‘Joint purchasing’ lets online buyers enjoy wholesale prices

Online group purchases of discounted goods, often called joint purchasing, is growing in popularity after first appearing on the local radar last year.

Groups of people network together online to purchase items wholesale on several websites such as Phagia.com.vn, Muachung.vn and Cucre.vn.

Cucre.vn has facilitated the purchase of over 250 products for about 20,000 customers in its first six months of operation for earnings of VND4 billion (over US$194,000) and average sales turnover of 400 items per day.

Phagia.vn sold 20,000 items to 12,000 people for earnings of about VND500 million ($24,000).

Muachung.vn attracted 100,000 buyers and 500,000 registered users seeking discount products after only two months of operation with an average monthly turnover of VND1 billion ($48,500) from 1,000 to 2,000 items sold each day.

Nguyen Van Tuan in the e-commerce department of muachung.vn affirmed that it was the first joint purchasing website to earn a profit in Viet Nam.

General Director of the Viet Nam Price JSC Nguyen Ngoc Diep said he expected the trend of online group purchases to surge this year.

With the internet’s power to attract a lot of attention, discounts for specified numbers of people within a certain time frame could save buyers up to 90 per cent. The lack of overhead enables sellers to expand their markets by offering drastic discounts.

“Online joint purchasing in Viet Nam is currently good. It allows customers to purchase a coupon for a specific item at an attractive price and payment time is also quick,” said Vu Thu Ha, an office worker in Ha Noi.

These web sites were still facing many difficulties to achieve success in the Vietnamese market, said Diep.

Vietnamese people were accustomed to making their purchases in the traditional way, he said. Most had heard of online shopping but had yet to try it for themselves. This put websites into the role of an intermediary because many consumers still did not trust the safety of online shopping.

It took three years for Vietnamese people to show a real interest in online shopping and for e-commerce companies to benefit, he said.

A survey of 500 households in Ha Noi by the E-commerce and Information Technology Department showed that 18 per cent of households had made purchases online with 4 per cent of those making online payments and bank transactions. In comparison, 87 per cent of people used the internet to find information and 86 per cent used it for entertainment. – VNS

Tags: vietnam retail industry, Vietnam retail market