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Tag: sendo

  • E-commerce sites report jump in 11/11 sales

    E-commerce sites report jump in 11/11 sales

    E-commerce platforms reported a surge in sales on Singles’ Day on Nov. 11, an annual shopping event, with the most popular items being masks and healthcare products. Tiki said revenues were up nine times from last year, and the number of buyers was double that on normal days.

    Face masks, products for babies and mothers, and fast-moving consumer goods were the top sellers, it said.

    It also sold some 10,000 mobile phones, including 500 iPhones, 2,000 electric motorbikes and bicycles, and 6,000 cans and bottles of beer.

    Shopee sold 1.8 million decorative items, including some 100,000 decals and stickers, 1.6 million healthcare products, one million earphones, and 150,000 mobile phone covers.

    Lazada said revenues doubled and the number of customers was up by half. Healthcare and beauty products were its best-sellers, and electronics sales almost doubled, with laptop and desktop sales nearly tripling.

    Sendo said revenues were 40 percent higher than during other promotions such as Sept. 9 and Oct. 10, with fashion, household, and beauty items seeing sales double.

    According to a report called ‘e-Conomy SEA 2021’ released this week by Google, Temasek and Bain & Co., Vietnam’s e-commerce market will increase to $13 billion this year, up 53 percent from last year, and triple by 2025.

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  • Singaporean logistics unicorn eyes Vietnam as key expansion market

    Singaporean logistics unicorn eyes Vietnam as key expansion market

    Ninja Van, a Singaporean logistics startup and new ASEAN unicorn, is set to drive a broad strategy in Vietnam to benefit from the country’s strong e-logistics market growth.

    After successfully raising $578 million in Series E funding, Ninja Van has officially become an ASEAN “unicorn,”.Dzung Phan, president of Ninja Van, said while revealing the startup’s expansion plans for Vietnam and his assessment of its e-logistics market.

    Why did Ninja Van choose Vietnam as a key investment market?

    We believe Vietnam is ready for a new phase of growth in e-logistics. According to Agility, Vietnam ranks 8th among the top world’s fastest-growing logistics markets and 3rd among ASEAN in 2021. Vietnam E-commerce Association (VECOM) also stated the number of postal parcels sent through express delivery services shot up by 47 percent last year.

    Also, e-logistics is strongly driven by the rapid growth of e-commerce. Vietnam’s e-commerce market expanded an average of 30 percent per annum during the period 2016-2019, from $4 billion (2015) to $11.5 billion (2019). According to VECOM, the market will grow at 29 percent annually in 2020-2025, to reach $52 billion (2025).

    The strong potential of Vietnam’s e-logistics market is a good foundation for our ambitious plan. A market with 600,000 sellers and 49.3 million buyers across e-commerce platforms and social networks will generate significant demand for logistics.

    Leading a new unicorn in the e-logistics industry, how do you assess its competitive advantage in Vietnam?

    The domestic e-logistics market is competitive with several “deep pocket” players. The market comprises three main segments: local shipping companies, international shipping companies, and e-commerce platforms with their own in-house shipping ecosystems.

    Domestic enterprises only account for 20 percent of the logistics market share; the remaining 80 percent belongs to international firms with strengths in capital, technology, and experience. Local firms may be backed by international groups, including GHTK by Kerry and AhaMove by Temasek.

    Although the e-logistics market is vibrant, its growth potential is not fully invested in. A survey showed that 60 percent of sellers and 80 percent of buyers are not satisfied with the current quality of express delivery services. Buyers are frustrated by late delivery or the inability to track the flow, while sellers expect more parcels to be delivered.

    Is pricing a major competitive edge in the current e-logistics market?

    Except for the inhouse shipping units of e-commerce platforms, domestic and international players are using price competitiveness to acquire customers quickly. Whenever there is a “newcomer”, delivery costs will drop significantly to maintain the market share and retain customers. Notable discounts were given at the entry of J&T in 2018 and Best in 2020.

    The average shipping price in the Vietnam market fell continuously by 15-20 percent per year from 2017 to 2020. The trend has a negative impact on smaller domestic players, for example, GNN in 2017 suffered a sharp drop in revenue that led to its liquidation. Even international players without strong financial support cannot survive this market, with DHL e-commerce ceasing operations in Vietnam during 2021.

    How does Ninja Van improve the customer experience? Ninja Van focuses on providing a quality and authentic service experience to customers, rather than on pricing alone. Parcel tracking and recovery services for lost or damaged parcels need to be improved.

