Vietnamese Internet

Users Online Buying

And Selling Behavior

Results of an online-survey

among 2,495 internet users aged

18 - 54

1

Fieldwork: 20 July – 13 August , 2012

Conditions of Use and Copyright

Readers are welcome to use the data contained in this report for their own

purposes provided they acknowledge the source and both Acorn and Epinion

as the authors.

• Purpose: To understand Vietnamese internet users online buying

and selling behaviour

• Roles in the Joint Study:

– Acorn – study & questionnaire design, charting, analysis and reporting

– Epinion- programming, selection of respondents & online administration

• Respondent selection criteria:

– Existing members of Epinion’s online panel

– Aged 18 to 54

– Quotas placed on age to be representative of Vietnam’s internet

using population

– Nationwide coverage

• Methodology: Online survey via emailed invitation -July/Aug ‘12

• Length of interview: maximum 20 minutes

• Sample size: n=2,495

• Data Analysis: Data post-weighted to reflect actual internet usage

age ranges in Vietnam

Research Purpose and Methodology

OVERVIEW OF SAMPLED

RESPONDENTS

2%

11%

24%

63%

Education

Secondary school and under

High school

University - without degree

University - with degree

Sample Profile (Online Respondents)

38% 36%

26%

18-24 yo 25-34 yo 35-54 yo

Age

10%

16%

33%

29%

13%

F-D

C

B

A

A+

Income /SES

Base: All respondents, n=2,495

53% 47%

Gender

Male

Female

2%

20%

34%

43%

Less than 1 hour

1- 2 hours

3-5 hours

More than 5 hours

How many hours per day do

they spend online?

Online Users Internet Usage

6%

28%

30%

21%

15%

How long have they been using

the Internet?

Less than 3 years

4 to 6 years

7 to 9 years

10 to 12 years

Over 12 years

Average internet

usage 8.5 years Average internet use

5 hours per day

Ref: How many years have you been accessing the internet? / How many hours do spend online each day? Base: All respondents, n=2,495

ONLINE SHOPPING BEHAVIOR

Online Window Shopping & Buying

1%

2%

3%

22%

72%

Less often

Once/3 months or more

Once/month or more

Once/week or more

Everyday

14%

21%

20%

14%

20%

Less than 2 times

3-5 times

6-10 times

11-25 times

More than 25 times

Visit frequency Purchase frequency

Ref: How often do you visit online shopping sites and/or buy and sell sites/auction sites? / How many times have you bought something online? Base: All respondents, n=2,495

99.7% 88%

0.3% 12%

Ever Visited Online Shopping Sites Ever Bought Anything Online

No

Yes

Online Users Buyer Segments

33% 26%

37% 41%

41%

45%

40% 36%

14% 17% 12% 11%

4% 5% 3% 4%

8% 7% 8% 8%

TOTAL 18-24 yo 25-34 yo 35-54 yo

Never bought & don't

intend to

Never bought but might

in future

Ever bought, just 1-2

times

Moderate buyer (3-10)

Heavy buyer (>10)

Ref: How many times have you bought something online? / How likely are you to consider buying something online? Base: All respondents, n=2,495

Online Users Devices Owned & Used to Access Shopping Sites

76%

64%

47%

37%

16%

63%

45%

12%

22%

8%

Laptop PC at home Feature phone with 3G/GPRS

Smart phone Tablet

Device owned

Device used to access shopping sites

Ref: Which of the listed items you personally own / Which device do you use to access online shopping sites/buy and sell/auction sites? Base: All respondents, n=2,495

Types of Online Shopping Websites

Eg

- Thegioididong.com

- Fptshop.com

Proprietary online stores owned by one

company – normally bigger companies –

often sell electronics. Promoting online

payment but can also be COD.

Example sites:

- Muachung.com

- Cungmua.com

- Nhommua.com

Site owner bulk buys goods and services

from suppliers and resells them to

consumers as redeemable coupons at

discounted rates. Payment usually COD

Examples

- Vatgia.com

- Aha.vn

Similar to classified ad sites but for more

serious small businesses to make mass

sales. Payment may be via site or direct

to poster. Good delivered by poster.

Classified Ads Sites Coupon sites

Online retail sites Commercial sites

Examples

- 5giay.vn

- Rongbay.com

- Muare.vn

- 123mua.vn

Individuals /small companies post new/used

items for sale online paying site owner to post

ad. Payment and delivery settled directly

between poster and buyer.

