Vietnamese consumers continued to increasingly shop online grocery in the first half of 2020, despite Covid-19 being contained.

Online grocery & fresh food is a focus

Sources: iPrice Group & SimilarWeb, Q2 2020

In the first six months of 2020, online grocery websites reached a sharp increase of 42% in traffic compared to the second half of 2019, according to the latest report conducted by e-commerce aggregator iPrice Group and analytics company SimilarWeb. Similarly, cosmetic and healthcare websites saw purchases increased by 21% from the second half of the year earlier. 

The hit from Covid-19 spawned new online shopping habits, making long-term growth for the unfocused industries, the report wrote.

Facing this trend, in Q2, e-commerce platforms in Vietnam have identified online grocery and fresh food as the long-term competitive strategy.

To materialize it, local e-commerce platforms have invested in logistics and transportation in recent time. In mid-April, Lazada deployed two-hour delivery for fresh food. In May, Tiki also introduced TikiNGON, providing three-hour delivery for fresh food. The online grocery race is hotter than ever, according to iPrice. 

Meanwhile, in Q2, the fashion industry continued to face a gloomy time when the total website traffic decreased by 29% compared to the first quarter and 38% from 2H 2019. 

The number of visitors in mobile device websites also decreased by 13% compared to Q1 but increased by 2% against 2H 2019. Traffic to electronics websites increased by 10% in Q2 against Q1. The drop in spending caused the loss for non-essential industries, the report wrote.

Online shopping apps increase

Sources: iPrice Group & App Annie, Q2 2020

A report conducted by iPrice Group and App Annie showed that the total number of visits to online shopping applications in Vietnam reached 12.7 billion, the highest ever and up 43% compared to the first quarter. This growth is higher than that of most countries in the region when the whole Southeast Asia region in Q2 saw an increase of 39%. 

Vietnam ranks third in Southeast Asia in terms of the total traffic of online shopping applications, accounting for 19.5% market share in the region.

Notably, in Q2, the total number of visits to top 50 e-commerce websites in Vietnam decreased slightly by 1% compared to Q1.

Sources: iPrice Group & App Annie, Q2 2020

In the first six months of 2020, the average spending on online shopping of Vietnamese people has increased by 31% compared to the same period last year. The average value of the online orders reached VND344,000 (US$14.8), higher than the VND262,000(US$11.3) value in the half of 2019.

In the context of concerns about decreasing purchasing power, that the Vietnamese people still spend more on online shopping is a good sign when the market witnessed a shift in shopping from offline to online in Vietnam in the first half of 2020, iPrice concluded.