    Given a tech-enabled personalization of the customer experience, Ninja Van’s nationwide personal delivery service on the Grab app has stepped up during the Covid-19 pandemic. Additionally, we are strengthening our partnership with e-commerce giants including Shopee, Lazada, Tiki, and Sendo.

    With more than 300,000 orders per day, Ninja Van is among the top three partners on all major platforms in Vietnam. These collaborations brought Ninja Van into the top growth 15 companies in the Asia-Pacific region in 2021 as reported by Financial Times.

    To gain trust, we do all possible to help our customers succeed, such as ensuring timely pickup, prompt delivery without loss. In addition, we understand that our partners are working at a large scale, so we do our utmost to optimize our cost structure and provide an attractive rate.

    As a result, we became the most active provider by offering various value-added services, such as return pickup to Lazada, bulky and super bulky delivery for Tiki, or installation services for Shopee.

    With an additional $578 million in Series E, what is the level of ambition in terms of your expansion strategy?

    – Ninja Van is committed to driving a broad strategy in Vietnam in particular and in ASEAN in general. This strategy will cover all three sectors: operations, technical systems, ecosystems for small and retail customers.

    Specifically, Ninja Van will increase its coverage in 63 cities and provinces to reach 100 percent of the Vietnamese population. We will also prepare an automatic sorting system with a capacity of two million packages at five major cities to increase delivery speed.

    We will build and improve web and mobile application platforms to enhance customer experience. We seek to enable both sellers and buyers to track parcels and make inquiries in real-time.

    Notably, we will broaden our cross-border delivery with two new services: Ninja Direct, which helps Vietnamese sellers look for better sourcing with better rates in multiple countries; and Ninja Crossborder, which helps Vietnamese manufacturers reach out to buyers all over the world.

    Moreover, we will complete business activities for the fourth quarter of 2021. For example, based on our big data analytics, we have opened training courses to detect anomalies and outliers to provide timely resolutions for all customers. In 2020, we created 40 different training modules for our shippers and warehouse staff to avoid recalcitrant buyer behavior on COD free delivery services.

    Ninja Van will launch a promotional campaign in Vietnam “Giao thong suot, Nhan ven nguyen” (Smooth delivery, Parcel intact) to support sellers in the fourth quarter. With all staff vaccinated against Covid-19, Ninja Van will maintain its service delivery price during the pandemic to support hard-hit customers.

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  • E-commerce firm Sendo nets $61 mln in latest funding round

    E-commerce firm Sendo nets $61 mln in latest funding round

    Sendo, Vietnam’s second-most visited online market place, has secured $61 million in the latest Series C funding round.

    The investment will come from existing shareholders as well as new international investors including Indonesia’s EV Growth and Thai banking group Kasikornbank, Sendo said in a press release Wednesday.

    Existing investors including financial services company SBI Group, retailer BEENOS, private equity firm Daiwa PI Partners, and web services consultancy Digital Garage from Japan, as well as venture fund SoftBank Ventures Asia of South Korea, all of which had previously backed Sendo’s $51 million Series B round in 2018, returned for its Series C round.

    Hai Linh Tran, CEO and co-founder of Sendo, said that the funds will be used to expand the breadth of its existing integrated platform offering to both sellers and consumers, as well as to further deepen its technology moat.

    Founded in 2012 as a spin-off of Vietnam’s largest IT service company FPT Corporation, Sendo focuses on tier 2 cities largely untapped by other e-commerce firms, home to 70 million Vietnamese people.

    The company claims it caters to 500,000 sellers, with an estimated 17 million distinct items listed on its platform, as well as 12 million customers.

    In the third quarter of 2019, Sendo surpassed domestic rival Tiki to rank second among top 10 e-commerce sites in Vietnam with the highest monthly traffic numbers, according to Malaysia-based market research firm iPrice’s latest data released recently.

    Sendo’s web visits reached 30.9 million per month in Q3, up 10.1 percent against Q2, second after Singapore-based Shopee, which remained in top position with 34.5 million, down 10.6 percent from Q2.

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  • Sendo wins funding, overtakes Tiki in Vietnam

    Sendo wins funding, overtakes Tiki in Vietnam

    In this financing round, its largest to date, Sendo has been backed by its existing investors including SBI Group, Beenos, SoftBank Ventures Asia, Daiwa PI Partners, and Digital Garage together with new investors such as EV Growth from Indonesia, and Kasikornbank from Thailand.

    According to a statement, the funds will be used to expand the breadth of its existing integrated platform offering to both sellers and consumers, as well as to “further deepen its technology moat with AI and machine learning to enhance the overall consumer journey experience”.

