Online Shopping Trends

ONLINE SHOPPING TRENDS
I. Global online shopping
Consumers across the globe are increasingly swapping crowded stores for one-click convenience, as online shopping becomes a safe and popular option. According to a recent global survey conducted by The Nielsen Company, over 85 percent of the world’s online population has used the Internet to make a purchase and more than half of Internet users are regular online shoppers, making online purchases at least once a month.

Global online consumers say that books and clothing will continue to top the list for planned online purchases in the next six months, which follows the trend reported in a 2009 Nielsen survey where 46 percent of global consumers said they purchased books in the past three months and 41 percent bought clothing online.

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However, intent to purchase airline tickets and to book tours and hotel reservations show signs the economy is improving. In fact, compared to 2009 where 24 percent of connected consumers said they purchased airline tickets online and 17 percent made hotel/tour reservations via the Internet, intent to make travel arrangements online in 2010 has increased seven percentage points and nine percentage points respectively.
Other engaging products and services tagged for future online purchases include electronic equipment, cosmetics/nutrition supplies, event tickets, computer hardware, videos/DVD’s/ games and groceries.

Credit cards are by far the most common method of payment for online purchases – 60 percent of global online consumers used their credit card for a recent online purchase, while one in four online consumers chose PayPal. Of those paying with a credit card, more than half (53%) used Visa.

“Shopping on the Internet with the ease of a credit card is especially appealing to consumers in emerging markets who simply cannot find or buy items they want in their retail trade. The Internet has opened up a whole new world of shopping for these consumers,” said Carson. While Latin and Asian online shoppers are also more likely to use credit cards than any other form of payment, debit cards are most popular among UK (59%) and U.S. (40%) online shoppers.
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II. Online Shopping in Vietnam compared with countries in Asia Pacific Region
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III. Vietnam online shopping situation:
Online shopping (or called e-shopping) in Vietnam is still young. About 25% population use Internet, however just around 8% of this percentage shop online. Today, most online shops in Vietnam, originating from forums, operate like eBay.com. Online stores directly under companies or local famous local clothing brands have not been popular in this attractive retail market yet.
Although the amount of Internet users in Vietnam is increasing, they still do not understand e-shopping clearly. A lot of users do not know the process of shopping online. Besides, consumers get used to seeing, touching, even smelling products before deciding to buy them. This is a consumer behaviour that e-shopping can not adapt. Ms Mai Phương, a regular customer of online shopping in recent 3 years says “Images of products posted on websites are sometimes different from the reality”. To fix this disadvantage, Vietnam Ebay requires sellers to offer good – quality pictures with detail description about the product. Mr Nguyễn Hòa Bình, CEO of Peacesoft Solutions, the company offering web services to Vietnam Ebay explains “We have a policy that protect customers’ right when they receive one product not like the description on the website”
Trust of buyers to sellers is also an issue. Like any transaction, the trust is a factor helping make business successful. Fewer buyers agree to give their money or reveal personal information such as bank account, credit card information to a stranger. They are afraid of being a prey of cheaters. Almost e-shopping websites offer COD (Cash on Delivery). COD is the easiest method that requires the least information of buyers.
However, online shopping in Vietnam is predicted that it will explore in the near future. Most shopping websites in Vietnam gather a lot of online stores. For example, on website www.123mua.com.vn, there are about 15.000 online stores, varying from brands, color, quality, price, target customers. Price is also better. The online store owners do not have to pay for staff salary, store rental and maintenance thanks to online transactions.
According to Mr Hà Nguyễn – manager of website www.1001shoppings.com, online shopping is easy to approach customers, so this kind of shopping creates many opportunities to small and medium business. Furthermore, online shopping does not limit age, sex, income of sellers as well as buyers.
In Vietnam, popular products sold on websites are clothing, shoes, handbags, cosmetics, accessories. There are three popular ways so that sellers can get stock. - The first one is that sellers travel directly to the local (China or Thailand) and get stock (usually clothing, shoes, handbags, accessories). - The second one is that they have local connections, then they receive orders from customers, after that they get products (usually clothing, shoes from China, Korea, even USA) via the local connections. - The third one is they have local connections, and no need to travel directly there to get stock, they purchase stock via their local connections, then sell them (usually clothing, shoes, handbags, cosmetics, accessories)
Some sellers have relatives living abroad (usually in USA, Europe), they have some good quality products and want to sell them to get money. This is a good source; however, their products are not diversified in number and kind