Thương mại điện tử xuyên biên giới: Xúc tiến các sản phẩm Việt Nam trên thị trường toàn cầu
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE FOR YOUNG RESEARCHERS IN ECONOMICS & BUSINESS 2020
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CROSS-BORDER E-COMMERCE: PROMOTING VIETNAMESE
PRODUCTS TO THE GLOBAL MARKET
THƯƠNG MẠI ĐIỆN TỬ XUYÊN BIÊN GIỚI: XÚC TIẾN
CÁC SẢN PHẨM VIỆT NAM TRÊN THỊ TRƯỜNG TOÀN CẦU
Nguyen Ha Minh Hanh – TS. Mai Hương Giang, PhD
Banking Academy
Abstract
In the context of industrial revolution 4.0, cross-border e-commerce is an inevitable trend
of the world economy, and Vietnam is not an exception to that rule. To contribute some efforts to
shed light on its importance, this research has gone into a practical analysis of Vietnam’s export
cross-border e-commerce ecosystem. The concrete performance includes trading community,
service community and support community. Subsequently, channels of CBEC using marketplaces,
self-managed websites and multichannel to promote Vietnamese products to international markets
were analyzed. The results showed that cross-border e-commerce is of great strategic significance
to promote Vietnamese products to the global market. It was found that the number of Vietnamese
businesses selling through international marketplaces has been increased while the quality of
products being promoted through CBEC has been improved. Finally, the problems pointed out
in the previous article were confirmed, and the experience and lessons were summarized. At the
same time, some suggestions and recommendations were proposed to both businesses and Gov-
ernment bodies to promote the development of CBEC.
Keywords: cross-border e-commerce (CBEC); export cross-border e-commerce ecosys-
tem; marketplaces; social media; self-managed websites.
Tóm tắt
Trong bối cảnh cuộc cách mạng công nghiệp 4.0, thương mại điện tử xuyên biên giới là
một xu hướng tất yếu của thế giới, và Việt Nam không nằm ngoài xu hướng đó. Bài viết tập trung
nghiên cứu về “hệ sinh thái” thương mại điện tử xuyên biên giới, bao gồm nhóm thương mại,
nhóm dịch vụ và nhóm hỗ trợ. Tiếp theo, bài viết phân tích các kênh của thương mại điện tử
xuyên biên giới để đưa sản phẩm của Việt Nam ra thị trường nước ngoài bao gồm thị trường
trực tuyến, các trang mạng tự quản lý và kênh hỗn hợp. Kết quả chỉ ra rằng thương mại điện tử
xuyên biên giới là chiến lược đúng đắn nhằm giúp sản phẩm của Việt Nam tiếp cận thị trường
quốc tế. Cụ thể, số lượng doanh nghiệp bán hàng thông qua hình thức thương mại điện tử ngày
càng tăng lên, và chất lượng sản phẩm xuất xứ từ Việt Nam trên thị trường quốc tế ngày càng
được cải thiện. Từ đó, kết quả đúc kết lại các bài học kinh nghiệm cho lĩnh vực thương mại điện
tử của Việt Nam. Cuối cùng, bài viết đưa ra các gợi ý và đề xuất cho doanh nghiệp và chính phủ
nhằm hoàn thiện hoạt động thương mại điện tử này.
Từ khoá: Thương mại điện tử xuyên biên giới (TMĐTXBG); hệ sinh thái TMĐTXBG;
thị trường trực tuyến, phương tiện truyền thông mạng, trang mạng điện tử tự quản lý.
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1. Introduction
1.1. Research motivation
There is no doubt that e-commerce market continues to develop swiftly, in spite of world
economic crisis and other negative effects. Businesses of all sizes are making every effort to find
partners from all around the world on the Internet and conducting their sales across borders
through online channels. It is clear that cross-border e-commerce has its popularity increasing
and has been widely adopted by small and medium enterprises in recent years, especially for
which in developing economies like Vietnam. The statistics of “White paper on Vietnamese en-
terprises” show that small and medium enterprises accounts for 97,21% of all enterprises in Viet-
nam, so their search for new export markets will be a motivation for developing the e-commerce
industry and the economy. Vietnamese merchants are attracted to global e-marketplaces which
allow customers to search for a broader variety of products and enable international sales at low
cost. According to Amazon traders, Vietnam has great potential to develop CBEC thanks to its
manufacturing advantages and abundances of labor supply plus many young talents. Besides,
Vietnamese enterprises have the opportunity to scrutinize and perfect their products, in order to
promote the quality of “made in Vietnam” goods when participating in online export (Pham Thiet
Hoa, 2019). This can help develop Vietnamese brands and promote Vietnam’s image closer to
international friends.