    “While we have hit our annualized gross merchandise volume (GMV) target of US$1 billion earlier than expected, we care much more about meaningful and sustainable GMV growth, which we believe has to come from consumer stickiness owing to a great shopping experience,” said Hai Linh Tran, co-founder and CEO of Sendo, pictured above.

    “Sendo’s integrated ecosystem spanning marketplace, advertising, logistics and financial services is designed to ensure that, and that goes well with our monetisation strategy into multiple revenue streams and ultimately, our path to profitability.”

    Senior partner and MD of Softbank Ventures Asia, Daniel Kang, said Sendo’s strength in using the capabilities of its partners within the ecosystem has essentially created a win-win for merchants, advertising companies and financial institutions. “The company’s marketplace model is well-aligned to address the needs of typical Vietnamese sellers and consumers, and more importantly, to empower them,” he said.

    According to a recent report from iPrice, Sendo has become the second-most downloaded app and the second-most visited e-commerce website in Vietnam, overtaking its domestic rival Tiki which is 25.65 percent owned by Chinese e-commerce giant JD. Both Sendo and Tiki are concentrating solely on the Vietnam market,rather than expanding into other countries as its rivals are. Regional player Shopee remains number one.

    Sendo now boasts more than 500,000 sellers, with an estimated 17 million SKUs listed on its platform. The company serves more than 12 million customers across across the country.

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  • Sendo partners with DHL eCommerce for domestic delivery in Vietnam

    Sendo partners with DHL eCommerce for domestic delivery in Vietnam

    DHL eCommerce, a division of the world’s leading logistics company, Deutsche Post DHL Group (DPDHL), announced its partnership with Sendo, Vietnam’s #1 local e-commerce platform. The successful integration between the two companies means sellers on Sendo will now be able to access DHL’s excellent domestic delivery network, and deliver to their buyers same-day or next-day in Ho Chi Minh, Hanoi and other primary markets.

    “Being a homegrown company allows Sendo to have deep understanding of the Vietnamese local market and culture. Sendo aims to support over 300,000 individual vendors, micro-entrepreneurs, and small businesses to initiatively sell their goods online and deliver them affordably throughout Vietnam. With our collaboration with DHL eCommerce, we will provide not only the sellers but also several million buyers on our platform with an international quality delivery experience in Vietnam.” said Mr. Tran Hai Linh, CEO, Sendo.

    To support small businesses, DHL eCommerce also offers market leading cash-on-delivery (COD) services with next-day remittance to sellers. With more than 300 DHL ServicePoints located conveniently across Vietnam accessible to Sendo, sellers can also choose to drop-off their parcels at these locations instead of waiting for a pick-up as well as enjoy discounts of up to 20%. Alternatively, sellers can also arrange for a pickup by DHL for direct door-to-door delivery service to their buyers.

    “Micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises continue to play a major role in Vietnam, accounting for 98 percent of all enterprises, 40 percent of GDP and 50 percent of employment.[1] However, they face unique challenges such as access to finance and international partners. DHL is passionate about supporting small businesses and we are excited to work with Sendo to support their sellers with an excellent, high quality domestic delivery network.” said Thomas Harris, Managing Director, DHL eCommerce Vietnam.

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  • Vietnam e-commerce site Sendo secures $51 million for expansion plans

    Vietnam e-commerce site Sendo secures $51 million for expansion plans

    Vietnam’s growing potential has helped nation’s leading C2C platform attract more venture capital funds.

    In the Series B funding round, the SBI Group and Daiwa PI Partners from Japan, Softbank Ventures Korea and the U.S.-based SKS Ventures were the new investors.

    Series B in venture capital financing refers to funding sourced to take a firm to the next level, past its development stage.

    All existing investors – FPT Group, eContext Asia, BEENEXT, and BEENOS – also participated in the Series B funding.

    Nguyen Dac Viet Dung, executive chairman and co-founder of Sendo, said: “The funding will help the company expand the C2C (customer to customer) platform Sendo, launch the B2C (Business to Customer) marketplace SenMall, and make SenPay the leading fintech platform in Vietnam.

    In a fast-growing e-commerce market, Sendo has differentiated itself by focusing on not only Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City but also the hitherto untapped Tier 2 cities’ population, where 70 million Vietnamese people live.

    Sendo, which was established in 2012, currently has more than 300,000 sellers serving around 10 million customers nationwide.

    A report last April cited Bain, a U.S.-based global management consulting firm as saying online businesses were booming in Southeast Asia.

    Bain estimated that the region had 200 million digital consumers, or people who bought goods or services online, out of an adult population of 405 million. Vietnam, with a population of 93.7 million, accounted for 35 million of these consumers.

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