The race of Vietnamese startups in the forwarding industry

E-commerce in Vietnam is growing hotter than ever. According to Google and Temasek’s Southeast Asia Internet Economy Report 2019, Vietnam’s e-commerce market size in 2019 reached US $ 4.6 billion and is expected to increase to 23 billion by 2025. In 2019, the Vietnam’s market model is still lower than Thailand (US $ 5 billion) but it is forecast that 2025 will surpass this country to rank second in Southeast Asia, just after Indonesia.

Along with the hot growth of e-commerce, the logistics industry is also forced to develop to keep up with this momentum. Besides traditional large-scale businesses such as VNPost and Viettel Post, the e-commerce forwarding market now recognizes many other names such as Fast Delivery (GHN), Savings Delivery (GHTK), Ahamove. are Vietnamese startups that are quite mature. Besides, there are also strong foreign businesses such as DHL e-Commerce, Grab (GrabExpress) or Go-Viet (Go-Send), Lalamove. Not to mention the very strong delivery team built by e-commerce sites such as Lazada, Tiki.

To satisfy online shoppers, one of the most important factors is delivery time. Vietnamese people have enjoyed the speed of delivery which is rare in any country such as delivery within 30 minutes, 1 hour from technology retailers such as Mobile World and FPT Shop, so the requirements are very high. High in e-commerce is the speed of delivery.

Startups create the foundation for e-commerce delivery

In 2012, at the time Lazada was present in Vietnam and Sendo was born, a start-up company in the delivery industry, Fast Delivery (GHN), also started. Many of the 7 GHN founders who held a high position in Mobile World at that time should see the upcoming needs of an independent delivery company, develop on the core of technology, and how to respond. meet fast delivery needs of customers.

Automated sorting vans in Ho Chi Minh City of Quick Delivery – the leading market share in the private sector.

After one year of operation, GHN has a network of 15 provinces and cities, and over 300 employees. The following year, the company increased to 1,000 employees and 2 million orders – double the previous year.

In 2014, Savings Delivery (GHTK) was born, competing directly with GHN. Since then, many startups with different models were born, but due to limited operating model, poor management platform, lack of capital … so no business has really stood out. enough to compare with the two start-ups mentioned above.

Both GHN and GHTK focus on e-commerce delivery, which means customers are online stores. Both companies will pick up the goods from the shop, deliver them to their shipping centers, and deliver them to end buyers.

Today GHN serves more than 300,000 orders nationwide every day – a very large number of delivery units. Meanwhile, GHTK is the main delivery partner of Shopee platform, which has the largest number of website visitors in Vietnam today.

According to a survey of the Vietnam E-Commerce Association in 2019, Viettel Post, VN Post, EMS are businesses selected by online sales units to transport the most. Immediately following were two private companies GHN and GHTK.

Despite a strong investment, many people believe that forwarding has not developed with the momentum of e-commerce in Vietnam. Logistics costs currently account for about 25% of the product price, ie buyers pay up to 1/4 of the delivery price of the product – which is among the highest in the world. As a result, some e-commerce platforms are paying for this to entice customers. Therefore, the pressure on forwarding companies such as GHN or GHTK is very high, optimizing technology and investing resources to reduce delivery costs, shorten delivery time.

“Blocking” for startups?

In e-commerce segment, after Adayroi (of Vingroup) and Lotte.vn recently withdrawn, the remaining markets are 4 names Lazada, Tiki, Sendo, Shopee. Some experts believe that these will be the last faces to shape Vietnam’s e-commerce platform at least in the next few years, because it will be difficult for new businesses to jump into the “money burning” race in this segment.

Similarly, the e-commerce delivery segment in Vietnam after 7 years of establishment (from the GHN landmark was born) has certain stability. VNPost and Viettel Post have gained large coverage; Foreign businesses such as DHL, UPS, FedEx have the advantage of cross-border transportation; GHN, GHTK are serving the group of e-commerce customers; Companies such as GrabExpress, Ahamove, Go-Send are in charge of instant delivery. Each of the above businesses has their own advantages and shortcomings, but still creates a good service supply chain for the whole forwarding industry in Vietnam.

As GHN recently opened two of the most modern sorting centers in Vietnam, it plans to open up to 100,000 square meters of warehouses, meeting the needs of goods transshipment, fulfillment, warehouse for companies and partners, and wants to be No. 1 in the logistics segment in Vietnam. In order to get this scale, the company recently received an estimated capital of USD 100 million from Temasek (Singapore).

Meanwhile, since 2017, GHTK has been acquired by SEA – the company has a controlling stake in Foody, Shopee, Airpay. These companies together create an ecosystem to increase competitiveness in Vietnam.

Although the market is quite large, ranked second in Southeast Asia in terms of population, it is clear that both domestic and international names are exploiting quite well in the field of e-commerce forwarding in Vietnam. These outstanding companies are backed by large resources to participate in the game for a long time, it will be difficult for a company that is not funded enough to jump into the expensive investment game. this.