Vietnam recently has been one of the countries that has experienced the fastest growth of
e-commerce, at over 35% annually, 2.5 times higher than Japan (Ta Lan, 2019). The bloom of e-
commerce has aided the development of CBEC as the total cross-border online transaction value
is expected to hit US$900 billion globally by 2020, making up 22% of global e-commerce value.
(CBEC benefits Vietnamese SMEs, 2019). However, the awareness of the importance and benefits
of e-commerce is not fully recognized by many Vietnamese businesses, which can impede the
development of CBEC. For example, the number of Vietnamese businesses having their own
website in foreign language is limited. Only 42% of exporting enterprises have websites and 58%
of which use foreign languages. (Baharum & Jaafar, 2015). Besides, the legal guidelines in e-
commerce are not sufficiently comprehensive and robust, especially those related to cross- border
e-commerce. The highest legal document for E-commerce is Decree 52, which was issued in
2013, can not provide the convenient environment for unlocking the advantageous and freeing
E-commerce from other legal documents which was issued to regulate the traditional business
model. Moreover, based on the relevant literature, it is the fact that there were few researches on
the topic of CBEC in Vietnam. Specifically, before this research, never have any articles ever
analyzed the case studies of Vietnamese businesses promoting products via CBEC. Therefore, it
can be said that this study is to fill the gap of previous literatures. From that perspective, the re-
search focused on analyzing the current situation of CBEC in Vietnam and some channel options
to export Vietnamese products by CBEC. Then, it suggested some solutions to stimulate CBEC
in Vietnam and to promote Vietnamese goods to the world. That the reason why the title “Cross-
border e-commerce: Promoting Vietnamese products to the global market” was chosen to
research.
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1.2. Research scope and objective
The specific objectives of this review research are to study the Vietnam’s cross-border
ecosystem and the current situation of Vietnamese businesses selling internationally through
e-commerce sites thereby presenting solutions to promote Vietnamese products to the global
market. Furthermore, the study focuses on B2C and B2B export CBEC.
The scope of the study is to find out the research topic on CBEC in Vietnam in the last 5
years, from 2014-2019.
1.3. Research methodology
The study uses the qualitative method as the main research methodology. In this paper,
qualitative research is conducted through the collection of information from internet sources and
the reports of regulatory agencies, organizations, as well as previous studies, which gives the au-
thor a better overview of e-commerce and the development of CBEC.
1.4. Research structure
The structure of this paper is organized as follows. Section II presents the literature review
and theoretical framework used in the study. In Section III, the current situation of CBEC to pro-
mote Vietnamese products are analyzed first and the discussions are then reported. Section IV
find out the solutions and recommendations of the paper.
2. Literature review and theoretical framework
2. 1. Literature review
In the process of CBEC ’s development, there are many theoretical framework that were
published under various aspects and different angles of e-commerce. Thomas A.Cook & Kelly
Raia (2017) found the theory of CBEC channel options, which is the basis for the article. The
combination of Internet and international trade supported the CBEC development. It was
found that the development of technologies allowed them to shop online more easily though
invisible borders (Alkadi et al., 2004), such as convenient cross-border payment
(McDermott, 2015) and growing usage of smart mobile (Marceux, 2015). On the other hand,
there are some barriers still constrain further growth in CBEC, including unreliable and lengthy
transit times, complex and ambiguous return processes, customs bottlenecks, limited transparency
on delivery, price opacity, limited ability to alter delivery times, and limited mutual trust (Van,
2014). According to Bas van Heel, Vladimir Lukic, and Erwin Leeuwis (2014), although e-com-
merce is the fastest-growing retail channel by far, its growth is being constrained by barriers to
cross-border transactions. Barriers to CBEC are pointed out with some implications for sellers
and carriers to compete in an effectively borderless world. Besides, VECOM widely recognized
that CBEC is a low-cost, asset-light way to sell to new, untapped markets.
