Year-end promotions heat up Vietnam's e-commerce market

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.

Advertising platform Criteo said the year-end shopping season usually begins with 10.10 sales.

“Singles’ Day, November 11, remains the key shopping festival and post-Singles Day sales ride on the festivity’s traction,” Steven Tuan Nguyen, its senior regional manager for Southeast Asia, said.

“As we approach the year-end holidays, there is also a spike in online retail as part of the celebration. This sustained sales season presents retailers more opportunities to engage their audiences.”

While Singles’ Day is still among Vietnam’s biggest shopping festivals, the others include Black Friday, Cyber Friday and 12.12, he said.

He expected the trend this year to be similar to last year when Singles’ Day saw a 64 percent increase in online retail sales and 23 percent increase in online retail traffic. The traffic peaked at around noon and from 9pm to 11pm on November 11.

Of all the key shopping seasons, Black Friday had the highest conversion rate with an increase of 53 percent.

The top performing product verticals were fashion and luxury though it has been noted that mass merchant sales grew significantly on Black Friday as well.

Criteo predicted: “Given the momentum from Singles’ Day to the remainder of the year, retailers who are looking to expand in these countries should consider prolonging their promotional efforts until December. This can help drive sales when shoppers have a level of interest due to year-end festivities and are most engaged.”

E-commerce companies are in a rush to organise promotions.

For instance, Lazada’s Singles’ Day promotion attracted the participation of over 1,000 brands, and 11 million products and hundreds of promotion codes worth 11 billion VND were offered to customers.

According to Lazada, Singles’ Day plays an important role in the development of e-commerce companies and has become popular in Vietnam.

Shopee announced the return of the 11.11 Big Sale, saying it would be its largest ever.

It began in all seven Shopee markets in the middle of October with millions of sellers, brands and industry partners taking part.

Chris Feng, its CEO, said: “We launched our first 11.11 shopping event in 2016 and localised this global phenomenon for people in our region. It has since evolved tremendously as more sellers, brands and partners celebrate this special day with Shopee.

“We spent months preparing for this year’s event from curating the very best deals with sellers and brands to optimising delivery processes with logistics partners in every market.”

This year, there will be free shipping daily across the entire duration of the sale.

Shopee recorded 11 million orders on November 11 last year, a 24-fold increase from the first 11.11 sale in 2016.

As Shopee successfully localises the 11.11 phenomenon in Southeast Asia and Taiwan, November 11 is becoming a major day of shopping in the region.

Feng said: “Shopee has ignited the year-end shopping season after our record 9.9 Super Shopping Day and, most recently, a successful 10.10 shopping event.

“November 11 marks the peak of this exciting period and we invite everyone to join us at Shopee 11.11 Big Sale.”

After Singles’ Day, there will be Black Friday and Cyber Friday.

Criteo said in its report that Singles’ Day is still the biggest event in markets such as Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan, while in Indonesia it is 12.12.

In Vietnam, Single's Day has become a significant event but Black Friday has the highest surge.

Last year, the latter saw online retail sales and traffic increases of 149 percent and 61 percent, respectively, while 12.12 saw increases of 97 percent and 34 percent./. VNS/VNA