Buying Chinese goods online booming in Vietnam

After arriving in Vietnam, the products will be sold at shops or again posted on Vietnamese online sites for sale.

According to Hien, the number of orders has increased sharply in the past four years as Vietnamese, especially young people, prefer to purchase goods online because it is cheaper and they can choose from a variety of designs through the websites.

Like Hien, Nguyen Hai, a Hanoi resident, has also got familiar with Chinese online shopping websites for around four years.

At first, Hai bought Chinese products online, mostly fitness and gym equipments, and resold them in Vietnam for a profit. Hai said that it is quite easy for him to purchase Chinese goods online, just click on the products, make payment and receive the ordered goods a few days later.

But he then found that the profit was not too high so he decided to turn to another way to make bigger profit.

Hai found products online through Chinese websites, including Taobao, then directly contacts the manufacturers in China and proposes to make a modification in the designs to suit to the needs of his Vietnamese customers. Hai said that this way of doing business is more effective and more profitable.

According to the report of Vietnam e-commerce association based on a survey conducted by the Global Payment Technology Company VISA in Vietnam in 2012, among 36 percent of 87 million Vietnamese people using internet, 71 percent had done online shopping.

With the estimated purchasing value of $30 per person per year, the total value of e-commerce within Vietnam under Business-to-Customer (B2C) portals reached an average of over $660 million in 2012.

It is forecast that by 2015, if the Vietnamese population would increase to 93 million people and the value of online purchase would also increase correspondingly by $20, the total value of e-commerce in Vietnam will reach $1.3 billion in 2015, said the report.