Many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) plan to increase cross-border trade for their products via e-commerce platforms to promote exports in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tran Thi Yen Phi, CEO of DSW, which sells agricultural products via the Chinese platform Alibaba, said that the company’s revenue increased from US$3,000 to $260,000 after one year. Selling products via e-commerce platforms helped reach customers in Japan, the EU and Southeast Asia.

As DSW does not export through the northern border, the company was not affected by border jams or closures, he said, adding that DSW would continue to promote online exports.

Kien Thuan Co-operative in Yen Bai Province said that online export helped promote the cooperative’s tea products to many potential markets, including North America and the Middle East.

The cooperative’s deputy director Do Tuan Luong said that cross-border trade via e-commerce platforms helped expand the company’s export revenue by 80 per cent.

He said the sale via e-commerce platforms was relatively stable, adding that the cooperative would continue to increase online exports.

He said that selling products abroad via e-commerce platforms emerged as an effective channel to expand exports while traditional international trade was affected by the pandemic.

Dang Hoang Hai, director of the Ministry of Industry and Trade’s Department of E-commerce and Digital Economy, said that the impressive development of e-commerce was due to the change in the thinking of sellers and exporters.

Notably, SMEs, even micro-sized enterprises and cooperatives, were now ready to sell online. “This is a big change in the way enterprises sell things to the world,” he said.

Alibaba’s statistics showed that the volume of goods sold via the platform increased by 34 per cent in 2021 against 2020, to 7.2 million units.

Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Do Thang Hai said digital-based trade promotion would be enhanced this year.

He said it was important that enterprises be active in using cross-border e-commerce to promote exports and look for partners.

The ministry’s Trade Promotion Agency and Alibaba recently inaugurated the Viet Nam Pavillion on the e-commerce site, which would be run within one year to promote Vietnamese products. The cooperation also aimed to increase digital transformation capacity for Vietnamese enterprises.

Statistics of the Viet Nam E-commerce Association showed that cross-border e-commerce in 2021 rose by 25.7 per cent against 2020.

E-commerce potential

Nguyen Duc Trung, Deputy Director of the Enterprise Development Agency under the Ministry of Planning and Investment, said that the Vietnamese economy was switching to a digital economy, in which e-commerce was a core factor.

Trinh Khac Toan from Amazon Global Selling said that e-commerce was an inevitable trend. At the same time, traditional retail slowed down due to the pandemic, adding that cross-border trade posted impressive growth since 2019, and the trend would continue to be robust until 2024.

He added that cross-border trade would help remove complicated traditional export methods while making it easier to access consumers around the globe.

Amazon said that the number of SMEs in Viet Nam earning revenue of around $100,000 on Amazon increased by 18 per cent against 2020, with $500,000 revenue by 53 per cent.

To promote online exports, he said enterprises should focus on building brands, understanding the targeted markets’ regulations, developing promotion plans, and diversifying delivery methods.

Vietnamese e-commerce market reached $17 billion and is expected to reach $29 billion in 2025, while the digital economy was forecast at $52 billion, ranking third in ASEAN in 2025. — VNS