According to Hai, with the advantages of coverage, no restrictions on equipment, the ability to ensure communication and the mainstream, the solution for notification and confirmation of information, SMS is currently still widely used in the world’s e-commerce, especially in developing markets as Vietnam.
SMS demand for e-commerce is some 450 million per year for customer services
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“With the average growth rate of e-commerce market from 20 to 30 percent per year, the demand for text messages to interact with customers of e-commerce firms will rise sharply,” Hai forecast.
The demand for using SMS for public services will also increase as there are over 60,000 public procedures implemented per day nationwide. Public services are expected to need more than 200 million SMS per year.
VECITA’s annual report also showed that Vietnam retail e-commerce revenue in 2017 was about US$6.2 billion, rising by 24 percent compared to 2016. This figure would correspond to some 500,000 orders a day. It is expected that e-commerce sales will exceed $10 billion by 2020.
However, Hai said that the SMS service in Vietnam is backward with many weaknesses still existing for many years. Overall SMS output is decreasing or rising slowly as consumers tend to prefer messaging services of OTT (Viber, Zalo ...) or Instant Message (FB Messenger).
Le Duc Anh, director of VECITA’s Centre for Informatics and Digital Technologies, said that e-commerce development will require well-organized infrastructure. Infrastructure includes payment, delivery and information verification.
Sharing the ideas, Pham Trung Kien, deputy general director of Viettel Telecom, said online shopping had become popular in Vietnam. However, many people were still unfamiliar with the use of mobile apps, while many areas did not have access to internet.
This is the reason why buyers and sellers are unable to continuously communicate with each other. This has made the trust issue, which is key for successful e-commerce, harder to resolve. In the long term, this will require a solution to ensure trust between buyers and sellers as well as help customers to regularly check their order status, Kien said.
To resolve the issue, VECITA has launched SMS Order with the support of large telecom providers in Vietnam. SMS Order is an SMS-sending function used in all e-commerce websites and transaction floors. Using SMS Order, buyers can verify and check their orders through SMS.
The solution includes three SMS packages depending on the demand of each e-commerce company. It will ensure verification as well as improve the prestige and transaction rate for e-commerce orders.
Businesses can save up to 60 percent of the costs by using SMS Order compared to traditional SMS packages.
Kien committed to maintaining cheap fee to support businesses in the highly potential e-commerce sector.
Every order needs three SMS on an average, detailing order confirmation, order delivery and announcement of successful delivery.
VECITA said it could turn the SMS Order solution into a large data system to provide market evaluation and statistics, thus resolving the trust issue.
Viettel Telecom, Vinaphone, Mobifone and VMG Group have come forward to be VECITA’s partners to implement the SMS Order. They plan to launch the program in all localities and firms across Vietnam this year.