Vietnam’s Online

Shopping Website Types

Examples of Key Websites by Shopping Site Type

Coupon sites Classified Ads

sites

Commercial

sites

Online retail

sites

51deal.vn 123mua.com aha.vn fptshop.com.vn

cucre.vn 5giay.vn vatgia.com thegioididong.com

cungmua.com chodientu.vn

cungmuasam.net ebay.vn

hotdeal.vn enbac.com

khuyenmaivang.com muaban.net

muachung.vn muaban24h.com.vn

nhommua.com muare.vn

vndoan.com raovat.vn

rongbay.com

Online Users Type Of Shopping Websites Visited Most Often

80% 77%

46%

29%

82%

75%

43%

25%

75% 75%

52%

29%

79%

76%

46%

28%

Coupon site Classified Commercial site Online retailer site

18-24 yo

25-34 yo

35-54 yo

Total

EXAMPLES >>

Ref: Which of the following sites have you visited in the past month please tick all those you have visited? Base: All respondents, n=2,495

Muachung.com

Hotdeal.vn

5giay.vn

Rongbay.com

Thegioididong.com

Fptshop.com

Vatgia.com

Aha.vn

Online Shopping Most Popular Shopping Website Types & Conversion Rates

79% 76%

46%

28%

65%

29%

13% 11%

Coupon site Classified Commercial site Online retailer site

Visited

Purchased

Ref: Which are the following shopping/buy & sell/auction sites you visit the most often? / Which of these sites did you make your last three purchases from? Base: All respondents, n=2,495

Conversion

rates (%) 82% 38% 28% 39%

Online Shopping Item Categories Bought Online

61%

42% 37%

32% 31% 26% 24% 24% 24% 23% 22% 21%

16% 16% 14% 12%

3

3

5

2

3 3

2 2 2 2 2

3

1

2 2 2

-10%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

0

1

2

3

4

5

6 Bought

Median # times

Ref: What categories of products have you ever bought online / Please indicate the number of times you have bought items in each category online . Base: Online Buyers, n=2,197

# of items

24%

32% 31%

37%

12% 16%

61%

16%

24%

42%

14%

24% 26%

21% 23% 22%

32% 29%

24% 23% 20%

18% 16% 15%

12% 10% 10% 9% 8%

5% 4% 4%

Bought

Not Appropriate to be sold

Online Shopping Categories Less Suited to be Sold Online

Ref: What categories of products have you ever bought online / Which products categories are NOT APPROPRIATE to be sold online in your opinion? Base: Online Buyers, n=2,197

Online Shopping Method of Order Placement for Online Purchases

96%

71%

Telephone vs Direct Online Order Placement

Has placed order directly online

Has placed order via telephone

69%

31%

Share of total orders

Ordered directly online

Placed order via phone (after search)

Ref: How many of the purchases you have ever made online were: a) directly ordered online and b) ordered via a telephone hotline (for direct delivery) after an online search? Base: Online Buyers, n=2,197

Online Shopping Average Spend for Last Purchase & Payment Mode

77%

2%

4%

3%

10%

4%

Cash on delivery

Debit card online

Credit card online

Third party online

Online bank transfer

Check/cash sent first

367,000 VND Mean spend (last purchase)

750,000

750,000

400,000

750,000 400,000

400,000

Ref: How much did you spend on your last online purchase? When buying something online, how do you pay most often? - MEDIAN Base: Online Buyers, n=2,197

Online Shopping Satisfaction Compared to Face-to-Face Shopping

9%

3%

29% 37%

22%

Better than face to face instore shopping

About the same as face to face instore shopping

Worse than face to face instore shopping

Somewhat

Much

Ref: How satisfied are you with the experience of shopping online compared with normal. Base: Online Buyers, n=2,197

Online Shopping Future Intention to Keep Buying Online

67% 64%

7% 7%

Intention to buy online again Recommendation to others

Negative

Positive

Ref: How likely are you to shop online again? / Would you recommend shopping online to your friends and relatives? Base: Online Buyers, n=2,197

