The size of Vietnam’s e-commerce sector in 2018 was estimated at $8.06 billion, up 30% from the previous year, according to a white paper published by the Department of E-Commerce and Digital Economy of the Ministry of Industry and Trade. The growth rate has been rising dramatically in the past three years, compared to 23% and 24% respectively in 2016 and 2017 (Nhandan, 2019). White Book stated that nearly 39.9 million Vietnamese consumers purchased consumer products online in 2018, contributing $1.2 million of sales of products.

The complex COVID-19 epidemic has caused a huge impact on people ‘s psychology, and has changed many Vietnamese consumers ‘ purchasing habits. Not only reduce traveling, Vietnamese citizens also avoid eating outside and going to malls or markets. Indeed, according to “An overview of COVID-19 outbreak affecting on Vietnamese social-economy” article of B&Company, 79% said COVID-19 had been affecting negatively to their daily routines. The number of visitors to shopping centers and supermarkets has fallen from 40-50% compared to before.  This results in a 40% decrease of sales at department stores. Even though the Vietnam Government has successfully managed to contain the outbreak domestically by May 2020, there are certain threats from the increasing number of imported cases from overseas passengers arriving in Vietnam. Both the government and businesses are encouraging people to increase online shopping in this sense, restricting the street to reduce the risk of infection. Ho Chi Minh City’s People’s Committee has also constantly broadcast the message “tell people to prioritize online shopping” in recent days. Companies are aggressively growing online shopping promotions to stimulate demand. On this occasion, a series of booming online grocery shopping services entered the market to compete with supermarket chains: 2 biggest ride-hailing platform Grabmart (Grab) and Be đi chợ (Be). Several services such as Chopp.vn, NowFresh (developed from food delivery platform Now.vn) and LoMart (developed by Lozi which is considered as direct competitor of Now.vn) were launced in 2018.

LOTTE Mart supermarket chain reported that the number of orders via the website and Speed L application increased from 150-200% compared to regular days, doubling and tripling the supply of products allocated for the online section. In the same notion, statistics from Saigon Co.op, one of the market leaders in the supermarket business, showed shopping orders via the supermarket’s phone and website rose 10 times compared to weekdays, which caused frequent “network congestion” due to the sudden overloading of online transaction. During the period of only over 19 days from the beginning of March 2020 to 12 March 2020, Big C, another major supermarket chain, received more than 1,000 orders, which are projected to hit about 3,000 orders in March 2020; the growth rate is over 200% compared to that of February 2020 (CafeF, 2020).

B&Company가 2020년 5월 소비자 200명을 대상으로 실시한 온라인 식료품 쇼핑 설문조사에 따르면, 빈마트, 코업마트, 롯데마트가 슈퍼마켓에서 가장 인기 있는 온라인 식료품 채널(각각 83,8%, 72,5%, 66,%)이었고, 온라인 쇼핑 서비스 중에서는 그랩마트가 가장 잘 알려져 있었습니다(60,8%). 

BEAN 설문조사 결과에 따르면 온라인 식료품 쇼핑 소비자들은 주로 식음료와 개인 관리 용품을 구매하며, 그중 유제품이 69,613조 동으로 가장 높은 비중을 차지합니다. 응답자의 4613조 동은 온라인 식료품 구매에 시간당 30만 동 미만을 지출하며, 이는 전체 식료품 지출의 약 37,813조 동을 차지합니다. B&Company의 추산에 따르면 2019년 베트남 온라인 식료품 쇼핑(슈퍼마켓 웹사이트/앱/배달 서비스) 시장 규모는 약 14조 동(35억 동)에 달합니다.

When selecting a website/application for online grocery shopping, consumers are mostly concerned about price and quality of products (73,5% and 70,6% respectively). Characteristics of online grocery shopping service is that when using the application, a series of food trading and shipping addresses, home delivery will display for customers to freely choose the location that best suits them. Each type of food is clearly listed. Food prices on these sites are not much different from the market price, but the quality is guaranteed. Buying and delivery times are also more flexible. Customers can choose the delivery time frame from 7:30 to 19:00. In less than 2 hours, the staff will deliver the pre-prepared items for guests to cook (Baodautu, 2019). Hence, most businesses select fast delivery to compete. Saigon Co.op has planned to coordinate the delivery channel personnel, ensuring home delivery time of 1-2 hours for orders placed by telephone and 24 – 48 hours for purchase orders on the electronic shopping page. On the other hand, GrabMart took advantage of the ecosystem inherent from the main fanpage of the Grab app, the system of partners, the brand influencers to put the GrabMart hashtag on posts, to attract attention and stimulate desire to exchange and discuss, and then try the user’s service. Meanwhile, Now is connecting with a large number of convenient retailers/grocery stores/supermarket chains from affordable to high-end. The biggest advantage is the fast delivery time with acceptable freight: 15,000VND/1.5km. Launched in 2015, Chopp.vn stands out with the advantage of fast delivery, however, in COVID-19 season, the demand from users was high and therefore users responded to the delivery time longer than expected, and Chopp’s delivery fee was quite high compared to the common ground (Brands Vietnam, 2020).

B&Company의 BEAN 설문조사 플랫폼에서 실시한 온라인 설문조사에 따르면, 소비자들은 이러한 스마트 쇼핑에 대해 전반적으로 만족하는 것으로 나타났지만, 배송료에 대해서는 가장 불만족스러운 것으로 나타났습니다(1~5점 척도에서 3.7점). 설문조사에 참여한 사람 중 50%는 신선식품의 품질에 대해 가장 우려를 표명했고, 60%는 온라인 구매 채널에 대한 추가 프로모션과 할인을 강력히 권고했습니다.

BEAN SURVEY PLATFORM의 200명 이상 응답자 중 83.5%명이 앞으로도 온라인으로 식료품을 구매할 것이라고 답했으며, 40%명 이상이 오프라인보다 온라인 식료품 구매를 선호합니다. 따라서 온라인 식료품 쇼핑 시장 점유율은 꾸준히 증가할 것으로 예상되지만, 기존 오프라인 매장과 기타 쇼핑 장소는 여전히 안정적인 수준을 유지할 것으로 보입니다.

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