More than six tonnes of fresh vegetable from Hai Duong Province are sold on Sendo e-commerce site on March 9 after the first day going online. — Screen photo from Sendo

More than six tonnes of fresh vegetable from Hai Duong Province were sold after one day they went online from March 9.

It was the first day after the Vietnam Trade Promotion Agency - Vietrade worked with the local e-commerce site of Sendo to launch a programme called national trade promotion booth to support the selling of agricultural products of Hai Duong and other localities facing difficulties due to social distance from COVID-19.

Accordingly, Vietrade, under the Ministry of Industry and Trade, connected Sendo with product sourcing points in Hai Duong Province. The site then helps sell the provincial fresh vegetables from those points which are licensed by the authorities for food quality, hygiene and safety and have stamping traceability, complying with the sterilization process, complying with the 5K regulation issued by the Ministry of Health.

According to Vietrade, all products supplied on the e-commerce platform met the criteria of quality, clear origin and transparency of information.

Tran Tuan Anh, director of Sendo Ha Noi said: "This time, the site will help sell cabbage, kohlrabi and tomatoes at a very low price of VND1,000 (US$0.04) per kg of products and a shipping fee of VND9,000 ($0.39) to all part of Ha Noi."

Anh said the supporting prices will be applied until the end of this month to help farmers. After the period, the site will concentrate on other agricultural products from different localities to step by step connecting and promoting them on national trade promotion booths.

He added: “There is not yet a habit to buy the fresh food on e-commerce, the programme will help change the habit and bring fresh food to the consumers after a click.”

Anh also said: “Normally, the agriculture products must be gone under a lot of distribution layers with added cost. Meanwhile, the e-commerce channels connecting the producers directly to the consumers will much lower the cost and benefit both of them.”

Establish in 2012, Sendo with its outstanding growth, ranking 6th in the top ten e-commerce sites in Southeast Asia and one of the leading e-commerce sites in Viet Nam could connect more than 10 million customers and 300,000 sellers nationwide.

According to Vietrade, the programme was now focusing on fresh produce such as vegetables and fruit. In the long term, it will promote special products of all kinds from all localities of Viet Nam.

Hoang Minh Chien, Vietrade's deputy director said: “The programme aims to bring quality products to Vietnamese consumers, supporting farmers and production units to overcome difficulties from the pandemic. More important, it will help contribute to raising awareness in the community, especially farmers, cooperatives, and households to meet the requirements of customers. “

Chien added: “When the cultivation practices from customer needs are formed, it will ensure market-oriented agricultural production. The programme will help farmers and businesses updated and improved their knowledge about product traceability, skills in e-commerce and sustainable commerce.”

In the programme, Vietrade has coordinated with the local department of Industry and Trade and departments of Agriculture in localities to promote products, offering the trainings for related stakeholders in the supply chain on traceability, sales promotion, e-commerce and advertisement.

The department was also responsible for stamping the origin of the product, ensuring the product provides correct and sufficient information to consumers.

Besides Sendo, Nguyen Thi Minh Thuy, director of the Vietrade’s Information Technology Application Center - INTEC said: “We have been working with other e-commerce platforms such as Tiki and Lazada and Alibaba to promote Vietnamese products including consumer goods, food, handicrafts in the local and international markets.”

Thuy told Viet Nam News: “ The activities on the local e-commerce is the initial steps before we can also boost the trading of local goods on other international markets digitally.” — VNS