E commerce site

The Hanoitimes – This is part of a project supporting sustainable dragon fruit development and e-commerce in Binh Thuan.

A three-week campaign to assist Vietnamese farmers in the northern province of Binh Thuan in using live stream for selling clean dragon fruits will be launched by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), in collaboration with the Vietnam E-Commerce Association (Vecom) and the Binh Thuan Agricultural Extension Center.

UNDP assists Vietnamese farmers to sell on e-commerce sites.

This is part of a project supporting sustainable dragon fruit farming and e-commerce in Binh Thuan.

The pilot campaign will help the farmers access new markets, improve transparency in the dragon fruit supply chain as well as increasing consumer awareness of the sustainable ago-industry and the quality of green and clean products.

The campaign aims to improve the livelihoods of farmers as well as dragon fruit cooperatives that have been severely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic and lost income due to significant disruptions in the global value chain.

“The Covid pandemic has significantly plunged the purchasing power. We want to support the farmers to sell high quality products, thereby helping them stabilize their life,” Bui Viet Hien, Program Officer at UNDP Vietnam said.

Mr. Hien said the results from the pilot campaign will be carefully evaluated by other cooperatives of Binh Thuan province to expand the model into other areas, as part of a plan to support the dragon fruit supply chain in the province.

The pilot campaign will be implemented in three cooperatives of Hoa Le, Thuan Hoa and Ham Minh 30 until February 28. These cooperatives have met criteria including green and sustainable production, and their products have been certified according to VietGAP and Global GAP standards.

In addition to the training course on live streaming and e-commerce, the three cooperatives will be mentored by Vecom’s experts in building promotion activities on social networks, websites and sales on e-commerce sites, thereby helping the cooperatives step by step actively expand their sales channels.

This activity is part of a three-year project between UNDP and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to promote the role of the private sector in implementing priority measures for agriculture under the Nationally Determination Contributions (NDCs) of Vietnam. The project is part of UNDP’s Support Program on NDC funded by the European Union and the German government.

Greenjoy, a local startup specialised in grass-based straws has been using Amazon’s and Alibaba’s sites as effective tools to approach overseas markets for more than a year now. Straws from Greenjoy are present in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Cambodia, and Europe.

The go-global strategy through e-commerce platforms has greatly profited the company. “To date, Europe is occupying about 60 per cent of our outputs,” Nguyen Vo, co-founder of Greenjoy, told VIR.

“Thanks to cross-border e-commerce, we have quickly shifted to markets such as Japan and South Korea, and the number of orders from these countries remains stable since the third quarter 2020,” Vo added.

In addition to Amazon and Alibaba, Greenjoy diversified its sales channels through Tiki, Lazada, and Shopee which have also promoted cross-border trading.

According to Tiki, the growing local demand for overseas purchases is the main reason behind its decision to penetrate cross-border trade through its Tiki Global site.

Along with Tiki, smaller platforms such as Fado and newcomers Phong Duy and 1Ship have also targeted cross-border trade as the business form from their very beginning.

Positive prospects

From the end of last year, payment providers like Payoneer, an American financial services company that provides online money transfer, digital payment services and provides customers with working capital, have been organising several workshops aimed at informing and connecting local vendors as they feel the time has come to penetrate the market through cross-border trade on sites like Alibaba and Amazon.

Tran Xuan Thuy, director of Amazon Global Selling Vietnam, said that cross-border e-commerce will keep developing from the end of 2020. “The growth rate of cross-border e-commerce will be much larger than local e-commerce in certain markets,” Thuy said.

Thuy projected that the current global value of cross-border e-commerce of around $900 billion will keep extending thanks to favourable conditions. With international e-commerce growing, smaller players like Greenjoy may also be able to profit and extend their business.

New international trade deals, such as the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership – which both came into effect for Vietnam – formed a solid base for local importers and exporters. About 32 per cent of domestic companies have established business relations with foreign partners through online platforms, according to information published by Alibaba at a seminar on cross-border trade last October.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade’s (MoIT) e-Commerce and Digital Economy Agency (iDEA), the pandemic has leveraged the annual growth rate of Vietnam’s e-commerce sector to 35 per cent, 2.5 times against Japan’s, and its scale is forecast to reach $33 billion in 2025, ranking third in the region, only behind Indonesia and Thailand.

The agency’s recent survey with 4,000 participating businesses also showed that most of them are using the internet for parts of their business, with about 70 per cent of them being small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

More than half of the remaining 30 per cent constituting larger enterprises participate in e-commerce platforms, while the rate for SMEs stood at about 36 per cent. In addition, about 42 per cent of businesses with online sales activities claimed that their online sales make up about 50 per cent of total revenue.

With cross-border e-commerce growing in popularity, domestic import-export could expand. According to the General Statistic Office, the total import-export turnover of the country reached $544 billion last year with a trade surplus of $19 billion, the highest level over the past five years.

Right time to enter

“Through cross-border platforms, businesses can approach new markets and integrate into global supply chains with reasonable operation costs,” said Dang Hoang Hai, director of the iDEA.

However, Nguyen Hoa Binh, chairman of technology developer Nexttech, said that reaching global markets requires the right blueprint. “A slew of larger Vietnamese businesses have been inferior to overseas medium-sized competitors, just because of their strategy.”

