According to the Vietnam E-Commerce and Information Technology Agency (VECITA) under the Ministry of Industry and Trade, about 3,000 businesses will offer their best products and services at lower prices on the Online Friday 2016.
On Online Friday, consumers who make online purchases enjoy special discounts, free shipping of items, and other incentives from participating businesses. The Online Friday 2016 (December 2 this year) will be the year’s biggest e-commerce event held on the first Friday of December.
Major commodities showed at this year will be electronics, household appliances, fashion and tourism produced and distributed by numerous famous bands in Vietnam, offering most preferred prices to consumers.
The VECITA said that large electronic device producers and official importers including Samsung, Intel, Asus, Oppo, Maison JSC, and Hoang Phuc International as well as big Omni-channel retailers including The gioi di dong, Nguyen Kim, HC, Pico, MediaMart and Tran Anh will participate this year’s event. E-commerce firms, online travel companies, delivery businesses, start-ups, banks and payment services providers such as Adayroi, Tiki, Lazada, Hotdeal, VNPost, Viettel Post… will also join in the Online Friday.
According to Deputy Director of VECITA, Ms. Lai Viet Anh, the participating businesses will offer 200,000 products at discount prices, expecting a total revenue of over 1 trillion VND (44.8 million USD). E-commerce is now attractive to both enterprises and consumers in Vietnam.
The first Online Friday was held in 2014, with over 160,000 purchases and a total transaction value of 154 billionVND (around 6.9 million USD). In 2015, 2,500 enterprises participated in the Online Friday, generating around 500 billion VND (around 22.4 million USD).
"The event aims to improve people's awareness about e-commerce. In addition, this would be an opportunity for businesses to implement their e-commerce, thus increasing sales," Ms.Lai Viet Anh said.
She also informed that the organising board will ask enterprises to sign a commitment on properly providing promotional products as well as publishing the original and listing price before the Online Friday this year. Regulations on the transparency of product quality and discounts have been issued to protect consumers’ rights and ensure the events’ success. Any company that commits violations will be eliminated from the Online Friday, and must compensate consumers and pay fines up to 300 million VND, he added.
The online shopping day on the first Friday of December (December 2 this year) is a highlight among a series of related events that include both online and offline activities, such as the autumn online shopping day on September 30, an e-commerce forum in November, and a BigOFF event from December 1 - 3.
With a young population, Vietnam ranks sixth in Asia and 17th in the world in terms of the growth rate of Internet users, who make up 48 percent of its population, according to VECITA.
According to the plan for development of e-commerce during the 2016-2020 period, the turnover from business-to-consumer type of e-commercial transactions will reach 10 billion USD in 2020, increasing 20% per year; meanwhile turnover from business-to-business will account 30% of export turnover.
