The revenue gap of the top 4 multi-industry online retail platforms is increasingly widening, with only Shopee and TikTok Shop competing for the majority of the market share.
A new report published by the e-commerce channel development consulting and analysis company YouNet ECI, said that consumers spent 87,370 billion VND shopping on the 4 largest multi-industry e-commerce platforms in Vietnam in the second quarter, including: Shopee, TikTok Shop, Lazada and Tiki, an increase of 10.4% compared to the first quarter.
Of which, nearly three-quarters of spending flows to Shopee, with total transactions (GMV) reaching 62,380 billion VND, accounting for 71.4% of the market share.
Collectively, these two exchanges hold 93.4% of the GMV market share, up from 91.25% in the first quarter. Of these, only Shopee expanded its market share in the last quarter, while the remaining 3 exchanges all narrowed.
With this development, the online retail market is now only a "two-horse race" between Shopee and TikTok Shop, according to YouNet ECI.
"Rising star" TikTok Shop has not yet caught up with Shopee because it depends heavily on the fashion and accessories industry - accounting for 37.5% of total GMV, while Shopee only accounts for 24%. After consumers bought a lot of these items during the Lunar New Year, demand decreased in the second quarter, making TikTok Shop more affected.
With the motto "you have what you have on the floor", Shopee organizes shoppertainment activities (shopping combined with entertainment) like its competitors. This platform also has short video content and livestreams. At its peak in June, TikTok Shop had hundreds of billions of livestream sessions, while Shopee was no less competitive with a series of live events combined with music festivals. This competition helped the whole market GMV in June reach 33,800 billion VND, the highest month since the beginning of the year.
In addition, despite facing some complaints from sellers, Shopee still pursues the strategy of pampering buyers to retain them.
Forecasting online retail market trends in the coming time, Experts say that purchasing power continues to increase, livestreaming is still popular, but the market is more selective about homes for sale.
First, sales may increase when the market enters the "Mega Sales" season in the second half of the year.
Not only using the excuse of double days, the exchanges now jointly stimulate demand at least twice a month, such as: mid-month or end of the month (reason for salary return);
At the Vietnam Mega Sales 2024 event at the end of last month, TikTok Shop announced a survey commissioned by Kantar showing that 69% of this platform's users plan to shop more during the Mega Sales period.
Next, sales via livestream are forecast to continue to attract customers.
Vo Anh Tu, Co-founder and Creative Director of TCC & Partners, a media unit specializing in building online sales channels for businesses, believes that livestream is still the dominant method.
The market is going up, but finding successful opportunities will become increasingly difficult.
Mr. Nguyen Phuong Lam, Market Analysis Director of YouNet ECI, said the key to growth is now professional ability in every touch point, from market to customer.
In the long term, in the next 3-5 years, Mr. Lam forecasts that 3 main trends will be the main growth drivers for Vietnam's e-commerce: the habit of shopping online every day, buying high-value items and strongly developing shoppertainment.
Vien Thong_VnExpress
