Tuan Anh, a seller in HCMC, has barely sold anything in his printed T-shirt online shop, and decided to stop altogether.
The office worker, who tried to earn a little extra from a side hustle, found out that it had become unprofitable.
“There are too many competitors on e-commerce platforms,” he told VnExpress.
“The only way to sell is by running ads, which is not possible for small vendors like me who lack funds.”
He is hardly alone in this.
In the first six months the number of e-commerce vendors with at least one order plunged by 80,000 year-on-year, according to data tracker Metric.
“There is increasingly fierce competition in e-commerce, with the market favoring larger sellers capable of maintaining stable order volumes.”
The online market is booming, but mostly for large vendors.
Consultancy firm YouNET ECI said the gross merchandise value of the four largest multi-category retail platforms, Shopee, TikTok Shop, Lazada, and Tiki, was worth VND222.1 trillion (US$8.8 billion) in the first half, a 23% increase year-on-year.
Yet the number of active sellers on these platforms fell by 1.3% to 578,700.
Nguyen Phuong Lam, director of market analysis at YouNet ECI, highlighted the 34% revenue increase for official brand stores in the first half.
Metric’s data on Shopee and TikTok Shop, which together have more than a 90% market share, shows that shop malls account for just 3.4% of the number of shops but account for 28.7% of sales.
“This reflects consumers’ growing caution, prioritizing trust and reliability when shopping amid widespread low-quality goods,” the report pointed out.
Small sellers also struggle with limited resources for marketing, which is now essential for generating orders, Nguyen Khac Tu, founder and CEO of Bigshop, an electronics and household appliance retailer and a 10-year veteran of online retail, said.
“If vendors on Shopee do not run ads, they get very few orders. Similarly, livestreams on TikTok Shop without advertising attract few viewers.”
Increasing platform fees have also hit small sellers, he added.
YouNet ECI’s Lam agreed the fees are a big issue.
“With the pressure of rising platform fees, many small, unprofessional or under-invested sellers are forced to exit the market.”
The era of quick profits from cheap, low-quality goods is also fading, he added.
In the low-price segment, international shops are gaining ground over domestic ones.
On Shopee, international shops saw a nearly 7% sales growth in the first half though the average order price was just VND45,000.
Stricter regulations for product quality and a big crackdown on fakes are causing some sellers to flee.
The Ministry of Industry and Trade’s E-commerce and Digital Economy Agency reported that online platforms removed over 33,000 products and penalized more than 11,000 shops for violations in the first half of this year.
Nevertheless, opportunities remain for small players as the e-commerce market continues to grow rapidly.
Metric projects a 21.6% sales increase in the third quarter of 2025, with the gross merchandise value of the four major platforms reaching VND122.8 trillion.
Long-term forecasts from the e-Conomy report by Google, Temasek and Bain & Company predict Vietnam’s online market will hit $63 billion by the end of the decade, nearly triple the 2024 figure.
 |
|
A person delivers a package to a customer. Photo by Unsplash/rosebox |
But success is increasingly achieved only by professional and law-abiding shops with deep pockets.
Lam said consumers shop online year-round across various categories, prioritizing quality, and online platforms are no longer a channel for sellers to “dump inventories.”
“Serious investment in branding, service quality and financial preparation for the long haul is essential to compete.
“Vietnam’s e-commerce market no longer has room for short-term thinking.”
A proposed E-commerce Law aims to enhance market quality and transparency.
Platforms will face stricter accountability, requiring the removal of violating products within 24 hours of detection.
Sellers must verify their identities to enable traceability.
Nguyen Huu Tuan, director of the E-commerce and Digital Technology Development Center, said sellers’ responsibilities for their products would be more tightly regulated.
Product labels must include all legally required information, he said.
“For tech products, those without certification or not permitted for circulation – especially tech or imported goods – will struggle to survive. The days of listing products with arbitrary information are over.”