Binh referred to the example of VNG and its competitor Garena under Singaporean SEA Group in the gaming sector. For about a decade, both companies have been the biggest competitors to each other in the local market. Currently, the total business value of local unicorn VNG is assessed at over $2 billion, while Garena’s value amounts to up to $100 billion.

“Garena went global as soon as it entered the gaming market, while VNG initially focused on the local sphere, which is the main reason for the disparity,” Binh said.

Similarly, many local businesses from other sectors are also facing the risk of losing the upper hand to overseas players. Hai therefore argued, “this time should be the most appropriate to map out a strategy and make use of the favourable conditions for cross-border e-commerce development. Vietnamese companies should quickly grasp the opportunities to keep the initiative in the market.”

Most e-commerce platforms in Vietnam have been backed by overseas investors from China, Singapore, and Japan, among others. As a result, Vietnamese goods may potentially lose market share on those platforms.

In comparison with other retail business models, supervision on e-commerce sites has been less tight. Perceiving the issue, the MoIT last year published a draft amendment for Decree No.52/2013/ND-CP from 2013 on e-commerce.

The draft decree outlines the responsibilities of operators of e-commerce platforms regardless of where overseas vendors operate from. Accordingly, these operators are obliged to gather and filter information about international vendors to ensure they can be held liable for their trade activities on the platform.

The draft is currently awaiting comments from related agencies before being finalised and enacted, which typically takes a few months.

The acquisition follows the establishment of LOGOS Vietnam Logistics Venture last month, which has an initial forecast portfolio of approximately $350 million by gross asset value.

Glenn Hughes, head of Vietnam, said that the company is pleased to have acquired its first development site, having spent the last two years assessing the local market .

“Our decision to invest in Vietnam Singapore Industrial Park (VSIP) Bac Ninh Phase 1 was reinforced by major occupiers having existing facilities in the park, including FM Logistic, Emergent Cold, LinFox, and DB Schenker,” Hughes said.

He believed the property is well suited to service the growing demand from international and local logistics operators within the greater Hanoi region and is confident that the company can set a new benchmark for the Vietnamese logistics market in terms of high-quality logistics buildings to meet this demand.

Located in VSIP in Bac Ninh province, the site offers immediate access to National Highway 1A and surrounding transport networks, and is 35 minutes from the Hanoi Central Business District and Nopi Bai International Airport, and 1.5 hours from Haiphong seaport.

The site is considered one of the key logistics locations in Hanoi and is strategically positioned for LOGOS’ customers.

Subject to relevant planning approvals, LOGOS proposes to develop the site on both a speculative and build-to-suit basis, delivering up to 80,000 square metres of high specification logistics facilities.

On completion, LOGOS Bac Ninh Logistics Estate will have an estimated end value of circa $70 million.

LOGOS is currently in discussion with a number of existing and new customers regarding this property.

The Vietnamese logistics market continues to experience strong growth driven by global trade wars, decentralisation of supply chains, and the natural evolution of the market.

Vietnam has led a successful response to the COVID-19 pandemic and is well-positioned to rebound for further growth. Occupier demand, driven by e-commerce and third-party logistics operators, remains solid as occupiers are starved of suitable logistics facilities to sustain the growth of their business operations. LOGOS’ Asia-Pacific portfolio comprises of 100 logistics estates across nine countries with assets under management of approximately $9.5 billion.

LOGOS counts some of the world’s largest fund managers as its shareholders, including ARA Asset Management, a leading Asia-Pacific real assets fund manager with a global reach, which took a majority stake in the company in March 2020.

GoStream will use the new tremendous funding to expand operations

GoStream was founded in 2017 by three seasoned engineers with track records in digital enablement. GoStream is an easy-to-use platform for any type of user, even for those with little or no technical knowledge. It enables users to reach a larger audience from different platforms to increase visibility and get more views. Currently, the company is serving multiple corporate clients and facilitating over 100,000 livestreaming sessions daily.

GoStream is dedicated to providing an interactive experience that encourages viewer participation in live videos. This increases viewer engagement and contributes to the building of a larger and more loyal community that follows a user’s content.

Marketwise, social networks are recognised as the next most common channel for online shopping in Vietnam, just behind e-commerce sites. According to PwC Social Surveys, Vietnam ranked seventh in the world in the number of Facebook users (68 million) which accounted for 68.7 per cent of the country’s entire population. In 2020, Vietnam’s “digital economy” reached $14 billion and is expected to grow to $52 billion in 2025, according to a recent report by Google, Bain & Company, and Temasek.

Trung D. Hoang, partner at VinaCapital Ventures, commented, “We are excited to invest in GoStream, which has been leading the way in integrating livestreaming across a number of sectors. Their innovative streaming technology is helping more businesses reach more viewers and customers, and we look forward to working with them as they further expand their capabilities and play an even greater role in Vietnam’s growing digitalisation.”

In November 2020, GoStudio – a product of GoStream Technology JSC – won first prize at Vietnam Techfest 2020. The contest’s organising committee recognised the product’s ease-of-use and adaptability to a range of online channels, including social commerce (livestream commerce), online training (e-learning), online entertainment (live gameshows). This became especially important as the COVID-19 pandemic swept the world. GoStudio does not require software downloading or installation and it is stable and compatible with popular web browsers, enabling more users to apply livestreaming across various sectors.