According to a recent report by Google, Temasek and Bain, Vietnam’s digital economy is projected to reach US$57 billion by 2025[2]. If anything, this number highlights the potential of ecommerce in Vietnam and its rapid growth, outpacing countries like Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore.
In terms of distribution, Vietnam is leading the pack in express delivery services. The competition between local marketplaces (TikiNow, The Gioi Di Dong) and global heavyweights (Shopee, Lazada and Grab) to offer the fastest inner-city delivery has only intensified with each party continuously elevating their game.
However, the same can’t be said for express deliveries in rural Vietnam. Cost and speed continue to be key areas for development. Based on our recent observations of the emerging trends that cater to consumer needs, here we delve deeper into each one as well as their role in propelling boundless opportunities in this space.
Customized fulfillment solutions
Customization is essential to any business’ success, and the logistics and fulfilment sector is no exception to this rule. By offering tailored solutions to meet brands’ diverse logistics needs, this provides a differentiating factor to stand out among competitors as well as improve the overall opportunities to scale.
For instance, at Intrepid Vietnam, customization is the very core of our services. We offer different warehousing options to meet various capabilities and cost requirements of our brand partners. From inventory sync across all online channels to significant reduction in delivery time and costs, we cover all the bases in identifying the optimum warehouse option to address our brand partner’s pain points.
End to end tech integration
As the pandemic continues, we can’t escape the fact that digitalization will be at its peak. It’s undeniable that we need to embrace more digital solutions, especially in terms of logistics and fulfillment. Having a solid tech partner in place can expedite implementation and improvements of cost effective solutions.
Our in-house warehouse management solution is built to scale and sync in record time independently of the number of transactions and has allowed us to minimize our brand partner’s stock risks during high volume flash sales and campaign deals across platforms.
Additionally, the support of an internal regional tech team based in Vietnam has been critical in ensuring integration needs are met, easy access to improving features as well as overall execution of cost effective fulfillment solutions across categories and platform mechanics.
The ongoing sustainability mission
With growing awareness among consumers, the demand for eco-friendly packaging and online retail solutions is increasing gradually. Up to 90% of the population in Vietnam are now willing to pay higher prices for eco-friendly and sustainable products. The transformation of Southeast Asia towards a green economy is expected to add the growth of US$1 trillion in annual economic opportunities by the end of 2030. In fact, we have observed gaining momentum in sustainable requests with our brand partners opting for more paper based packaging. We can only foresee more opportunities and innovative approaches which will continue to drive the sustainable mission.
As a wrap up, Vietnam’s rapid ecommerce growth over the year is only the tip of the iceberg with more to come. 2022 is bound to bring more opportunities for the sector, however brands can truly seize this potential by first ensuring that all the fundamentals required to meet consumer’s needs are covered especially from a logistics and fulfillment point of view. Implementing the next steps to improve the foundation and current services will help form overall stronger consumer bonds which will be essential to the business’ success in the future.
[1] Emmanuelle Gounot is CEO of Intrepid Vietnam
[2] https://www.bain.com/insights/southeast-asias-green-economy-pathway-to-full-potential/
