These recommendations were shared by Nguyen Vu Cang Duyen, Senior Account Manager at Amazon Global Selling Vietnam, during a workshop on December 17th, regarding the sale of furniture and home decor products on the Amazon e-commerce platform to global markets, especially the US.
Product and market are two crucial factors.
Through her observations and work with businesses already operating on Amazon, Ms. Duyen noticed that for new sellers to achieve positive results in their first year, they need to focus on products and identify those with potential and advantages that can meet the demands of American consumers.
“Finding good products contributes about 70% to success when selling on Amazon,” revealed the representative of the e-commerce platform. She added that since Americans cannot physically touch the products when shopping online, they heavily rely on images and information about the features and benefits of the products.
A veteran business, Long Thanh, shares this view. Ms. Nguyen Luong Nha Y, representing Long Thanh, said that despite their 25 years of experience in wood product manufacturing, when they approached Amazon over a year ago, they still had to prioritize answering the question of “what to sell” and affirmed that understanding the target market is of utmost importance.
The company realized that a product might sell well in Europe but may not be suitable for the US market due to cultural and climatic differences. And even though they have sold a lot of the same product to the US, it would still be different if the buyers are hotels, restaurants, or direct exports.
According to Ms. Y, the trends for offline and online shopping are already distinct. The value of offline shopping can be “seen and decided on very quickly.” But online shopping is different, especially for high-value products where prices can be easily compared with competitors.
The representative of Long Thanh advised entrepreneurs and sellers to utilize Amazon’s tools to check if the product they want to sell is already being sold by others and, if so, what their sales figures are before deciding what to sell.
Storytelling is essential when selling online.
The US has always been one of the top furniture and home decor markets globally and is continuously growing. Sales into this market through e-commerce channels are expected to increase in the coming years. Therefore, understanding American culture and consumers is crucial.
Statistics presented by Ms. Duyen indicated that Americans are willing to spend significantly on living room furniture to purchase durable and aesthetically pleasing products. They particularly favor multi-functional furniture, such as sofa beds or bookshelves with display lights, to optimize space. Sofa beds, for instance, are a popular item that Vietnamese enterprises can target.
Beds also account for a large proportion of American spending when furnishing bedrooms. According to the Amazon representative, Vietnam has a strong advantage in this product category. Other items like bedside shelves or cabinets with integrated phone chargers are also in demand. Or a kitchen cabinet on wheels that can be easily moved to the outdoor dining area and has an electric cord for heating food—these are “niche” products with plenty of room for development.
Americans tend to move houses frequently, unlike the tendency to stay in one place in Vietnam, so this should be considered when designing products, such as making them easy to disassemble and reassemble for young, mobile families.
Ms. Duyen emphasized that when selling children’s products on Amazon, special attention must be paid to images and suggestions for use and product arrangement, which are “extremely important.” She advised enterprises to invest in high-quality images and innovative ways to use the products to tell a story and engage consumers when selling on this e-commerce platform.
 Ms. Nguyen Vu Cang Duyen sharing at the workshop. Photo: Tu Kinh
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Pay attention to your competitor’s 1-star reviews.
The representative of Long Thanh shared some insights on selling through Amazon. One key aspect is creating differentiation from the rest of the market, which can come from small things like listening to customer feedback and optimizing the product or using more competitive alternative materials.
Unlike traditional business models, online sellers can read all the reviews of their competitor’s products. “1-star reviews are truly valuable; they can tell us what our competitors are not doing well and whether we can meet those customer needs,” said Ms. Y.
Before entering the market, enterprises should research whether the product they want to sell is profitable or not and whether the price has decreased significantly over the years, as more sellers will lead to continuous price drops. In the case of wanting to sell a “niche” product, she advised checking if there is still room for growth, as some “niches” have “matured,” meaning that after many years, demand has not improved, but new sellers keep entering the market.
“We can check if each seller’s revenue has decreased. Sometimes, a seller used to make hundreds of thousands of dollars a month, but now they only make a few tens of thousands,” she said, “And since there are already dominant players in the market, it’s important to ask ourselves if we can join and offer something different to gain market share.”
According to Ms. Y, each product requires a different pricing strategy. For instance, if the product is used to penetrate a “niche,” the business may need to accept a lower profit margin and be prepared to break even to gain more orders. Sellers should also diversify their product range because selling only one type of product is risky if the market does not accept it. Diversification also helps increase revenue.
When asked about the requirements for selling furniture on Amazon, the platform’s representative said that Amazon does not require special documents for furniture sales, but if enterprises have specific certifications, such as eco-friendly product certifications, it will enhance their competitive advantage. However, products for children will need a CPC – a certificate for child-friendly products.
“This is an advantage for the furniture industry,” said Ms. Duyen, adding that Amazon is currently prioritizing Vietnam, allowing individuals to open accounts without necessarily being enterprises, which she believes is an advantage that should be seized.