Currently, Vietnam cross-border e-commerce is in early stages. The overall development
of Vietnam CBEC is still subject to the corresponding constraints, especially, cross-border pay-
ments, logistics, policies and regulations. The ASL LAW (2019) demonstrates some difficulties
and challenges for the success of CBEC in Vietnam. This helps identify the lack of a united legal
document as the main barrier to Vietnam’s CBEC. Moreover, Viet Nam has some regulations
on e-commerce, but authorities administrate e-commerce activities for imported and exported
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goods like ordinary goods. The Ministry of Finance is the leader of the development of a
legal framework for CBEC, and it has released a draft decree on the management of
e-commerce for exported and imported goods (Customs News, 2019).
In general, conducted research on CBEC in Vietnam cannot be found easily and the articles,
as well as research papers, have not updated the latest trend of e-commerce. They only stop at
presenting statistics, theories instead of analyzing the situation and suggesting solutions to im-
prove the situation. Furthermore, there have not been in-depth studies on e-commerce application
to promote Vietnamese products to the global market.
2.2. Theoretical framework
2.2.1. Theoretical framework of CBEC ecosystem
The research analyzed Vietnam’s CBEC ecosystem based on the theory of Yanan Zuo
(2019), which indicates that the ecosystem structure of CBEC exports includes three communities:
service community, trading community and supporting community, which is shown below:
Source: Yanan Zuo (2019) in IOP Conference
Figure I. The ecosystem structure of cross-border e-commerce exports
(1). CBEC trading community: consists of a number of trading entities, namely suppliers,
purchasers and CBEC platforms.
(2). CBEC service community: CBEC businesses need the assistance of a variety of serv-
ice-oriented enterprises in the process of transactions.
(3). CBEC support community: integrates logistics, capital flow, information flow in the
trading community and service community.
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In addition, there is a symbiotic relationship within the community, which is manifested
in the internal division of work and cooperation and enables the continuous flow of information
as well as materials within the system, leading to the healthy and stable development of the
ecosystem.
2.2.2. Theoretical framework of CBEC channel options
The theoretical framework of CBEC on the channel options of promoting products to the
international market using e-commerce base on the concept of Thomas A.Cook & Kelly Raia
(2017). The overview of the four main e-commerce related channel options, which every online
seller has to sell internationally, is described below.
Table I. Cross-border e-commerce channel options
Selling on social media
Selling in Marketplaces
Selling from self-managed transactional website
Selling to In-Country Distributor - B2B
Source: Thomas A.Cook & Kelly Raia (2017)
In general, in order to sell abroad, an online seller can sell on social media, sell from self-
managed website, sell in online marketplaces or sell to in-country partner in the target market.
Selling on social media, otherwise known as social selling, is when businesses choose to
upload and sell their products on a social platform. They then use that platform as a means to
reach their audience and sell to them through social media versus a web page.
Selling from self-managed transactional site: businesses build up their own website which
conducts full “end-to-end” transactions via the website, allowing customers to search for, order,
and pay for products online as well as allowing them to contact the company for after-sales
service.
Selling in marketplaces: businesses sell their products on hosted platforms that bring buyers
and sellers together to facilitate transactions. Participation on one of the sites often provides an
efficient way of finding a customer without the expense of building a proprietary transactional
Selling to in-country partner: businesses enter into an agreement with an established local
partner with existing sales network and marketing strategy that is already tailored to that foreign
market. These partners are already in country, and should already have the strong connections,
marketing, and resources to sell goods.
Besides, businesses often create their own static content site to support their international
sales. Unlike transactional sites, static content sites are used to generate sales by promoting cor-
porate awareness rather than by facilitating online transactions. Its function is similar to that of
a brochure; it provides information about the product or service and contact information about
how to proceed with a purchase. Because the site is often static and doesn’t require the software
systems necessary for online transactions, it is less expensive to design and maintain than is the
transactional site.
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3. The current situation of Vietnamese merchants selling products using cross-border
e-commerce
The current situation of CBEC in Vietnam was analysed based on theoretical framework’
section above. First, Vietnam’s cross-border e-commerce ecosystem was revealed. Then the study
demonstrated various channel options using cross-border e-commerce that Vietnam has been
applying to sell products to international market.
