Big suppliers go online

Big suppliers go online

Several months ago, Huawei, and then Sony, opened shops on Lazada to sell mobile phone products. Tiki also officially began selling Sony products.

About 80-90 percent of electronics, home appliances and mobile phones are currently sold via shops, supermarkets and home appliance centers. However, sales via e-commerce and online sale websites are increasing rapidly.

The director of a mobile phone retail company revealed that the company’s sales of iPhones on Lazada alone brought turnover of nearly VND100 billion. Other mobile phones have also been available onTiki, Shopee, Sendo and Adayroi.

Traditional retail channels see increasingly high revenue from online sales. At The Gioi Di Dong (Mobile World), for example, online sales brought 7-8 percent of total revenue three years ago, but it has risen to 13.8 percent.

Feeling pressure from e-commerce floors, The Gioi Di Dong applied a dual-price policy at its Dien May Xanh chain to attract more customers.

Low price the major weapon 

In the face of the e-commerce boom, traditional retail chains such as The Gioi Di Dong, FPT Shop and Vien Thong A also have had to change their strategies to adapt to the new circumstances.

In general, products sold online have lower retail prices than offline, but the quality and warranty policies are the same.

Customers, for example, can buy genuine iPhones online at a price 10-15 percent lower than prices quoted at traditional retail chains. The attractive discount rates have taken customers away from the chains.

At large retail chains, the selling prices online are only slightly lower. Online buyers via the chains cannot benefit compared with e-commerce sites.

When they launch a new product, phone manufacturers such as Samsung, Oppo, Xiaomi, Huawei and ASUS reserve thousands of products for online sales via e-commerce in order to popularize their products.

Analysts believe that traditional retailers must go online.

In the US, SEARS went bankrupt in October 2018 partially because it could not adapt to the strong rise of online shopping. Walmart and Best Buy all have had to boost online sales to survive competition with the online giant Amazon.

The value of the e-commerce market in Southeast Asia reached $11 billion in 2017, a 41 percent increase compared to 2015, according to a report.

Vietnam, with the annual growth rate of 33 percent, is one of the fastest growing e-commerce markets in the region.

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