Information technology and electronic commerce (E-commerce) have been widely applied into daily life in general and business activities in particular. To businesses, e-commerce contributes to the formation of new business models, increase revenue, reduce costs, improve business efficiency, and open a wide market with all domestic and foreign customers.
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Delivering services from online business are thriving in Binh Duong.
Great potential
According to the evaluation of E-commerce and Digital Economy Administration (Ministry of Industry and Trade), Binh Duong has great potential for e-commerce growth. Currently in the province, there are more than 100 e-commerce websites announcingtheir sales online, and 9 websites registering for e-commerce through www.online.gov.vn, approved by E-commerce and Information Technology Administration (Ministry of Industry and Trade).
According to a representative of provincial Department of Industry and Trade, e-commerce development is a common trend not only in Vietnam but also all over the world in order to serve consumers better and better. Therefore, Binh Duong encourages the development of modern and smart shopping forms; enhance e-commerce activities on mobile devices and social networks in order to meet the shopping needs of each consumer; encourage e-commerce application closely combined with existing distribution forms (specific sales locations, offline shops) to form a multi-channel distribution method...
The project of Binh Duong Smart City would bring about favorable environment and ecosystem, including advanced telecommunications and information technology infrastructure, helping most people easily access the Internet via mobile phones. In addition, the promotion of logistics services and order fulfillment, online business start-ups has easy access to public services and the ability to mobilize capital flexibly.
According to E-commerce and Digital Economy Administration, in the coming time, state management agencies will increase support to localities with low E-commerce index. This Department has focused on developing master plans for the 2016-2020 period with many solution groups to support localities, such as: Giving training to improve state management of e-commerce, improving e-commerce application capacity to help localities improve their rankings in the future.
In addition, many activities under the National E-commerce Development Program have also been strengthened, such as: Researching and building an E-payment model; online selling solutions; monitoring system and managing for e-commerce activities on Internet... to support businesses to make the most of benefits of e-commerce in product promotion, brand positioning, connecting with customers, and find markets to expand sales.
Opportunities for businesses
With its good background and advantages, it can be said that the rural e-commerce market has great potential. Lê Thị Hà, Head of Policy Office of E-commerce and Digital Economy Administration (Ministry of Industry and Trade), said that e-commerce was not only a familiar shopping method of urban people but also close to consumers in remote areas. However, in some localities, this is still a field with many gaps.
Regarding the benefits of e-commerce to businesses, Ms. Hà said that e-commerce growthwould reduce costs for advertising, staff, and business space. Most large businesses use external advertising agencies to help them launch advertising campaigns; select and buy appropriate media due to their strong financial resource and staff. Some products are advertised by the businesses themselves by mails, through agents, and other forms of advertising that are usually not done by advertising companies.
Due to limited resources, such large-scale advertising activities are very difficult for small and medium-sized enterprises. Due to advertising via websites to display information, product images, businesses can save costs of printing brochures, catalogs and the cost of sending these publications. E-commerce helps SMEs not have to spend a lot on hiring shops, business spaces, and service personnel. In particular, exporters, through business networks,are able to find potential customers without spending a lot of money on travel.
Many studies show that e-commerce transactions and online sales now help customers save a huge amount of time, respectively 93% and 99.5% compared to traditional methods of by fax and by mail. Because it is possible to cut some costs compared to traditional forms, e-commerce transactions are very cheap. Moreover, through e-commerce, customers can still stay at homeand buy the desired products.
A representative of Department of Industry and Trade said that in the coming time, businesses needed to increase investment in their own website to attract and retain customers. A beautifulinterfacewill catchthe eyes ofcustomers. This is also the first step for customers to choose products, services and make shopping decisions. Currently, small and medium-sized enterprises are expanding their scale as well as diversifying products to sell on major e-commerce markets such as Shopee, Lazada, Tiki...
Reported by Tieu My – Translated by Ngoc Huynh