3.1. Vietnam’s cross-border e-commerce ecosystem
Regarding the theoretical framework of cross-border e-commerce ecosystem above,
Vietnam’ CBEC ecosystem also divided into three community including trading, service and
support commynity.
Firstly, Vietnam’s CBEC trading community includes Vietnamese sellers, foreign pur-
chasers and CBEC platforms, which comprise websites managed by Vietnamese sellers and in-
ternational marketplace such as Amazon and Alibaba as Vietnam currently does not have any
marketplaces which facilitate export transactions. At present, Vietnam’s export cross-border en-
terprises mostly trade on international platforms while a small number of enterprises will directly
establish their own websites to sell abroad.
Secondly, CBEC service community in Vietnam includes four main groups of logistics en-
terprises: global express companies, traditional postal companies, national logistics companies
and companies providing fulfillment service, which will be elaborated in the next subsection.
Regarding payment enterprises, there are 49 operating banks and 32 non-bank organizations li-
censed providing payment services in Vietnam (Minh Ngo, 2019; Fintechnews, 2020), which
offer electronic payment portal, cash collection and payment services, electronic money transfer
services, and e-wallet services. While the majority of banks in Vietnam can participate in CBEC
with the role of the acquiring bank which process credit or debit card payments on behalf of Viet-
namese merchants, only a few non-bank organizations are involved in CBEC. Besides, financial
services tailored to CBEC such as cross-border matchmaking, big data financing, and online sup-
ply chain financial services are not popular in Vietnam. Instead, Vietnamese businesses have to
use standard export financing services provided by banks in Vietnam.
Besides, CBEC support community in Vietnam is immature. Vietnam does not have the
CBEC public service platform established and operated by the government, which helps establish
cooperation with the supervision departments as well as overseas merchants, logistics and storage
enterprises. Moreover, according to the Ministry of Finance (General Department of Customs),
Vietnam does not have a separate management policy for import and export goods traded via e-
commerce. (Ngoc Linh, 2019). Therefore, goods exported and imported under e-commerce trans-
actions must carry out specialized inspection procedures, customs procedures, and tax policies
similar to those for normal exported and imported goods. This has led to many obstacles, as well
as making it difficult for the state management to collect statistics and gather information for risk
management.
3.2. The current situation of Vietnamese merchants selling products using cross-border e-com-
merce by various channel options
Depend on the theoretical framework of four e-commerce related channel options above:
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social media, self-managed website, online marketplaces or sell to in-country partner in the target
market, the research only focus on analyzing marketplaces and self-managed websites since they
are the two main channels to promote Vietnamese products to the world.
3.2.1. Promoting products globally through marketplaces
According to Akash Jain (2019), there are currently 65 marketplaces to sell across the
globe. Among them, Amazon, Alibaba.com and Etsy are the marketplaces which have received
increasing attention in Vietnamese seller community and are chosen to promote Vietnamese prod-
ucts internationally.
iAlibaba.com
According to the data of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the number of Vietnamese
businesses selling goods on Alibaba is about 100.000. Based on statistics from Alibaba and Fado,
although a lot of businesses open accounts on Alibaba, only about 2.000 Vietnamese businesses
actually invest in this work, while other businesses just stop at opening accounts. (Khanh An,
2019). Among them, there are around 1.000 Vietnamese enterprises accepting to pay fees from
over 30 million dong to 135 million dong each year to become a Gold Supplier member. (Vietnam
Academy of Social Sciences, 2019). Vietnamese suppliers have listed 600,000 products on Al-
ibaba.com and receive an average of 50,000 inquiries globally every 30 days. Top local industries
like food and beverage, home and garden and construction have seen impressive growth on the
platform. (Kuo Yiling, 2020). Besides pepper, coffee, cinnamon, star anise, textile, footwear, veg-
etables and fruits, some seafood products of Vietnam are also listed on Alibaba.com, such as pan-
gasius, frozen shrimp, dried shrimp, frozen squid, ocean tuna, canned tuna, etc., which indicates
that e-commerce is increasingly being chosen by Vietnamese seafood exporters as an additional
export channel to China as well as other markets. In general, products which are exported through
Alibaba.com are quite similar to those exported by traditional ways. (Tran Xuan Thuy, 2017).
