Vietnam's wood industry promotes sales through e-commerce

Handicraft and Wood Industry Association of Ho Chi Minh City (HAWA) and Amazon Global Selling Vietnam have recently joined hands to hold the seminar with the name “Export opportunities for wooden products and handicrafts with Amazon”. The seminar took place within the framework of the Vietnam Furniture Matching Week event (April 12th -19th, 2021) and has attracted the attention of many wood business entrepreneurs.

At the seminar, Mr. Nguyen Chanh Phuong, Vice President and Secretary-General of HAWA, has shared that world e-commerce is estimated to experience an 18% increase by 2021.

Particularly, the year 2020 has witnessed a strong increase of the retail channels through e-commerce, with retail e-commerce sales growth at 27.6%. This shows that e-commerce would become the most important channel for businesses, especially those of the wood industry and furniture as the demand for online shopping has increased taking the Covid-19 pandemic into consideration.

As stated by Mr. Tran Xuan Thuy, representative of Amazon Global Selling, Vietnam has become a leading exporter of wooden furniture and furniture in the world. Many Vietnamese businesses are currently outsourcing furniture for enterprises selling on Amazon, especially in the US market. This will open up great export opportunities for Vietnamese businesses through e-commerce channels.   

Speakers from Amazon Global Selling have analyzed the advantages and potentials of an online commerce platform in the US market. Accordingly, furniture online sales in the US by 2020 is about US$ 76.8 billion, accounting for 25.5% of total retail sales in the US for this merchandise. It is forecasted that by 2024, furniture online sales will reach US$ 126 billion, accounting for 37.4% of retail sales.

The three most enthusiastic consumer groups on Amazon are housewives, workers, and office workers. In the list of the most searched items on Amazon, there are furniture, home decorations, kitchen appliances ... These are groups of merchandise in which many products include wood materials.

Mrs. Kha Le Trinh, Account Manager of Amazon Global Selling, noted that the Vietnamese wood vendor should provide products that suit the tastes and needs of the majority of Americans such as furniture with high endurance, large capacity, space-saving,... and also noted that kitchen furniture products will sell well in April and May during Mother's Day (May 9th).

According to Mr. Nguyen Chanh Phuong, for a long time, Vietnam’s wood industry businesses mainly trade with foreign customers under the form of business-to-business transactions. But in the context of the Covid-19 epidemic, many Vietnamese wood enterprises are increasing their online sales, thereby promoting the strong development of e-commerce in the wood industry.