Hanoi facilitates sustainable e-commerce development
Hanoi (VNA) – The capital city of Hanoi has implemented a wide
range of measures to facilitate the sustainable development of e-commerce
activities, which have grown rapidly recently.
Though problems persist in the quality of goods traded online, the municipal e-commerce
market is expected to boom in the coming time.
According to a survey of 1,000 enterprises in Hanoi conducted by the Vietnam E-commerce Association, 61 percent have
conducted business activities on social networks because it is an easy and
effective business trend, while it also has low operation costs and offers
quick feedback from customers.
About 37 percent of the businesses said that e-commerce revenue accounted for
about 30 percent of the enterprises’ total revenue while 16 percent of them
have gained 50 percent of their total revenue from e-commerce activities.
In the first half of this year, about 7,726 websites and e-commerce
applications of organisations and individuals were registered to operate in Hanoi.
Nguyen Thanh Hai, deputy director of the municipal Department of Industry and
Trade, said to promote e-commerce development this year, the department has put
into operation a website on shopping in Hanoi at
http://bandomuasam.hanoi.gov.vn to easily search for prestigious places of
shopping, selling consumer goods and food, and the location of vending machines
in the capital city.
[Infographics: 2018 – Golden time for e-commerce]
Now, the department has developed e-commerce in various sectors, online public
services, electronic tax declaration and e-payment to create a transparent and
fair business environment.
Hanoi has also encouraged businesses to set up e-commerce websites or
applications for agricultural products and food and promoted the application of
quick response (QR) codes to trace the origin of products and goods and print
on anti-counterfeit stamps, authentic stamps or similar stamps to prevent
commercial fraud.
Nguyen Manh Hung, Vice President of the Vietnam Standards and Consumer
Protection Association, said when shopping online, consumers have difficulty in
distinguishing between licensed and unlicensed sale sites and between
counterfeit and known-origin goods.
Detection, management and handling of commercial frauds via online shopping are
very difficult, because the transactions of fake products lack invoices.
Meanwhile, many websites and their transaction accounts on the social network
have only a virtual address, so it is difficult to control and handle
commercial frauds such as goods lacking quality.
Many consumers worry about these problems when using online shopping platforms.
To protect the interests of consumers, the department has directed relevant
state offices to supervise and inspect e-commerce businesses.
Therefore, they have had administrative penalties worth 3.4 billion VND for
violations in e-commerce activities.
To manage the online business methods, the Ministry of Industry and Trade is
drafting a circular regulating the management of e-commerce websites for mobile
devices and online trading activities.
In cases of violation, the Ministry of Industry and Trade will publicise names
of the e-commerce websites and mobile applications that violate existing
regulations as well as names and information of traders or organisations owning
those websites and apps.
According to a report on the Vietnam e-commerce index conducted by the Vietnam E-commerce
Association, in the past five years, Hanoi was one of two cities having the
leading e-commerce index in the country.
In 2017, trading value from e-commerce activities in the city was estimated at 36
trillion VND (1.54 billion USD).-VNA