iAmazon
Among around 700.000 operating businesses in Vietnam, there are currently over 200 Viet-
namese businesses selling goods on Amazon by the half of 2019. (Tran Manh, 2019). Vietnamese
products that are selling well on Amazon are not too “supreme” but very simple and familiar with
almost all Vietnamese households such as brooms, conical hats, rattan bags, frying pan, etc. Fur-
thermore, they are being sold at high price. For example, brooms are sold at 12 USD per item,
conical hats cost more than 17 USD / item and are even usually out of stock, a package of G7
coffee costs 21 USD, or a coffee filter costs more than 9 USD, frying pans cost 25 USD per item,
etc. These products are divided into five main categories: healthcare and beauty products, hand-
icraft products, kitchen utensils, collectibles and traditional cultural products. (TK, 2019). No-
tably, Vietnamese products are highly appreciated by international buyers. Amazon statistics show
that coffee filters, or brooms, etc. are rated between 4,5 and 5 stars.
iEtsy
According to search results on Etsy conducted by the author, there are currently 33.628
items from Vietnam, 7.023 of which are being sold at from 25 USD to 50 USD, 5.351 of which
at from 50 USD to 100 USD, 5.318 of which at over 100 USD. The categories which include the
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most products are clothing, jewelry, home and living. It can be noted that many Vietnamese sellers
offer free delivery and some of them offer customizable items to tailor buyer’s needs. Some well-
known Vietnamese online stores listed on Etsy which have more than 10.000 sales in total and
receive multiple 5-star reviews are: QueCraft (a wholesale supplier of buffalo horn jewelry and
lacquer jewelry), SpringFineArt (a shop selling earrings and ear cuffs), HeartsandFound ( a store
selling vintage clothes), smARTpatches ( a store offering creative hats and patches).
3.2.2. Promoting products globally through websites
According to the survey conducted by the Ministry of Industry and Trade on 800 Viet-
namese enterprises indicates that only 42% of exporting enterprises have websites (Nguyen
Hoang P. et al., 2019), in which large enterprises own websites more than SMEs with 52% and
36%, respectively (L. W. Wang & Liem Le, 2016). Among enterprises having websites, only 58%
of enterprises use foreign languages (Tran, Tran, Nguyen, & Favia, 2014); the remaining is mono-
lingual language in Vietnamese (Baharum & Jaafar, 2015). Another problem, majority of Viet-
namese enterprises have poor website content, while website content of foreign enterprises is
plentiful, and information is always updated regularly. Therefore, the ability to attract partners
of foreign enterprises seems to be more effective than Vietnamese enterprises.
It is clear that most of Vietnamese merchants having online stores with an aim to putting
their products on the global market sell clothes, footwears; crafts and fine arts; accessories. Agri-
cultural products such as coffee bag, tea bag, rice vermicelli are also sold internationally through
websites. The reason for that is Vietnam sellers have competitive advantages in producing those
products. Additionally, those products are not bulky and as a result, it will cost less money to
ship them abroad and less risky as these products are less likely to be damaged than electronic
devices. Moreover, some websites not only sell products to individual customers but also aim to
sell in bulks to foreign businesses by adding “wholesale” option to their websites.
Overall, there are not many Vietnamese merchants choosing to create only their own web-
site to sell their products internationally due to lack of traffics. However, it is still a good option
to experiment a product in new markets to see if it fits without spending too much money and
time. In order to sell abroad in the early stages, when Vietnamese sellers tend to use marketplaces
but they also have strategies to build their own website for the next phase so that they don’t
depend on the third-party sites. This is because only through their own website do they have the
customers’ real data and for online sellers, customer data is the property of the business.
3.2.3. Promoting products to international markets using multichannel: Integrate marketplaces
with websites and social media
Currently, there are many Vietnamese sellers who are able to keep track of the multichannel
trend to expand their international presence and capture sales in new markets. The figure indicates
that 86% of exporters owning websites use different means to advertise their websites, most of
which is advertising on social networks (21%), search tools (20%), online advertising (15%) (Vo
Thi Nga and et al., 2019). The research has conducted a table listing Vietnamese businesses
which are using multichannel strategy to promote Vietnamese products to the global market.