88% 12%

Ever bought

3%

6%

12%

14%

25%

30%

32%

40%

Delivery - I fear the goods will not be delivered after paid

Delivery - Slow delivery, it's quicker to buy it myself

Payment - I had no way to make payment

Fear- Afraid my payment details will be hacked

Availability - didn't have the type I wanted

Quality/appropriateness - not sure it was fit for purpose

Prefer to see and touch

Price -more expensive than in the shops

Online Window Shoppers Barriers to Buying Online for Non-Shoppers

75% 25%

Ever wanted to buy

something but didn’t

Yes

No

Reason for Not Buying the Item Seen Online & Desired (that could afford)

99.7% 0.3%

Ever visited online

Shopping sites

Ref: Did you ever see anything at online shopping sites/auction/buy & sell sites that you wanted to buy and had enough money to afford? / Why did you not buy the item(s) - what were the reasons? Base: All respondents, n=2,495

12% n=291

9% n=218

99.7% n=2,487

100% n=2,495

Non-Shoppers Likelihood to Buy Online in the Future

14%

20%

43%

16%

8%

Very likely

Somewhat likely

Might of might not

Somewhat unlikely

Very unlikely

Ref: How likely are you to consider buying something online in the future? Base: Internet users who window shop but have never bought anything online & who never visit online shopping sites, n=298

40%

40%

41%

43%

46%

50%

54%

60%

63%

65%

66%

76%

34%

38%

32%

31%

32%

31%

32%

19%

17%

16%

11%

4%

You can be reasonably sure that goods will be delivered after bought online

In the future, all Vietnamese with internet access will buy things online

The internet is a great source for finding out about new products

The internet is a good place for finding out about products & window …

I do not ever see myself buying anything over the internet

There are safe ways to pay for things over the internet

Just about any service or product can be sold over the internet

You can get the same quality at a cheaper price on the internet

I would buy things online if there was a safe payment & delivery system

I generally trust people & companies selling things online

Buying things online saves time over buying things face to face

Making payments for goods bought from the internet is dangerous

Agree Disagree

Non-Shoppers Attitudes to Shopping Online

Ref: How much do you agree or disagree with each of the following statements? Base: Internet users who window shop but have never bought anything online & who never visit online shopping sites, n=298

Negative statement

ONLINE SELLING BEHAVIOR

37

28

16

11 11

6 5 5

4 3 3 3

2 2

33

17

14

6 6 4 4

5

2 2 2 2 1 1

Product Types Sold (%)

Sold

Only Second hand items 34%

66%

Ever Sold Online

Yes

No

Online Selling Behavior Incidence and Top Categories Sold

Ref: Have you ever SOLD anything over the internet, either via an auction site or your own website? / What kind of products have you sold online? Base: All respondents, n=2,495; Online sellers, n=849

34% n=849

Online Selling Behavior

Type of Goods Sold

NEW

33%

2nd HAND

37%

BOTH

30%

Ref: Was the item(s) you sold new or second-hand/used? Base: Online sellers, n=849

Online Buying and Selling Behavior Most Popular Categories Sold

53%

37%

32%

28% 27%

23% 21% 21% 21% 20% 19% 18%

14% 14% 13% 11%

9%

2% 1%

13%

4% 2% 1%

4% 5%

1% 1% 1% 0% 0% 1% 2%

Bought

Sold

Ref: What categories of products have you ever bought online? What kind of products have you sold online? Base: All respondents, n=2,495

Online Selling Behavior Type Of Websites Used by Sellers

79% 76%

46%

28%

65%

29%

13% 11%

21%

8%

Coupon site Classified Commercial site Online retailer site

Visited

Purchased

Sold

Ref: Which are the following shopping/buy & sell/auction sites you visit the most often? / Which of these sites did you make your last three purchases from? Base: All respondents, n=2,495

Online Selling Behavior

34%

66%

Ever Sold Online

Yes No

Top 3 Barriers to Taking Up Internet Selling

17%

21%

22%

26%

40%

42%

42%

46%

Handling tax implications and accounting

Setting the price

Trusting the buyer

Ensuring the delivery of product

Establishing and controlling the payment system

Deciding what to sell

Advertising/promoting the item to the audience

Sourcing the product to sell

17%

61%

Dissatisfied

Satisfied

Satisfaction with result

Future online selling likelihood

18%

57%

Unlikely

Likely

Ref: How satisfied were you with the result of selling online? / How likely are you to try to sell something online in the future? / From this list what would be the top three most barriers that you believe you would face in conducting or setting-up online sales? Base: All respondents, n=2,495; Never sellers n=1,646

