Foreign e-commerce platforms surpass local rivals in e-commerce ranking

Foreign e-commerce platforms retake throne in Vietnam

According to a study conducted by iPrice Group and SimilarWeb, web visits to the top 50 shopping sites in Vietnam's Map of E-commerce in the first six months of 2021 reached more than 1.3 billion. It is the highest ever and is up by 10 per cent from the first quarter of 2021.

For the past 12 quarters, Shopee Vietnam has ranked first in terms of average website traffic. Shopee Vietnam obtained 73 million visits in Q2/2021, which increased by 9.2 million from Q1.

After being surpassed by competitors for several consecutive quarters, Lazada Vietnam rose to second place in the "four-horse race" in terms of website visits on a multi-vendor e-commerce platform. As a result, Lazada Vietnam's average website traffic increased by 14 per cent compared to the first three months of the year, reaching 20.4 million visits.

Meanwhile, the average visits to the websites of two domestic e-commerce platforms Tiki and Sendo slightly decreased to 17.2 and 7.9 million, respectively. Thus, the ranking of e-commerce businesses has shifted since Q1. Based on the current trend, the game is likely to be dominated once again by foreign e-commerce businesses.

According to Facebook and Bain & Company's annual Southeast Asia report, Vietnam's e-commerce sector is expected to reach $12 billion in 2021. The market ranks second in size in the region after Indonesia, and is estimated to grow 4.5 times to reach $56 billion by 2026.

This shows that Vietnam's e-commerce business has a bright future ahead and will continue to grow rapidly. The pandemic, on the other hand, is still ongoing, and there is a high likelihood that it will continue to cause further changes in the future.

iPrice's study also shows that online grocery is the only category that has maintained steady and consistent growth since the beginning of the pandemic. This partly explains the strong increase in demand for online stores selling essential products during the months of social distancing.

Google searches related to online grocery stores increased by 223 per cent in Q2/2021. The number of searches increased 11 times in July compared to May and 3.6 times compared to June when the social distancing order under Directive 16 was implemented in some provinces and cities.

People pay more attention to fresh food, beverages, pre-packaged items, as well as fruits and vegetables as the searches for these items surged by 99, 51, 30, and 11 per cent, respectively, compared to the previous quarter. Thus, social distancing could be one of the factors driving the surge in demand for online supermarkets. With the growing necessity of purchasing essentials online, retailers are more likely to adapt to the digital platform.