Build your own sales channels if e-commerce competition too harsh: NextTech exec 

If e-commerce competition is too harsh, Vietnamese businesses should develop their own sales channels and customer databases, says Nguyen Hoa Binh, founder and chairman of NextTech Group, a leading technology startup in Vietnam.

Binh made the remark at the Shark Tank Forum 2025 in Ho Chi Minh City on Thursday. During the discussion, he highlighted three significant trends shaping the future of e-commerce.

First, the concept of "buying cheap and selling expensive" no longer exists; it is replaced by the method of buying and selling from the root to the top. This change has been killing many businesses.

Specifically, businesses that import cheap goods from China, from wholesale markets, and then sell them on the street no longer have business opportunities. The reason is that e-commerce is developing, and cheap goods from China are sold directly to consumers at prices that are sometimes only one fifth of those in Vietnam.

The delivery time of Chinese businesses is very short. Therefore, small traders who import goods from China and then sell them at 4-5 times higher prices have been and are slowly dying, Binh noted.

Second, e-commerce is pacified by large platforms, and trading platforms have been and are tightening sellers with stricter fees and criteria. In China, there are cases where related fees account for up to 40% of product revenue.

Third, when sellers face an increasingly harsh environment and do not have customer data, they start to tend to have their own platforms to get their own customer data.

Faced with the above challenges, Binh proposed three options for businesses to cope.

Firstly, intermediary traders who import goods from one place and sell them elsewhere will gradually die out. Therefore, those in this group should gradually prepare, come up with products with Vietnamese labels, produced by Vietnamese people or processed in other countries such as China and India to stay in the market.

Secondly, businesses that use e-commerce need to professionalize the operation process, in which warehousing and logistics are very important. If the seller is slow to deliver or the goods are damaged, then customers can rate 1 star and affect the business's operations.

Thirdly, when the trading floor is too harsh, businesses need to build their own sales channels to have their own customer data. When selling on the floor, businesses have absolutely no customer contact information, so they need to invest to have their own customers to survive in the future.

Phan Minh Thong, CEO of Phuc Sinh Group, Vietnam’s major pepper and coffee exporter, emphasized the importance of sustainable development, noting that it is becoming a non-negotiable requirement.

Banks have already started integrating sustainability into their lending criteria. Sustainable development is no longer a distant concept; it is a pressing reality. For example, natural disasters like typhoon Yagi have served as a wake-up call for Vietnamese businesses and citizens. Startups must educate themselves and implement sustainable practices, Thong commented.

Food safety is also a critical issue. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, products in the U.S. market often lacked certification. However, post-pandemic, food safety certifications have become a requirement for products on store shelves, he added.

Shark Louis Nguyen, CEO of Saigon Asset Management (S.A.M.), highlighted the immense opportunities for Vietnamese startups in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). He urged startups to explore how AI can influence their industries and integrate it into their operations to gain a competitive edge.