100% n=2,495

66%; n=1,646

34%; n=849

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Online Shopping Incidence and Behaviour

• Virtually all (99.7%) internet users have visited a shopping site online and 72% do

so everyday

• Two-thirds of Vietnamese online shoppers access shopping sites online and 45%

do so on a desktop PC – only 22% use their smartphone and just 8% use a tablet

• A staggering 88% have ever bought something online, with 20% claiming more

than 25 purchases to date and a median of 8.75 purchases

• Most have bought things through coupon sites (65%) and classified ad sites (29%),

with 13% buying through commercial sites and 11% through online retailer sites

• Even among the 12% who have never bought anything online, 4% do not rule out

the possibility that they will – nor are never-shoppers more prevalent among the

older age groups, indeed older respondents (35-54 years) appear to contain more

heavy buyers than younger age groups

• Most commonly bought items are fashion (61%), house appliances (42%), food

and beverages (37%), mobile devices (37%) and cosmetics (31%). Least likely to

have been purchased online are phone apps and software (12%).

• Average (median) spend on last item purchased was approx. VND 367,000 (US$

17.6), though 8% said they spent over 5 million VND (US$ 240)

Executive Summary

Online Shopping Incidence and Behaviour

• But given poor access to credit and low bank usage in Vietnam, cash on delivery

dominates e-commerce in Vietnam - three quarters of last purchases were by cash

on delivery to home and only 5% made by credit or debit card

• Vietnamese on-line buyers feel comfortable buying online - with a plurality (38%)

believing that online shopping is better than face-to-face shopping, while just 25%

feel it is worse and two-thirds saying they will buy online again in future

• They also believe most items can be sold online – though electronic devices and

mobile devices are thought to be least appropriate to be bought online, while few

people reject buying travel services and tickets online

Non-buyers

• Among never buyers, around 75% have window-shopped online and wanted to

buy something that they could afford, but did not buy it, with 40% citing the higher

price online than in the shops as the major disincentive, followed by the need to

touch and feel the objects (32%)

• Trust appears to remain a barrier among those who have never bought online.

Three-quarters agree that making payments remains dangerous and less than half

(40%) agree that you can be reasonably sure of delivery if you buy something over

the internet.

Executive Summary

• Over half also appear to enjoy the shopping experience and finding out about new

products the old fashioned way

Online Selling Incidence

• While 88% have ever bought online, just 34% have ever sold anything online –with

the incidence of selling new and used goods being roughly equal

• Nevertheless, interest in selling online is high even among those who have never

done so – with over half (57%) saying they will likely sell something online in

future

• However, potential sellers are put off from selling online primarily by not knowing

where to source merchandise (46%), or what to sell (42%), or how to

advertise/promote the product online (42%) or establishing a payment system

(40%)

• The most common items sold online are mobile devices (13% of all respondents

have sold these online), fashion items (9%) and electronic devices (3%) and these

are mostly sold over classified sites (21%)

Executive Summary

Conclusions

• Persons who join internet panels are self-selected and hence can be expected to

be more active online than the average internet user. But even accounting for this,

this survey indicates that internet commerce is here to stay in Vietnam and can

only be expected to grow.

• Vietnamese netizens feel comfortable online and a surprising number have

bought (88%) and sold (34%) online already.

• However, online commerce in Vietnam has adopted a peculiarly Vietnamese flavor

in accordance with the state of financial development. Three quarters of

transactions are completed using cash on delivery whereby a delivery man rides

the ubiquitous motorcycle to your door to deliver your order. Credit and debit

cards are so rare that only 5% of last transactions were paid in this way.

• Trust in payment systems, and doubts about whether goods will be delivered also

remain as significant barriers to online commerce in the minds of never buyers –

even though two-thirds agree that online purchases save time, and possibly money

over face to face shopping.

• But as confidence in the banking and payments systems improves, these barriers

are also likely to slowly dissolve and internet commerce can only thrive and grow.

Executive Summary

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:

Contact : Pham Tran Nghia

Email : pham.tran.nghia@epinion.vn

Tel: +84 905 025 752

Acorn Vietnam

Contact: Bill Pritchard

Email: william@acorn.com.vn

Tel: +84-8-3823-3007