WHAT HAPPENED
During the "9/9 Super Shopping Day" campaign, Shopee recorded a sharp jump in two logistics segments: the number of express orders with one-hour delivery grew fivefold, while the number of large-item shipments increased eightfold compared to a normal period. This was reported by Vietnam.vn on September 15, 2026.
The scale behind these percentages is clearly visible in the financial reports of Shopee's parent company: according to Sea Limited for the fourth quarter and full 2025 fiscal year (published March 3, 2026), SPX Express handles an average of more than 30 million parcels daily, and the company has been deliberately expanding instant delivery, including cases of one-hour grocery delivery.
An important detail: Shopee does not have a single "one hour for everything" SLA. Official materials from the Vietnamese division mention different products—"Hỏa Tốc" with 1–1.5 hour windows, a separate "Hỏa Tốc 4H" rate for four hours, and same-day delivery (Shopee Blog, 31.08.2026; Shopee Help Vietnam). So the fivefold growth applies to a specific accelerated segment, not the entire order basket.
WHAT THIS MEANS
The market where this is happening is growing fast. According to an industry report by MBS (Vietnam) from December 2025, Vietnam's e-commerce is expected to grow about 22% year-on-year in 2026 and reach approximately $34 billion. The same document specifically notes that Shopee and TikTok Shop are increasingly relying on affiliated couriers (SPX, J&T), and competition among delivery operators remains high. Speed here is not a service add-on but a tool for retaining market share.
For Russian e-commerce, the logic is the same, but adjusted for geography. According to Data Insight, Wildberries holds about 47% of the market, while Ozon holds around 34% (aggregated data as of end-2024, used by the industry as a baseline for estimating logistics needs in 2025–2026). With such concentration, price wars quickly turn into warehouse wars: whoever has the closest dark store and sorting center captures the "impulse" basket.
Large items are a separate story. The eightfold growth of such orders at Shopee shows that the marketplace is no longer just a showcase for small goods. Furniture, home appliances, and DIY products require different logistics: tractor-trailers, flatbeds, floor lifting, installation. In Russia, Ozon and Wildberries are already actively developing this area, but this is precisely where the customer experience most often breaks down—the buyer is willing to wait three days, but not for "the wrong item delivered to the wrong place."
And one more nuance that is easy to miss: one-hour express delivery is economically viable only with order density. Five hundred orders per hour in a district is profitable. Five orders per hour in the same district is a loss on every trip. So the Vietnamese case should be read not as "make one-hour delivery," but as "learn to concentrate demand in a narrow window and build courier shifts around that peak."
VIETSMART EXPERT COMMENTARY
I regularly visit our partners' warehouses in Ho Chi Minh City and see the same picture: sellers invest in advertising and content but barely calculate the cost of last-mile delivery. They come asking "why are sales falling," and in operations it turns out that 40% of orders are canceled at the "courier couldn't reach the customer" stage. This is not a traffic problem—it's a logistics process problem, and it can be solved more cheaply than with a new promotion budget.
The most common mistake of a Russian brand entering the Vietnamese market is trying to cover the entire country with a single scheme. Vietnam stretches 1,600 km, and demand density in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City is incomparable to the central provinces. We recommend first perfecting one city to the level of "same-day delivery" and only then scaling.
CONCLUSIONS AND WHAT TO DO
- Calculate last-mile cost per SKU. Divide logistics expenses by the number of successful deliveries, not by the number of shipments. The difference between these two figures is usually your hidden unprofitability.
- Separate large items into a distinct operational contour. Dedicated transport, dedicated crew, dedicated SLA. Trying to deliver a sofa with the same courier as a phone case breaks both margin and customer experience.
- Launch a "one-hour delivery" pilot in one city and one category. Not nationwide. Measure: share of orders in the accelerated window, average order value, cancellation rate, cost per trip. If the share of accelerated orders isn't growing, the problem isn't speed—it's assortment.
- For entering Vietnam, vet your delivery partner before signing the contract. Ask the logistics operator for a domestic transport license and confirmation of SPX or J&T affiliated courier status—this reduces the risk that your goods get stuck in a third-party customs warehouse.
- Shift focus from promo mechanics to operational metrics. Track not only CTR and ROMI, but also time from order to first delivery attempt, repeat attempt rate, and delivery NPS. These are the metrics that in 2026 determine whether a customer returns or goes to a competitor.
The Shopee case is not about Vietnam. It's about the fact that the marketplace that first solves the equation "speed plus large items plus density" takes the market from those who continue to haggle over a 2% discount.
Source: Vietnam.vn dated September 15, 2026