Online Friday: Promoting the breakthrough of Vietnam's e-commerce

National E-commerce Week and Vietnam Online Shopping Day (Online Friday) have been around for 10 years, contributing to promoting the breakthrough of Vietnam's e-commerce.

To help readers better understand the changes in e-commerce over the past decade, Mr. Le Duc Anh - Director of the Center for Information Technology and Digital Technology, Department of E-commerce and Digital Economy (Ministry of Industry and Trade) shared about this issue with readers of Cong Thuong Newspaper.

Online Friday promotes the breakthrough of Vietnamese e-commerce

As a companion and close associate of e-commerce, the program "National E-commerce Week and Vietnam Online Shopping Day" (Online Friday), could you please share the outstanding results that this field has had on the Vietnamese digital economy in general and the movement of Vietnamese goods in particular?

The program “National E-commerce Week and Vietnam Online Shopping Day” (Online Friday) has been held annually since 2014. The program has gone through its first 10 years and is entering its 11th year. Over the implementation period, it has achieved a number of goals set by the Government.

Mr. Le Duc Anh - Director of the Center for Information Technology and Digital Technology, Department of E-commerce and Digital Economy (Ministry of Industry and Trade)

First of all, Vietnam Online Shopping Day and now National E-commerce Week have built a model to promote sustainable e-commerce. We often call it a festival for e-commerce people. This is also an opportunity for e-commerce people, businesses, organizations, and infrastructure providers to sit together to build plans and strategies for e-commerce development; at the same time, bring consumers attractive shopping opportunities.

Over the past 10 years, we have created a platform to connect businesses together. This includes connecting manufacturing businesses with infrastructure providers, connecting sellers with e-commerce platforms, creating an environment for businesses from the central government and large cities to connect with individual businesses, and connecting with localities. These are two major goals that the program has achieved.

In addition, the program also sets out the goal of promoting and building Vietnamese brands and Vietnamese products. In essence, Vietnam has many unique products, but in reality, people may not know all the products made by Vietnamese people. We hope that the program will become a destination for Vietnamese goods.

Some people say that in the development of e-commerce, Vietnamese goods seem to have not taken full advantage of the opportunities. What is your comment on this?

Talking about the concept of opportunity can be understood from many angles, however, at each time there will be different groups of businesses taking advantage of different opportunities. In the development journey of e-commerce over the past 20 years, there have always been many opportunities and each wave of e-commerce has different opportunities.

In the previous period, many Vietnamese enterprises took advantage of the e-commerce wave to develop. Specifically, many Vietnamese enterprises through e-commerce can access export markets. For example, foreign markets through social networking environments, through the Network system, LinkedIn...

Through that, many Vietnamese enterprises have foreign customer partners and they have many orders following B2B models (transactions between businesses and businesses), and we have also recorded the continuous growth of Vietnamese e-commerce over the past 20 years.

At this stage, we are entering a new phase, a new era, a time when many large Vietnamese enterprises are interested in the e-commerce market according to the B2C model (transactions between businesses and consumers).

Previously, businesses aimed at B2B, had large customers, large partners who ordered large quantities and then started distributing. However, now is the stage where the opportunity to directly approach customers is much easier than before. A traditional business in the past wanted to approach customers directly, it had to have a retail system, but now with e-commerce platforms, social networking platforms, any business can directly approach its target customers easier than ever. Therefore, we see that large manufacturing enterprises in Vietnam now have plans and strategies to approach customers.

From this strategy, in the past 2 years we have recorded many large Vietnamese enterprises such as KIDO Group, Thien Long, Bitis... Many enterprises that were famous in the market 20-30 years ago are now starting to approach online platforms with a very trendy and modern approach. This is the time that we refer to as a new opportunity in the new era.

Following the results achieved in recent years, what will be new in the Online Friday 2024 event taking place from November 25 to December 1, 2024, sir?

First, we have 60 hours of bustling shopping. During these 60 hours, we have many activities such as voucher festivals, many businesses will launch valuable vouchers for customers to use in their shopping activities.

The second activity, within the framework of 60 hours of shopping, will be accompanied by Vietnamese businesses. Vietnamese goods have potential and good quality, we must create opportunities for Vietnamese goods to be able to stand shoulder to shoulder with goods in the world. In particular, in the domestic market, we have a vibrant e-commerce market.

This year, in addition to imported products and products from foreign enterprises, we will create a mark for Vietnamese products to have an identity and image to make them more accessible to customers on online shopping days, creating an image for Vietnamese enterprises to see that they can stand shoulder to shoulder with products everywhere.

In addition, within the framework of the program, Online Shopping Day is also organized. This is also a festival for e-commerce businesses to sit together, so we will have a festival held in Hanoi, gathering over 50 brands of businesses and booths. We hope to build, connect and create an alliance to protect and develop Vietnamese goods in the online environment. In this group, there will be many businesses, infrastructure businesses such as delivery businesses, payment organizations, e-commerce platforms, etc., businesses that support Vietnamese goods on the floor.

We aim to end the 2021-2025 phase of the national trade development plan by 2025 and towards 2026-2030 we consider this the official time to promote activities to support Vietnamese goods in the online environment.

I would also like to add that the program “Vietnamese people prioritize using Vietnamese products” is meaningful and has been organized for the 15th year, with the message “Proud of Vietnamese products”. Currently, we have many quality Vietnamese products. We hope that from next year the message will be “Vietnamese people prioritize using Vietnamese products online”, with the hashtag #tuhaohangviet.

To adapt to the digital transformation era, could you please tell us about the solutions in the coming time to expand Vietnamese goods trading on e-commerce platforms, thereby helping businesses develop sustainably?

I think the first solution comes from Vietnamese businesses themselves, they need to be bold in innovation. Because certainly when going e-commerce, there will be things that are different from tradition. As shared by the large KIOD Group, in the first 3-4 months of testing very professionally, they still felt disappointed. Thus, other businesses cannot test and succeed right away. Therefore, in innovation, expanding to the e-commerce model, businesses must try and make mistakes, gradually finding the right direction, because each model will have different adaptation directions.

Besides, we are promoting "Vietnamese people prioritize using Vietnamese products", so in addition to Vietnamese products, we also expect Vietnamese enterprises to use Vietnamese service providers, to create a unified block, to be proud of Vietnamese products, and to promote Vietnamese products and services.

In addition, going back to the original point of the goods is that Vietnamese products must be good. We can sell to large customers, but after experiencing the product, they feel that it is not good and will not buy it again. Therefore, Vietnamese products must still be quality products with value.

As for the state agencies, the units that are providing infrastructure, we have also prepared solutions, first of all, a general model. We are designing and building ecosystems to support the development of Vietnamese goods. We will create markers for Vietnamese goods in the online environment, which is also a way to verify the origin to ensure that products in the online environment are associated with quality.

In addition, we also continue to support businesses with infrastructure to facilitate, helping Vietnamese businesses not only in the domestic market but also in export, creating channels that we call "highways" to bring Vietnamese goods internationally.

Thank you!

Source: https://congthuong.vn/online-friday-thuc-day-su-but-pha-cua-thuong-mai-dien-tu-viet-nam-360751.html