These 10 channels are divided into 4 categories: Marketplaces (Alibaba, Amazon, Etsy), website,
social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Youtube) and other (Mail). Only social
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media accounts which offers information in foreign language such as English and are still active
are counted. It is clear that most of Vietnamese sellers often has their own websites and at least
one type of social media account when applying the multichannel strategy. This is because at-
taching links of other channels to websites or social media is more convenient than to a third-
party marketplace, which can encourage potential customers to follow sellers’ other
channels. There are only a few businesses who do not utilize Facebook to promote their products
globally. On the other hand, Vietnamese merchants who sell handmade products, clothes, natural
products are likely to have a Youtube channel and Pinterest/ Instagram account, which can help
them show pictures of real-life customers using the products and make tutorial videos to boost
brand awareness and followers.
Source: Conducted by the author
Figure II. Channels using by 15 Vietnamese businesses to sell abroad
Even though quite a few Vietnamese merchants attempt to target customers across the globe
via various ecommerce channels, not every business is doing this efficiently. Half of social media
accounts for business which are still active, however, there is no post from those accounts for
around one year, which may reduce the chance of drawing attention from customers.
3.3. Discussion
Based on the current situation of utilizing CBEC in promoting Vietnamese products to
the global market, the research found out some key achievements and drawbacks of this
situation as follow:
3.3.1. Achievements
Firstly, the Government and state management agencies are paying more attention to policy
development and implementation to facilitate CBEC activities. The Ministry of Finance of Viet-
nam has released a draft decree promulgating the management of exported and imported goods
in CBEC. Apart from developing favorable policies for e-commerce, the ministry will focus on
administrative reform and create the best conditions for enterprises to participate in international
exhibitions, fairs and forums.
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Secondly, the number of Vietnamese businesses selling through international marketplaces
is increasing. It is clear that Vietnam is drawing the attention of E-commerce giants such as Ama-
zon and Alibaba and becoming an important supply market of both. They are looking to sign up
more Vietnamese sellers for their online marketplace, which proves the potential of Vietnamese
products to go abroad. McDermott (2015) also found that mobile commerce continues to grow,
smartphone and tablet are becoming another channel for cross-border shopping.
Besides, Vietnamese businesses are focusing on enhancing the features of their self-man-
aged websites to sell abroad. These websites do not only advertise products to foreign customers
but they also enable customers to make a payment, choose the preferred shipping methods and
contact sellers for after-sale service
Fourthly, the quality of products being promoted through CBEC has been improved. Many
Vietnamese sellers are getting rid of the idea to compete on price and are investing in product
improvement in terms of packaging design and quality, with an aim to meeting technical standards
and fulfilling the needs of foreign customers.
Fifthly, the range of products is diverse and not only limited to those which are known to
be key export items of Vietnam such as electrical machinery, footwear and clothing. In contrast,
Vietnamese merchants are selling various things online, from keycaps, eyelashes, rice straws,
patches to pull-up bars. It is clear that both manufactured products and handmade products with
the limited quantity from Vietnam can go global through e-commerce. Furthermore, various
unique products from Vietnam such as: Golden Star Balm, Golden Star Medicated Oil, Vietnam
“Gac” oil, Thai duong shampoo, “Ao dai”, “Non la” (Conical hat), etc. are being sold on Amazon,
Alibaba or Etsy at a much higher price compared with that in Vietnam.
3.3.2. Drawbacks
Firstly, the legal guidelines in e-commerce are not sufficiently comprehensive and robust,
especially those related to cross- border e-commerce. The highest legal document for E-commerce
is Decree 52, which was issued in 2013 and become one of the most fundamental legal founda-
tions for the development of e-commerce until now. However, as this is only a Decree, it cannot
provide the convenient environment for unlocking the advantageous and freeing E-commerce
from other legal documents which was issued to regulate the traditional business model. Besides,
Vietnam does not have a separate management policy for import and export goods traded via e-
commerce. As a result, state agencies manage e-commerce activities for imported and exported
goods like ordinary goods. It can be seen that China, the neighbour of Vietnam, introduced a
series of favorable policies for CBE (Analysys, 2015; CECRC, 2015), established several
free trade zones to lower the duties and concise customs clearance procedures (CECRC, 2015;
PwC, 2015), which have boosted foreign cross-border sales (McDermott, 2015).
