The year-end online shopping frenzy has kicked off with giant local and foreign players like Lazada, Tiki, Sendo, and Shopee rolling out promotions since the middle of last month.

E-commerce development is improving, but state management in this field is facing many difficulties because the legal framework cannot cover all e-commerce activities.

Singaporean investors are continuing to pour capital into e-logistics firms to tap into the fast-growing market in Vietnam.

The Internet boom, a young labor force and the strong development of e-commerce all help Vietnamese businesses access foreign markets, especially now that many next-generation FTAs have been signed.

Despite non-stop spending, Lazada remains overwhelmed by local platforms Sendo and Mobile World, in addition to other players Shopee and Tiki.

As online commerce has boomed, agencies fear that it will be difficult to prevent banned goods, goods restricted for import and export, and origin fraud.

Five Vietnamese e-commerce platforms were named among ten most visited sites in Southeast Asia in the first half of this year.

Each e-commerce platform needs to spend millions of US dollars to gain a single per cent of market share from competitors, showing just how serious the competition is.

Sendo, for the first time, was listed as one of the four most visited ecommerce platforms in the second quarter of 2019, according to data from iPrice Insights’ map of ecommerce.

Tiki wants to become ‘faster and faster’, trying to shorten the delivery time. And Lazada uses showbiz celebrities to lure young customers.

As service platforms now have a large number of users, online marketplaces have begun thinking of removing the payment fee exemption to ease losses.

Shopee and Lazada have begun collecting fees from sellers, while Tiki has exempted fees for two years.

The total accumulative loss of the four biggest players in the e-commerce market has reached VND4.5 trillion. 

VietNamNet Bridge - More money has been injected into the e-commerce market, while leading e-commerce firms have expanded.

VietNamNet Bridge - Online sellers now are not fighting for profit but for market share, analysts say.

VietNamNet Bridge - Despite big losses, e-commerce firms area still continue to pump money into e-commerce websites. It’s still unclear when the tough days will end.

VietNamNet Bridge - Vietnam has 49 million internet users, or half of the total population, according to Sen Do (sendo.vn), an e-commerce trading floor. 

VietNamNet Bridge - The map of the Vietnam’s e-commerce market is being redrawn as more and more foreign firms have entered the field.

The 2018 Vietnam E-Business Index that was released by the Vietnam E-commerce Association (VECOM) showed an overall 25 percent growth rate in e-commerce. More than 4,000 businesses were surveyed. 

Amazon will find it not easy to conquer the Vietnamese market as it will have to compete with millions of people selling products via social networks, especially Facebook, analysts say.