E-commerce experts talk Vietnam’s future

The content and structure of Seamless Vietnam were designed to cover the entire omni-channel journey.

Participants heard experts speak about digital marketing, merchandising, pricing, and in-store technologies.

Others spoke about payments, staff training, multi-channel, call centres, home delivery, click & collect, supply chains, packaging, customer service, loyalty and retention, and product returns.

Attendees were from major Vietnamese banks and leading e-commerce and retail giants.

With a population of 95 million, the highest retail sales growth in Asia of 10.4 percent, an e-commerce market predicted to be worth 10 billion USD by 2020, and a regulatory environment increasingly opening up to foreign investment, there has never been a better time in Vietnam for senior executives from across the e-commerce eco-system to come together and discuss future strategies, partnerships and solutions.

The State Bank of Vietnam kicked off the conference with a keynote address on “Moving towards a cashless society in Vietnam by 2020.”

“Cashless payments have strongly increased in Vietnam recently with 65 banks providing internet banking, 35 others providing mobile banking and many other credit organisations launching electronic payments,” Tran Dinh Cuong, deputy director of the central bank’s HCM City office, said.

“The cash payment ratio has reduced to 12% in comparison with 14% in 2010 and the figure will be less than 10 percent by 2020.”

Le Anh Tuan, head of VietinBank’s electronic banking division, said: “Low fees and safe, secure, fast technologies are the two most important things to attract customers to electronic payments.”

Nguyen Phu Vinh, head of the HCM City Electricity Corporation’s business department, said his company has already tied up with 22 banks and eight fintech companies to collect electricity tariffs online.

“As of the end of July there were 1.7 million customers paying through banks and other credit organisations, accounting for 60% of our revenues.

“We plan to reach 100 percent by 2020.”

On the sidelines of the conference there was an exhibition of products and services offered by major players from across the payments, retail and e-commerce vendor communities.

It was the first time Seamless, Asia’s largest and longest running conference focused on cards and payments, was organised in Vietnam. Over 400 senior executives and experts attended the event.