VietNamNet Bridge – E-Commerce on mobile phones is forecast to see strong growth next year, allowing customers to easily make online purchases, according to Bizweb Viet Nam.

A recent survey conducted by the website, with more than 3,500 customers on their online selling software, showed that online trading has been on the upswing this year.

These industries include sports (accounting for 78 per cent), restaurants (71 per cent), handicrafts (86 per cent) and books (83 per cent).

In addition, fashion and cosmetics sectors posted average sales growth rates of up to 60 per cent, baby's products grew by 50 per cent, while computers and high-tech items were up 52 per cent.

Tran Trong Tuyen, Bizweb's director, was quoted by ictnews online newspaper as saying that small-and-medium sized enterprises (SMEs), individuals and small shops trading online saw relatively high growth.

Tuyen said one of the factors leading to these results was that SMEs have become aware of e-commerce developments.

Several companies have invested in online selling websites, marketing and even call centre services, instead of expensive shops, to attract customers, he added.

He further said that in the next two years, Viet Nam's e-commerce market scale would see a boom, along with worldwide trends, such as the development of cloud computing services.

Also, he noted, it will become increasingly easy to make purchases using smart phones.

However, the Ministry of Industry and Trade has revealed that 77 per cent of customers are concerned about product quality when shopping online.

Further, only 5 per cent of online shoppers in Viet Nam are highly satisfied with shopping via the internet, 29 per cent said they were satisfied, 62 per cent made no comment and 4 per cent were unsatisfied, the ministry said.

Those who were dissatisfied said, in many cases the products they received were not as good as those advertised online, according to the survey, which questioned thousands of online shoppers from cities throughout the country.

Source: VNS