Vietnam e-commerce can reach $32 bln, shoppertainment $8 bln in 2025

The e-commerce market in Vietnam can reach $32 billion in 2025, while the shoppertainment section can grow to $8 billion, according to reports by Lazada and TikTok Shop, among the most popular e-commerce platforms in Vietnam.

In its newly-released report, Lazada said the gross merchandise value (GMV) of e-commerce in Vietnam can increase from $14 billion in 2022 (up 26% year-on-year) to $32 billion in 2025.

Lazada added the valuation of Southeast Asian nation’s digital economy can rise to $49 billion in 2025 from $23 billion in 2022, indicating that the e-commerce market would account for 65% of the digital economy at the time.

To adapt to the growth of e-commerce, Lazada highlighted the focus on logistics. Per real estate service firm CBRE’s calculation of 93,000 square meters of warehouse needed for every $1 billion of e-commerce revenue, the sector would need over two million square meters of warehouse in 2025.

Besides, Lazada pointed out a bottleneck of lackluster workforce. Technology-related workers account for about 1% of the country’s workforce. In order to raise the rate to 2%, Vietnam needs to train at least 70,000 students more in the sector annually, or a 40% hike, Lazada noted.

Meanwhile, TikTok Shop, a rising star in Vietnam’s e-commerce sector, informed that the shoppertainment market in Vietnam can blossom to $8.1 billion in 2025 from $1.8 billion in 2022, or an average growth of 66% annually.

Shoppertainment is content-driven commerce that seeks to entertain and educate first while integrating content and community to create a highly immersive shopping experience, Boston Consulting Group (BCG) said.

At the TikTok Shop Vietnam Summit last Tuesday, also the one-year anniversary of TikTok Shop in Vietnam, Daniel Nguyen, an executive from TikTok Shop Vietnam, said the GMV of TikTok Shop skyrocketed by 11 times in the last six months, while the number of orders increased also by six times, thanks to the trend of shoppertainment.

TikTok Shop added the views of short videos and the view durations tripled in the period.

TikTok Shop clarified it can fulfill customer demand of entertainment and shopping simultaneously, leading to its pacey growth. A joint research of BCG and TikTok pointed out shoppertainment becomes a trend in Vietnam thanks to the country’s strong infrastructure, content creators having strong influences on buyers, and brands’ willingness to invest in new channels.

Shopee, Lazada, Tiki, and Sendo were the leading e-commerce platforms in Vietnam last year in terms of revenue, according to a report by Metric.vn, a local e-commerce analyzer. The Metric.vn report particularly emphasized the rise of TikTok Shop, the e-commerce arm of social media giant TikTok. After its debut in April 2022, it became the third-largest e-commerce platform in Vietnam in November 2022 with a revenue of VND1.7 trillion ($71.93 million), only behind Lazada and Shopee, two foreign players.