,000 VND, will cost an additional 8 yuan, equivalent to 28,000 VND for shipping to Vietnam. In addition, the purchasing process on the Taobao e-commerce site is quite complicated, especially in the payment stage. Many customers believe that it is very risky for buyers to pay in advance, especially when buying goods from abroad. In many cases, goods have been lost or the wrong model has been delivered. Recently, YouTube and Shopee announced a strategic partnership, aiming to directly compete with the "giant" TikTok. Users can buy products appearing on YouTube through links to Shopee. The two platforms are expected to expand their services to Thailand and Vietnam. Currently, YouTube Shopping is available in Korea and the US. In Vietnam, the e-commerce race is witnessing fierce competition between 4 "giants" including Shopee, TikTok Shop, Lazada and Tiki. According to Metric data, in the second quarter, the Shopee platform continued to lead with revenue of VND 53,740 billion, accounting for 67.9% of the market share. Ranked second is TikTok Shop with VND 18,360 billion, accounting for 23.2% of the market share. Lazada and Tiki respectively reached 6,030 billion VND (7.6% market share) and more than 997 billion VND (1.3% market share).

Dantri.com.vn

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/kinh-doanh/hang-gia-re-trung-quoc-sap-tran-ve-viet-nam-20241003020933603.htm