Secondly, Vietnam’s human resources in e-commerce are both lacking in quantity and weak
in quality. Many graduates have e-commerce skills; however, they lack neither practical knowl-
edge, experience in trading nor good foreign language skills. With this current situation, the num-
ber of human resources specializing in e-commerce in the whole country can only meet 0.1% of
the demand. (Doan Thi My Hanh, 2019). This is considered to be chief obstacles for businesses
in promoting Vietnamese products globally through e-commerce.
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Thirdly, Vietnamese businesses have not properly invested in CBEC. The number of Viet-
namese businesses having accounts on international marketplaces increase, however, only a few
businesses are willing to pay for extra features which can greatly benefit them.
Fourthly, the number of Vietnamese businesses having their own website in foreign lan-
guage is limited. Only 42% of exporting enterprises have websites and 58% of which use foreign
languages. This drawback was also found in the research of Bas van Heel, Vladimir Lukic, and
Erwin Leeuwis (2014). They demonstrated that although e-commerce is the fastest-growing retail
channel by far, its growth is being constrained by barriers to cross-border transactions.
4. Solutions and recommendations
4.1. Solutions to promote Vietnamese products to the global world using cross-border
e-commerce
4.1.1. Solutions to improve ecosystem structure of cross-border e-commerce exports
* Building a management system of e-commerce activities to connect stakeholders
The government should build an electronic port model to connect customs, logistic com-
panies, banks in the process in order to speed up the transactions. In the meantime, the department
specialized in controlling the quality of goods through CBEC transactions should be established
and the mechanism allowing exemption from inspection for the electronic transactions having
value under a specific amount to reduce time and volume of goods to be inspected
* Perfecting the legal environment
For e-commerce to flourish, it is necessary to improve the legal environment, through the
enactment and implementation of laws and bylaws regulating commercial activities, adapting to
international laws and international practices on e-commerce transactions.
* Implementation of credit information disclosure system
The credit rating standards should be set up to define the credit rating for the transaction
subjects and to show the credit rating of the subjects to the public. After completing an electronic
transaction with a foreign company, Vietnamese businesses can leave a credit rating on the system
and every business which registers with the authorities can log into the system and see the rating.
In the meantime, a blacklist system should be implemented. For those businesses or enterprises
with low credit rating, they should be named in the credit blacklist and transactions with them
should be restricted to purify the trading environment of Vietnam’s CBEC.
* Building a system to ensure safety and security
Businesses and the state need to join hands to create a reliable electronic security system,
using internationally recognized and coherent means to combat illegal access from unsafe actions
to steal personal information. The state should take the lead in making regulations and laws on
information security and guide businesses to comply with these regulations. In the meantime, the
penalty for acts of stealing personal information and infringing intellectual property rights in e-
commerce should be harsher.
4.1.2. Solutions to improve the quality and quantity of human resources
* Altering the education of e-commerce at universities
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Ministry of Education and Training should encourage universities to establish the faculty
of e-commerce and assist them in composing the study program to fit the current situation of
Vietnam. In the meantime, vocational guidance sessions should be organized to introduce the po-
tentials of e-commerce and job opportunities to students.
* Stakeholders should assist businesses in human resource training and the development
of an e-commerce training plan for businesses.
Organizations and companies in the related field such as logistics, insurance, banking
should regularly organize meetings to exchange practical knowledge of e-commerce. At the same
time, the state agencies also need to encourage businesses to take part in the international E-Com-
merce conferences and courses hosted by Amazon Global to bring Vietnamese enterprises closer
to marketplace platforms.
4.1.3. Solutions to improve the efficiency of cross-border e-commerce activities
* Developing policies on capital support for SMEs to sell on international marketplaces
in the early stage.
Vietnamese enterprises with small and medium scale have insufficient financial capacity
to pay for extra features. Therefore, it is necessary to have policies on low-interest loans to help
businesses overcome the initial difficulty.
* Completing the necessary infrastructure, invest in developing and applying new tech-
nologies in e-commerce
The enhancement of infrastructure and technology applications is the premise for e-com-
merce to develop more firmly and in the long run. Businesses need to proactively allocate budget
to spend on e-commerce investment with a certain cost. In addition, businesses can also invest
in specialized human resources to invent their own proprietary technology products to save costs
and keep customer information confidential. If businesses can keep good security, it will be easy
for them to build trust with customers thereby improving the position of the company in cus-
tomers’ minds.
