Central Group’s Robins Department Store has announced it has suspended all sales services and operations on the online shopping website robins.vn, effective from Tuesday.

“In order to align with a strategic restructuring plan for robust growth of the group’s businesses, we promise to come back to serve you with an improved all-rounded online platform in the near future,” Robins wrote in an announcement on its website.

The online shopping website robins.vn debuted in May 2017 after Thailand’s Central Group bought Zalora in 2016 for an undisclosed sum and changed Zalora into Robins.

Robins was launched in April 2014 with a department store at Vincom Royal City Ha Noi and at Crescent Mall HCM City eight month later.

It offered hundreds of brands of different categories including jewellery, cosmetics, fashion and home decorations.

Central Group also owned Big C supermarket chains after spending US$1.05 billion to buy it from France’s Casino Group. It also held a stake of 49 per cent at Nguyen Kim electronics supermarket chains.

In the past several months, Viet Nam’s e-commerce market has witnessed the closure of many online shopping websites. In December, The Gioi Di Dong (Mobile World) shut the operation of Vuivui.come because of disappointing results after two years in operation.

Others online shopping services which have closed include deca.vn. cucre.vn, beyeu.com, lamdieu.com, forever.vn, fab.vn and 123mua.vn.

According to the Viet Nam e-Commerce Association, Viet Nam’s e-commerce market has significant potential with a growth rate of 30 per cent in 2018 and was predicted to reach $13 billion by 2020 from $7.8 billion in 2018. However, competition has grown ever fiercer. Major market players include Lazada, Shopee, Tiki, Sendo and Adayroi. — VNS