Vietnamnet.vn
Podcast
Most of the online trade floors, that had to leave the market, did not have many clients, while they could not collect membership fee, thus leading to the low income which could not ensure the existence of the websites.
Domestic trade floors facing big challenges
A senior executive of the Saigon Thuong Tin Merchandize Trading floor (Sacom-STE), said that the number of clients joining the trading floor has increased by 30 percent over the same period of the last year, especially in the steel sector. Meanwhile, fertilizer transactions have only attracted some 50 businesses so far, since the trading activities just kicked off in last August.
Sacom-STE plans to arrange transactions in many other fields in the time to come, instead of focusing on farm produce, seafood or industrial goods as currently.
Sacom-STE will not only connect sellers and buyers, but also plans to provide credit services to buyers. For examples, buyers will only have to pay a deposit of 30 percent of the contracts’ value; while they can borrow the other 70 percent from Sacombank which will disburse through the trading floor.
Ha Tuan Anh from Vinametal.com, a steel trading floor, said that the number of clients has increased by 50 percent over the same period of the last year, but the revenue growth rate remains very modest.
Anh said that in order to ease the current difficulties, he would still allow Vietnamese businesses to post information about merchandise prices free of charge, but may consider collecting fees from providing “hot news”, such as the information about the prices, the demand and supply of some big markets in the world, or the reports of market survey firms.
By providing hot and timely information, Vinametal hopes it can help enterprises to flexibly build up their business strategies that can satisfy the market demand and make timely decisions.
The trading floor is also considering strengthening its media activities. Especially, it plans to set up the English version of the bulletins in order to attract foreign enterprises.
Foreign run trade floors also have problems
Tran Dinh Toan, Deputy General Director of OSB, an investment and technology company, the representative of Alibaba.com in Vietnam, said that the trade floor has launched new services into the market to help import-export companies more easily find and access partners, including “sub account”, “Biz trends” or “sub webs.”
As for the “Sub account” function, besides the main account, businesses would have five auxiliary accounts which help businesses easily allocate the labor force for taking care for customers. Meanwhile, the “biz trends” function allows businesses to realize which keywords buyers usually use when searching for products. This will help exporters select suitable keywords when posting information about their products
Vu Thi Hang, Public Relations Director of Globalsources.com, said that her trading floor would step up the marketing activities in order attract more businesses that use services, usually organize trade fairs which serve as the places for Vietnamese businesses to display their goods in big import markets such as Hong Kong, India, Brazil.
The trade floor would cooperate with the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) and the HCM City Investment and Trade Promotion Center ITPC to create favorable conditions for small and medium enterprises to join the trade floor at lower expenses.
TBKTSG
.svg){kind=icon}