4.1.4. Solutions to enhance the competitiveness of Vietnamese businesses
* Branding online
Developing products is also an important solution. In particular, the authorities should build
solutions to help small and medium enterprises deploy e-commerce applications. Geographical
indications for some specialty and indigenous products have been created, however, the produc-
tion scale of these products is too small. Therefore, the Government should have policies to sup-
port businesses and associations to build brands through: a) Planning and building production
areas; b) Developing a system of product standards or harmonize international standards; c) brand-
ing on the media; d) providing support for participation in trade fairs and exhibitions; e) support-
ing businesses in creating websites and participating in international marketplaces.
* Completing the necessary infrastructure, invest in developing and applying new tech-
nologies in e-commerce
The enhancement of infrastructure and technology applications is the premise for e-com-
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merce to develop more firmly and in the long run. In addition, businesses can also invest in spe-
cialized human resources to invent their own proprietary technology products to save costs and
keep customer information confidential. If businesses can keep good security, it will be easy for
them to build trust with customers thereby improving the position of the company in customers’
minds.
4.2. Recommendations
4.2.1. Recommendations to the government and state agencies
The state needs to focus on developing transport infrastructure along with the development
of multimodal transport and logistics. The state needs to invest in the construction of roads, rail-
ways, ports, etc.; creating favorable conditions for businesses to choose the mode of transporting
goods to maximize profits. Besides, state agencies should encourage banking institutions and
payment institutions to provide payment services for international e-commerce by simplifying
the process of currency conversion and tax calculation, establishing connections with multiple
payment options, improving security and reducing fraud.
4.2.2. Recommendations to Vietnamese businesses
* Applying for a registration of intellectual property rights
Intellectual property rights are not only for large companies and high technology. Viet-
namese businesses can register their rights in the target country to prevent copying, pirating and
the marketing of imitation products before launching their products in that country. Conducting
the intellectual property rights also help Vietnam businesses check whether the products they are
exporting will infringe a patent, trademark or copyright that has been filed in a foreign country.
* Localizing the website to sell abroad
No matter what the main channel Vietnamese businesses choose to sell abroad, they need
to have their own website providing information about the products and contact information of
the company to show customers their professionalism. However, only having a website is not
enough to impress potential customers from all over the world. At least part of the website has to
present information in the native language of the target market. A localized process takes more
time, but it results in an increased familiarity and better user experience for the shoppers in that
region. The first step towards localizing should be to translate the website. Besides making shop
visitors feel more comfortable, it can make the website easier to find. Additionally, providing
customers with prices in their currency and the preferred payment method are well worth con-
sidering.
* Keep the return policy straightforward, clear, formal and accessible.
If customers would like to return the products to the sellers, establish rules for whom will
pay the international shipping. Lastly, since it can take two weeks or more to deliver products to
international customers, the return policy should provide time for delivery and for customers to
evaluate their products. Businesses should also indicate clearly how the return will be processed:
by cash, by credits for next purchases or a product exchange. In the meantime, businesses should
keep track of all returns, exchanges and refunds and require identification for all returns to prevent
any fraudulent activities from happening.
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Conclusions
After joining in the global e-commerce community, Vietnamese businesses have made
some certain progress when also successfully brought some of Vietnamese signature products to
the global market through e-marketplaces and self-managed websites. There is no doubt that Viet-
nam’s CBEC is thriving, however, not every merchant can take full advantage of those opportu-
nities to expand their business. Therefore, this research focus on a practical analysis of the current
situation of Vietnam’s CBEC based on established theoretical bases. Then, the author proposes
the solutions and recommendations to improve the effectiveness of Vietnam’s CBEC.
Although our findings yield important policy implications and contribute to the CBEC
analysis literature, there are still has certain limitations such as the shortage of detailed information
on Vietnam’s CBEC ecosystem due to the lack of time and human resources. Therefore, the au-
thors hope that in the future, other researches on this topic will be conducted so that the concept
of CBEC in Vietnam will become more popular with Vietnamese businesses, which can help
them to be fully-prepared to enter the global market. From this, opportunities of Vietnamese
products to go abroad will be larger.
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