fee increases dramatically
Before entering the busiest shopping season of the year, many e-commerce platforms have unexpectedly raised their fees, online traders continue to carry many "unknown" fees.
Doing business in women's fashion on the Shopee e-commerce platform, Ms. Tran Ngoc Linh (Hanoi) was fed up with the sudden increase in fees.
Ms. Linh said that traders have had to bear a series of costs from subsidies, transaction fees, taxes, etc. In total, these items account for about 20 - 25% of the revenue per order.
"Recently, the Shopee e-commerce platform has changed its policy, so the floor fee has been deducted too high. Not only that, the previous subsidy that e-commerce platforms also supported traders, but recently sellers have had to accept it themselves," said Ms. Linh.
For an order with a profit of about 50,000 VND, Ms. Linh estimates to have to spend 230,000 VND on floor fees, not to mention a series of other costs to maintain business such as operation (packaged, human resources, electricity and water...).
Meanwhile, import prices do not tend to "low down", causing sellers' profits to continue to erode, and business risks are increasing.
Estimating the profit when doing business on e-commerce platforms, Ms. Linh pointed out: "On average, an order costs 400,000 VND, I will lose 25,000 VND/order. Currently, there are few orders on the Shopee platform, so I sell 5 orders per month, mainly customers buying through social networking platforms such as Instagram".
For Ms. Le My Anh (Hanoi), after 6 years of doing business on e-commerce platforms, she has also left the money-making channel that was once considered the main focus of the whole family.
According to Ms. My Anh, the fees have all increased but the price of the product cannot increase accordingly. If prices increase, domestic customers will also leave. Small businesses are now having a hard time staying on the stock exchange. Low-value goods that cannot keep up with trends will be even more difficult to compete with.
Linked marketing programs bring in huge income
Many traders doing business on e-commerce platforms have found new directions for themselves to both retain customers and increase their income.
In order to avoid the situation of "losing over and losing", Mr. Tran Trong Nghia (Hanoi) has added Shopee Affiliate - an affiliate marketing program, allowing sellers to earn commissions by promoting products on e-commerce platforms through personal introduction links.
In charge of communication and advertising at a company, Ms. Nguyen Hai said: "At the end of the year, there are many big promotions such as 11.11, Black Friday, and the holidays have huge shopping volume. Running Affiliate (advertising) is also more favorable."
According to Ms. Hai, products that need to "run Affiliate" are often diverse, rich, not oriented towards certain types, key products, so sellers have the opportunity to expand their potential customer base.
In addition, she also believes that the current consumer trend focuses on evaluation and hands-on experience. Therefore, Affiliate people need to invest in genuine content, with consultation and product comparison, instead of just running simple ads.
