“Prioritizing Customer Experience, Grievance Redressal, and Consumer Protection: The Lifeline of E-commerce Businesses, Says Shopee Vietnam’s CEO.”

This statement was made at the seminar “E-Commerce Development: Opportunities, Drivers, and Challenges” organized by the Government Portal on August 14. Starting its operations in Vietnam in 2015, Shopee has become the first e-commerce platform that comes to consumers’ minds, generating over VND 62,000 billion in revenue in Q2 2024, capturing 71.4% of the GMV market share, according to YouNet ECI data.

“Shopee’s mission is to serve consumers, both buyers and sellers. In Vietnam, we have been working with numerous enterprises, including many small and medium-sized enterprises. Specifically, we have policies to support them in accessing e-commerce more easily through training in skills, tools, methods, and mechanisms suitable for e-commerce, thereby helping these enterprises develop better and more sustainably,” said Mr. Tran Tuan Anh, Executive Director of Shopee Vietnam.

Mr. Tuan Anh pointed out that the Vietnamese market has specific advantages for e-commerce development. Firstly, internet access costs are the lowest in the Southeast Asian market. This means that consumers in any region can access it. This is a prerequisite for the development of any technology related to e-commerce. Secondly, infrastructure is evident in the delivery process.

“In the past, orders could take 4-5 days nationwide, but now it’s less than 2 days nationwide, and in big cities, it’s almost the same day,” the Shopee leader cited.

In terms of production, Vietnam has a strong domestic production capacity. Mr. Tuan Anh assessed this as a potential to utilize the skilled and knowledgeable workforce to further develop the industry. Shopee is also approaching manufacturing enterprises, developing from the domestic market to the world.

The Executive Director of Shopee also emphasized that customer experience, complaint resolution, and consumer protection are vital to the survival of e-commerce enterprises, especially Shopee.

“We have invested heavily in the Vietnamese market and have certain mechanisms in place to control and enhance the experience for consumers, such as faster delivery and increased consumer confidence. In parallel, we look forward to guidance from ministries, branches, and localities in specific cases,” said Mr. Tuan Anh.

Regarding online exports, or cross-border e-commerce, Mr. Tuan Anh said that three issues to note are scale, trends, and branding.

In terms of scale, Shopee is “going from small to large,” which means starting with the domestic market to gain benefits such as creating experience packages and improving product synchronization. When the quality of synchronization is strong enough, we will begin to approach the global market.

“We set a target of 1,000 enterprises by the end of this year, but in the very near future, there will be 100,000 enterprises capable of bringing products to foreign markets,” predicted Mr. Tuan Anh, adding that for online exports, we need to consider the ability to consolidate orders to serve both the domestic and foreign markets.

Regarding trends, Shopee wants a tool to access multiple markets, diverse tastes, and connect platforms. For example, we can sit in Vietnam and hire someone in Malaysia to livestream. The third issue is that the brand must be associated with a story.

“We believe that with this holistic view and the companionship of the authorities, the mechanisms and policies that have been issued, the story to be solved is technology. I think we can all do it, and Shopee is looking forward to doing more to contribute to this development,” shared Mr. Tuan Anh.