The US e-commerce giant Amazon officially entered the Vietnamese market in March 2018. (Photo: VOV)

Consumers’ shopping habits are changing, and sellers’ habits must change in response. Doing exports online is no longer an alternative but the dominant mode.

Vu Tien Loc, President of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, says that in the past, import and export activities were only for large businesses with large financial resources.

Now e-commerce and cross-border e-commerce offer new opportunities for micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises to be involved in global trade.

“E-commerce realizes a borderless commerce in all aspects of time, space and society. For example, with e-commerce Vietnamese families can buy apples from an orchard abroad and families in other countries can order fresh flowers grown by a household business in Da Lat. Direct interaction between producers and consumers is becoming a clear trend,” said Loc.

Nguyen Xuan Hung, Managing Director of the Fado Vietnam Company and iexport.vn, a global trading platform, said that to take advantage of e-commerce’s opportunities, Vietnamese individuals and businesses, especially SMEs, need to invest in human resources, improve foreign language skills, and become familiar with e-commerce regulations.

“In recent years, the State has offered more support. Businesses have begun to pay more attention to their websites and invest more in their product image and technical parameters and standards. Businesses can take online orders and find partners online, but need to meet certain conditions of logistics and payment. These are challenges for Vietnamese businesses.”

Nguyen Trung Thuc, Chairman of the Vietnam-Germany Association for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises, says that many domestic SMEs are missing global trade and branding opportunities because they haven’t made sufficient investment in e-commerce.

“E-commerce is a trend. It makes goods and services available around the world with the fastest speed, the lowest cost, and the highest profit. More than 40% of Vietnamese SMEs use e-commerce, but only 10.15% of their transactions are successful. The method needs to be better understood before enterprises can fully reap its benefits. More service providers and website designers are needed,” said Thuc.

Cao Quoc Hung, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade, said his Ministry has found ways to help entrepreneurs and SMEs boost their cross-border online sales, including training courses and export promotion programs that use the e-commerce platforms of Amazon and Alibaba.

“The Ministry has adopted necessary policies and held more dialogues with  the business community, particularly importers and exporters, to address their problems. We will continue to develop more public online services. Businesses are encouraged to study trends and models and prepare the necessary resources to join the national transformation to digital export,” said Hung.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade has launched an export support platform called ECVN 2020 to help businesses trade online, solve problems caused by the coronavirus pandemic, and seize opportunities created by FTAs.