In early May, a ‘Ben Tre space’ appeared at The Garden Mall in district 5, HCMC, where specialty products from the ‘land of coconuts’ were displayed.

“This is the first offline activity which paves the way for us to bring Ben Tre farm produce to the market through e-commerce,” said Le Van Khe, director of the Ben Tre Industry and Trade Department.

According to Khe, there is high demand for local specialty products, but the products are still distributed through traditional distribution channels. If they can distribute via online, this would increase the number of clients.

A report shows that that 64 million people in the country now access the internet and the figure has been increasing rapidly. In such a context, if sellers cannot take full advantage of online distribution channels, they will have lose opportunities.

The latest report of the Vietnam E-commerce Association (Vecom) showed that 70 percent of online transactions are carried out in large cities, mostly in HCMC and Hanoi, while 30 percent are done in rural areas.

Vu Quoc Tuan, Government Affairs Director of Lazada Vietnam, said this is a big gap but a great opportunity.

In 2016, Alibaba decided to spend 10 billion yuan to cover rural areas with e-commerce. It set up Cainiao, a logistics platform which allows orders in rural areas to be implemented smoothly. The strategy turned Chinese rural areas into a fertile land for e-commerce.

In Vietnam, Shopee, since it officially joined the Vietnamese market, has been paying attention to developing the rural market together with urban market, with a 50/50 ratio.

According to Tran Tuan Anh, CEO of Shopee Vietnam, the company regularly organizes training courses for petty merchants in remote areas.

Thanks to the training program, a high number of rural business households are present on Shopee. However, only 10 percent of customers in rural areas make payments online.

While rural people have begun ordering goods and services online, or buying products from shops in large cities, provincial businesses don’t have even the habit of checking emails or chatting with customers, according to Tuan from Lazada.

Lazada Vietnam has launched a project helping business households, startups and small & medium enterprises in rural areas to access the e-commerce model to expand business.

As for Ben Tre, Khe said if local businesses can develop e-commerce, they will be able to bring local specialty products to the domestic and international markets at the best prices. 

Phuoc Ha

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