Cross-border e-commerce: Opening up opportunities for small and medium businesses

​Recently, the sales and promotion of e-commerce across borders of Vietnamese enterprises, especially small and medium-sized enterprises through e-commerce sites tend to increase.

A training program on cross-border e-commerce by the Department of Industry and Trade in collaboration with the Department of E-commerce anddigital economy (Ministry of Industry and Trade) and Amazon Global Selling Vietnam (under Amazon Group) held in November 2022

This method is still new, but according to economic experts, this is an inevitable trend in the coming time when e-commerce channels are increasingly blooming and developing.
Along with opportunities from new-generation free trade agreements (FTAs), the trend of switching from traditional business to digital platforms is becoming more and more popular. In particular, cross-border e-commerce channels are a potential solution to help businesses penetrate and expand export markets in the context that Vietnam is increasingly integrating deeply with the world economy.
Not out of the trend, in the country, in recent years, E-commerce has taken steps to grow and develop strongly, playing an important role in promoting economic development as well as the future of Vietnam's digital economy in the context of recovery from the epidemic.
According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, in 2021, retail e-commerce revenue will increase by 16%, reaching 13.7 billion USD; scale of the B2C retail market (the exchange, purchase and sale of goods between businesses and consumers), e-commerce is estimated to account for 6.5% of the total retail sales of goods and consumer services in the country. It is forecasted that in the period of 2022-2025, Vietnam's e-commerce will increase by an average of 25% per year...
For B2C export activities, according to the forecast of Amazon Global Selling Vietnam, B2C export revenue of sellers in Vietnam is estimated to reach VND 75.4 trillion in 2022 and may reach 256.1 trillion in the next 5 years.
Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Hoang Nam, Senior Account Manager Amazon Global Selling Vietnam shared, Amazon has a coverage of 200 countries and territories. Therefore, when selling on Amazon, businesses can access customer files on Amazon's marketplaces. E-commerce can be said to be a fast and convenient way to help enterprises directly access to global customers with their own brand of products. In this case, small and medium-sized enterprises are suitable for developing online business platforms, cross-border sales on Amazon.

Director of the E-commerce Development Center (Department of E-commerce and Digital Economy, Ministry of Industry and Trade) Nguyen Van Thanh said that, besides the development of e-commerce in the domestic market, the growth rate of cross-border e-commerce in Vietnam is not In recent years there has been quite good development. For example, according to data from Amazon, the number of businesses participating in cross-border sales on this e-commerce floor in 2021 will increase by about 15% compared to 2020. Vietnam is one of the countries with the fast development of e-commerce and cross-border e-commerce in Southeast Asia. This opens up many opportunities for Vietnamese enterprises to access and expand more markets based on the development of digital platforms.
It is necessary to equip with sufficient skills, knowledge
In fact, cross-border e-commerce in Vietnam for export enterprises is still quite new with many complicated legal, procedural and financial processes and regulations of exporting and importing countries, and international e-commerce platforms. Besides development opportunities, export turnover growth and potential market expansion thanks to cross-border e-commerce, there are still shortcomings for Vietnamese enterprises such as information, capacity, cost, regulations, knowledge of marketing, issues of brand protection in cross-border e-commerce...
Mr. Nguyen Van Thanh added that cross-border e-commerce businesses need to be fully equipped with international trade skills, market understanding, ensure high-quality products to meet the needs of the market as well as the e-commerce skills of the host country, and at the same time need to actively update the incentives and advantages for FTAs in effect in export markets.  From there, learn carefully the information, select the right products for the market that the enterprise aims to meet the requirements related to quality, design in accordance with the standards of the importer, as well as the requirements of the importer, tastes and product regulations of foreign markets. In addition, the stages of supply, marketing, and access to cross-border e-commerce platforms also need attention from local businesses for cross-border sales...
Vice Chairman of the Dong Nai Export Association Nguyen Duy Hung shared, in the context of the current volatile export market, enterprises need to diversify export channels, in which one of the new channels has many new products. potential is cross-border e-commerce. However, in reality, the costs and discount rates when enterprises put their products on cross-border e-commerce channels are still high compared to direct export, so there should be appropriate adjustments so that small businesses and and can access these sales channels more.

“Cross-border E-commerce: Breakthrough Era" is an initiative initiated by Amazon Global Selling Vietnam and sponsored by the Ministry of Industry and Trade. This program helps enterprises, business people, young human resources of the province and some neighboring localities to capture the knowledge and skills needed to bring products to the global market through cross-border e-commerce;
From June 2022 to now, there have been 9 training programs on this topic organized by the Department of E-commerce and Digital Economy and Amazon Global Selling Vietnam in localities across the country, including Dong Nai.