Cross-Border E-Commerce In The New Normal: Amazon Global Selling Vietnam’s Gijae Seong Talks About Chances And Challenges For Vietnamese Businesses (S3E2)

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Listen and subscribe to “Vietnam Innovators” in Vietnamese: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | YouTube.

When Jeff Bezos sold Amazon’s first book shipped straight from his garage in Seattle in 1995, one of the most inspiring e-commerce stories began. At present, Amazon offers convenience and speed, and they’re all about innovation, business, and the details. While they offer a tremendous product range, Amazon attempts to personalize the customer experience.

One other feature that places Amazon on another level is the multi-leveled e-commerce strategy it employs — the platform lets almost anyone sell almost anything. All while keeping being one of the most trustworthy, safe, and reliable e-commerce sites currently in business.

To officially open the brand-new season of Vietnam Innovators, Vietcetera CEO and host of the podcast Hao Tran met with Gijae Seong, to talk about business trends in Vietnam, challenges when tapping new markets, and their priorities to support local businesses to grow with Amazon in the “new normal.” Gijae is the Head of Amazon Global Selling Vietnam.

“Looking at the trend at the moment and the other countries that probably are one or two steps ahead of Vietnam, then perhaps we can somehow deduce what's going to happen for Vietnam in the next two years,” Gijae told Hao.

Interesting sharing from Gijae provided some insightful angles toward cross-border e-commerce for business in Vietnam:

• The trend: Head of Amazon Global Selling Vietnam sees the expected growth in export in Vietnam. He also recognizes a strong boost from the export online. He added that this was the trend when the country’s economy reached a certain level. Online export is bringing the people, the manufacturers, and brand owners the opportunity of not only becoming a supply chain but also positioning themselves at the forefront in building their brands.
• The change: He said there are two reasons people switch to buying supplies online: First, people realize the benefit of purchasing online, such as saving cost and time and safety because of the pandemic. The second is the massive product selection online to buy.
• The time: Vietnam is in the transition period — offline to online. He said the pandemic has somehow accelerated the local businesses to innovate and discover the supply chain that provides cheaper costs with good quality products.
• The challenge: One of the biggest challenges for local businesses to export or do business in other countries is language. Amazon Global Selling Vietnam has brought the localized experience for Vietnamese selling partners. Gijae shared, “We make an effort to provide Vietnamese language on seller central, seller university, and seller support and then bring a localized experience to the Vietnamese selling partners to easily understand the cross-border e-commerce industry and Amazon Global Selling program.”
• The mission: Amazon, among the leading world-class players in the e-commerce industry, expects to raise awareness about e-commerce export or cross-border e-commerce in Vietnam. Gijae said their priorities include providing more education and increasing awareness about the global selling opportunities.

When introducing a new business trend to a new market, especially in an emerging country like Vietnam, Gijae acknowledged it’s not easy for the traditional manufacturers to switch and adapt to a new business model. In the discussion with Hao, Gijae shared some of their action plan for 2022, their 3rd year in Vietnam:

• In the first two years, Amazon Global Selling focused on setting up the local team, building the resource of education, and introducing communication channels to help Vietnamese businesses become aware of the new business model and learn about Amazon and its services/ tools. They also established the first foundation of collaboration with governmental offices and associations across industries to support SMEs capture their business transformation opportunity via e-commerce and cross-border e-commerce. 2020 & 2021 were “FOUNDATION.”
• 2022 is expected to be a year of GROWTH: the growth of cross-border e-commerce awareness and adoption in Vietnam, the growth for Vietnamese SMEs in revenue from exporting through e-commerce; growth for Amazon with an increasing number of selling partners who capture their global business opportunities with Amazon, and the development of Made-in-Vietnam products on the international market.

Watch the full interview below: