Distribution punchline: Vietnam’s e-commerce market hit USD 28 billion in 2025, making it Southeast Asia’s third largest. Foreign brands can access this market without a Vietnamese entity, without a domestic partner, and without a warehouse in-country. But the platforms that work in Vietnam are not the same ones that work in Europe, the US, or even China. Picking the wrong platform wastes 6 to 12 months of commercial energy.
Vietnam’s online shopper base grew to 62 million active users in 2025, 80% of whom shop on mobile. The average Vietnamese online shopper makes 3.4 e-commerce purchases per month. Category leaders: fashion, electronics, beauty, health supplements, and food. The platform landscape is concentrated: four platforms control over 90% of GMV, and each serves distinct consumer segments with different content mechanics. Here is what each one actually looks like for a foreign brand entering Vietnam.
1. Shopee Vietnam: the dominant platform
Over 70% of Vietnamese online shoppers use Shopee. Flash sales, Shopee Live, and the major campaign dates (9.9, 11.11, 12.12) drive enormous volume concentration. For foreign brands, two entry options exist. Shopee Mall (official brand store) requires a business entity or authorized importer and provides the highest trust signal to Vietnamese consumers through the orange “Mall” badge. Cross-border seller account allows international brands to sell directly to Vietnamese consumers without a local entity, with products shipping from abroad and clearing customs at the individual order level.
The cross-border option is fastest for market testing. The Mall option is necessary for serious volume because the Mall badge materially affects conversion rates in Vietnam (Mall products convert at 2 to 3 times the rate of standard seller listings in the same category). The investment for a proper Shopee Mall store: USD 2,000 to 5,000 in setup costs plus USD 1,000 to 3,000 per month in promotional spend to maintain category visibility. Without promotional spend, a new Shopee Mall store generates near-zero organic discovery.
2. TikTok Shop: the fastest-growing channel
TikTok Shop Vietnam grew 340% between 2023 and 2025. In the beauty, health supplement, and food categories, TikTok Shop now generates more GMV than Lazada. The key mechanic is live commerce: a Vietnamese KOL or brand live session can move 500 to 5,000 units in a single 2-hour broadcast. This is not theoretical. This is documented in Q1 2026 across dozens of international brand partners who have published their live commerce results.
TikTok Shop is not optional for brands targeting Vietnamese consumers under 35, which is where most category growth is concentrated. If a brand is not on TikTok Shop, its competitors are generating sales and content that dominates the discovery funnel for their product category. International brands can access TikTok Shop Vietnam through a cross-border seller account or through a local Vietnamese TikTok Shop partner agency who manages the live commerce operation. The partner agency model is faster to revenue but requires sharing 15 to 25% of GMV with the agency.
3. Lazada Vietnam: the electronics and mass-market channel
Lazada, owned by Alibaba, remains relevant in Vietnam primarily for electronics, home appliances, and mass-market fashion. Its e-commerce share has declined in beauty and food categories where TikTok Shop and Shopee have taken significant volume. For foreign brands in technology, consumer electronics, or mid-market fashion, Lazada LazMall (their premium brand store format) maintains strong performance. For beauty, supplement, and food brands, Lazada is now a secondary channel behind Shopee and TikTok Shop. Still worth having for category coverage, but do not rely on Lazada as a primary distribution channel in these categories.
4. Tiki: the book and premium product channel
Tiki is Vietnam’s domestic e-commerce platform with a strong reputation for product authenticity and logistics reliability. Vietnamese consumers who have had bad experiences with counterfeit products on other platforms often default to Tiki for higher-trust purchases. Tiki TikiNOW (same-day and next-day delivery in HCMC and Hanoi) is a premium service feature that drives customer loyalty among urban Vietnamese consumers who value delivery speed. For foreign brands positioning as premium or authentic, Tiki’s authenticity reputation is commercially useful. Their brand partnership program requires a Vietnam-registered entity or authorized local importer but offers better margin control than Shopee’s flash sale mechanic.
5. Brand direct e-commerce (website plus social commerce)
A small but growing segment of international brands selling in Vietnam maintain a direct-to-consumer Vietnamese website as a margin-preservation and brand control channel alongside marketplace presence. This requires a Vietnamese-language website, Vietnamese payment integration (VNPAY, MoMo, ZaloPay are the dominant local payment methods), and a logistics partner for last-mile delivery (Giao Hang Nhanh, J&T Express, and Viettel Post are the main options). Direct e-commerce is not a primary channel for most brands entering Vietnam, but it is a useful channel for brands who want to own customer data and control the brand experience without marketplace commission fees (typically 5 to 15% on Shopee and Lazada).
The platform combination that works in 2026
For most foreign consumer goods brands entering Vietnam’s e-commerce market, the effective combination is: Shopee Mall as the primary marketplace (broadest reach, highest consumer trust), TikTok Shop for content-driven discovery and live commerce (fastest-growing, best for categories under 35 target market), and either Tiki or direct website for brand-positioned buyers who want authenticity assurance. Lazada as a secondary reach extension. Running all four simultaneously requires either a Vietnam-based e-commerce team or a local e-commerce management partner agency.
Case study: Korean skincare brand goes from zero to USD 180,000 in 8 months via TikTok Shop first
A Korean skincare brand with strong home-market performance came to Asia Pro in Q3 2024 wanting to validate the Vietnam market before committing to full distributor relationships and domestic product registration. We recommended a TikTok Shop cross-border launch first. 10 Vietnamese beauty KOC partnerships were contracted for 60 days of content creation. The brand’s cross-border TikTok Shop store went live in week 3. By week 8, 14 content pieces were ranking organically for key Vietnamese skincare search terms.
Month 1 TikTok Shop revenue: USD 4,200. Month 3: USD 18,000. Month 6: USD 42,000. By month 8, the cumulative Vietnam e-commerce revenue was USD 180,000 with a 4.8-star average product rating across 2,400 reviews. This data made the subsequent distributor conversation with Vietnamese offline retailers extremely easy. Two pharmacy chains and one beauty specialty retailer onboarded the brand within 6 weeks of Asia Pro presenting the e-commerce performance data.
The lesson: TikTok Shop cross-border is the most effective market validation tool available for foreign consumer brands entering Vietnam. The cost is low, the speed is high, and the consumer data you generate becomes your best distributor sales pitch.
Case study: Australian supplement brand spends 6 months on Shopee with no sales
An Australian magnesium supplement brand set up a Shopee Vietnam seller account in 2023 without mall status and without any promotional investment. They uploaded product listings with English descriptions and planned to “let the product speak for itself.” After 6 months, total sales: 23 units. They concluded the Vietnam market “didn’t work for supplements” and paused the market entry.
They came back 12 months later having seen a competing brand succeed in Vietnam. The difference: the competing brand had Shopee Mall status, Vietnamese-language product descriptions, a monthly Shopee promotional budget of USD 1,500, and 8 TikTok KOC content pieces running simultaneously with the Shopee launch. Same product category. Completely different commercial infrastructure. The Australian brand rebuilt with proper setup and hit USD 25,000 in Shopee revenue in their first 3 months with a correct approach.
The lesson: Shopee without Mall status, Vietnamese listings, and promotional spend is not a Vietnam e-commerce strategy. It is product storage with a Vietnamese shipping address. The platform investment required to generate visibility is non-negotiable.
What KOLs and social media say about Vietnam e-commerce
Vietnamese content creators on TikTok who review products and drive live commerce have become the de facto arbiters of which international brands succeed in Vietnam’s e-commerce market. A product that a Vietnamese beauty or health KOL endorses in a live session on Thursday is sold out on Shopee and TikTok Shop by Saturday. This cycle repeats weekly across categories. International brands that understand this mechanic and budget accordingly consistently outperform brands who treat KOL content as an optional marketing add-on.
Vietnamese e-commerce Facebook groups (the “mua hang online” communities) share product experiences, flag fakes, and recommend authentic sources. International brands with authentic Shopee Mall listings get organic positive mentions in these communities. Brands whose products are counterfeited or whose listings are low-quality get flagged and warned against. The reputational dynamics in these communities affect offline retail perception too: a Vietnamese retailer buyer who has seen negative community mentions about a brand’s e-commerce product quality will ask about it in the distributor conversation.
LinkedIn Vietnam’s e-commerce professional community publishes regular analysis of platform GMV shifts and category performance. The Q1 2026 consensus in this community: TikTok Shop overtook Lazada in beauty GMV and is approaching Shopee in supplement category share. Any brand that built their Vietnam strategy around Lazada as a primary channel in 2022 and has not adapted is now operating with a strategy that no longer matches the market.
FAQ: Vietnam e-commerce for foreign brands
Do I need a Vietnamese business entity to sell on Shopee Vietnam?
No. Shopee’s cross-border seller program allows international brands to sell to Vietnamese consumers while shipping from abroad, with customs clearance at the individual order level. The cross-border option has limitations: order values above certain thresholds face higher import duty processing, and delivery times are longer than domestic fulfillment (typically 7 to 14 days versus 1 to 3 days for domestic sellers). Shopee Mall (the premium brand store format) requires a Vietnam-registered entity or an authorized local importer, which is why many international brands work through a Vietnamese importer for their Mall presence rather than registering a Vietnam entity from the start.
How important is Vietnamese-language product content?
Critical. Vietnamese e-commerce shoppers overwhelmingly search and browse in Vietnamese. A product listing with English-language titles and descriptions is invisible to organic search on Shopee and ranks significantly lower than equivalent Vietnamese-language listings. Vietnamese product descriptions also need to be adapted for local consumer concerns and terminology, not just translated. A direct translation of an English product description frequently misses the purchase motivators that Vietnamese consumers respond to. Budget for localization by a Vietnamese-speaking copywriter who understands the product category, not just a translation service.
What payment methods do Vietnamese online shoppers prefer?
Cash on delivery (COD) remains the most used payment method in Vietnam e-commerce overall, but its share is declining among urban consumers. VNPAY, MoMo e-wallet, and ZaloPay are the dominant digital payment methods. Credit card penetration is growing but still below 30% of online shoppers. For a brand managing their own direct Vietnamese e-commerce channel, integrating VNPAY and MoMo is non-negotiable. For brands selling through Shopee and TikTok Shop, payment method handling is managed by the platform and is not an operational concern for the brand.
How do I manage returns and customer service for Vietnamese e-commerce customers?
Vietnamese e-commerce platforms have return policies that require sellers to handle returns within 7 to 15 days. For cross-border sellers, returns are complex: shipping a product back to the origin country is not commercially viable for low-value items. Most cross-border sellers resolve return disputes with replacement shipments or refunds rather than physical returns. Vietnamese customers are not more return-prone than other Asian markets, but they respond very negatively to slow dispute resolution. A brand that takes 5 days to respond to a customer complaint on Shopee will see negative reviews that damage conversion rates for months. Vietnamese-language customer service response within 24 hours is the baseline expectation on Shopee and TikTok Shop.
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