Food
Amazon is collaborating with Vietnam’s trade ministry to sell the country’s products on its system globally. Vu Ba Phu, director of the Ministry of Industry and Trade’s Trade Promotion Agency, said while announcing news of the collaboration that the U.S. e-commerce company would help especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) develop their brands on its website.
It would also train Vietnamese firms in e-commerce and selling on its system, he said. Vietnamese businesses would be able to reach over 300 million users of the world’s largest online retailer by participating in Amazon Global Selling, he added.
Bernard Tay, Amazon’s regional director for Southeast Asia, said Vietnam is among the top countries in the region in terms of capability to export via Amazon.
It has strengths in household products, textile, footwear, and handicrafts, items that sell well on Amazon, he said.
Vietnamese firms need to make products adopted to global trends and improve their English and branding skills, Tay added.
Phu said Vietnamese SMEs would have to meet the high standards in many markets.
“Big markets like the E.U., U.S. and Japan all have strict regulations on product quality and origin, and Vietnamese exports will have to comply with them.”
Last year Amazon had organized a number of training programs for Vietnamese SMEs on how to sell on its system.
Chinese e-commerce behemoth Alibaba is also interested in Vietnamese sellers. It started looking for sellers on its AliExpress website last July, saying it wanted to enable them to reach over 200 markets around the world.
Vietnam’s e-commerce market grew by 25 percent in 2017, according to the Vietnam E-commerce Association (VECOM), which expects this rate to continue until 2020.
