"The price is half of domestic products"
As a regular customer on e-commerce platforms such as TikTok shop, Shopee, Lazada, Mr. Nguyen Chien (Cau Giay district, Hanoi) said that he often orders household appliances, cosmetics, and clothes on TikTok shop and some international e-commerce sites.
The advantages of these products compared to domestic products are low price, fast delivery, and free shipping.
According to Mr. Chien, although the products on TikTok shop are already very cheap, since he downloaded the Temu e-commerce application to his phone and placed an order, he was even more surprised because the prices of products sold on Temu were even cheaper.
Therefore, Mr. Chien ordered a sofa cover from Temu for more than 100,000 VND, 70% off and free shipping. "The shipper just sent me the item, the product packaging has the words "made in China" printed on it; I don't know how durable the product is, but the price is half of domestic products, fast delivery," said Mr. Chien.
Temu application has Vietnamese interface, price automatically converted to Vietnamese Dong. Photo: Anh Tuan
Since last week, Temu has been running a massive advertising campaign on the Internet and major social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram in Vietnam. Domestic Internet users can easily come across Temu's advertisements with invitations to install the application to buy cheap products.
When accessing the official website or installing the Temu application, users will see the interface in Vietnamese and the product price is converted to Vietnamese Dong, showing that Temu has developed a website and application specifically for the Vietnamese market.
Temu will be monitored
Before Temu's "landing" in the Vietnamese market, speaking with Lao Dong, a representative of the Ministry of Industry and Trade said that the e-commerce site Temu has not officially announced its entry into Vietnam, but Vietnamese users can still access stores on their phones, download the app and make purchases.
When asked whether the e-commerce site Temu selling cheap goods affects Vietnamese goods, according to the representative of this Department, there is currently no specific assessment because Temu has only appeared in Vietnam.
"However, whether the price of goods and products is too cheap affects domestically produced goods is also a matter of concern for us. We will monitor and supervise to have comprehensive information on this issue," said a representative of the Department of E-commerce and Digital Economy.
According to the agency, Vietnam’s e-commerce has an average growth rate of 25% per year. More than 61 million Vietnamese people shop online and the average purchase value per person is about 336 USD. This data shows that Vietnam is becoming a potential country for investors, especially in cross-border e-commerce.
According to regulations, cross-border online retail platforms with Vietnamese domain names, Vietnamese display language, or with more than 100,000 transactions per year from Vietnam must register their operations with the Ministry of Industry and Trade. This is to ensure compliance with standards on consumer protection, information security, and related legal regulations.
According to data from the Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Corporation, as of March 2023, there were an average of 4-5 million orders/day shipped from China to Vietnam, with the value of each order divided into 100-300 thousand VND; on average, there were about 45-63 million USD per day, and about 1.3-1.9 billion USD worth of goods circulated through Shopee, Lazada, Tiki, TikTok...
According to Chairman of the Finance and Budget Committee Le Quang Manh, many countries have removed the VAT exemption for imported goods of small value to protect revenue sources and create an equal business environment between domestically produced and imported goods.
Therefore, the Finance - Budget Committee recommends that the Government refer to the general trend to consider removing this regulation, creating conditions to expand and cover revenue sources in the context of current budget constraints.
