WHAT HAPPENED
On September 23, 2026, Vietnam.vn published a piece on how local brands are building their growth on e-commerce platforms. This is not about one-off promotions but about systematic work: content, partnerships with local manufacturers, livestream infrastructure, and promotion within the marketplaces themselves. The news comes against the backdrop of a mature market: according to VCCI, Vietnam's online retail grew by roughly 35% in 2025, exceeding $16 billion, while VnEconomy, citing Metric, estimates the GMV of the four largest platforms (Shopee, TikTok Shop, Lazada, Tiki) at $16.5 billion for the same period.
An important context is the slowdown. According to a YouNet ECI report cited by Tuoi Tre, in the first half of 2026, the GMV of those same four platforms amounted to about VND264.8 trillion (~$10.1 billion), meaning growth of just +19% year-on-year versus +35% a year earlier. Consumers have become more price-sensitive, and this changes the logic of the game: the winner is not the one who discounts the loudest, but the one who builds a brand inside the platform.
And the third layer is institutional. On December 19, 2025, at a conference held by Vietnam's Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Hanoi Department of Industry and Trade as part of Vietnam Brand Week, the largest platforms (Shopee, TikTok Shop, Lazada, Sendo) announced joint support programs for Vietnamese goods: content support, livestream tools, marketing campaigns, and logistics. This was reported by The Hanoi Times.
WHAT IT MEANS
For Russian sellers, this is not an abstract foreign story but a ready-made model that can be transferred to Ozon, Wildberries, and Yandex Market. Look at the structure, not the numbers. Vietnamese brands have stopped treating the marketplace as a storefront and started treating it as a media channel. Content is produced for the platform rather than adapted from a general brand book: vertical videos, scripts for live streams, product cards built around search logic. This is exactly the shift Russian sellers are going through now, except the Vietnamese have already refined it on an industrial scale.
The second point is the infrastructure around livestream. In Vietnam, a layer of agencies and MCN networks has formed. For example, THN Network claims more than 200 mega-livestreams per month, and UpTik describes cases with million-follower influencers and synchronized broadcasts on TikTok and Shopee. An unconventional case is also telling: VinFast ran its first pre-order campaign for the VF 3 car directly through a livestream and made the shortlist of the international Smarties award. This is no longer "selling socks on a live stream" but a full-fledged brand tool. In Russia, this layer is only just forming, and the window of opportunity is open.
The third point is working with reviews and social proof as a systemic function rather than a reaction to negativity. Vietnamese brands build review collection into the content production cycle: the buyer becomes a source of material, and the review becomes a unit of content for the next wave of promotion. Plus cascading distribution: the same message lives in the live stream, on the product card, in the affiliate network, and in KOL posts.
The fourth and most underrated point is regulatory support. The state in Vietnam acted not as a controller but as a co-organizer: it brought platforms and manufacturers to the same table. In Russia, regional export support programs and local brand aggregators are increasingly taking on a similar role, but sellers should not wait for this to become infrastructure. It is far more effective to build such connections yourself.
VIETSMART EXPERT COMMENTARY
I see this picture from inside the operations in Ho Chi Minh City. Russian brands regularly come to us with the same request: "we want to enter the Vietnamese market." And almost always the first mistake is the same: they come with a product and a price list but without a content plan and without a partner who knows how to work with local live streams. As a result, the product card sits there, traffic is wasted, and the wrong conclusion is drawn: "the market didn't take off." In reality, it wasn't the market that failed; it was the approach.
The second common mistake is trying to copy the Western promotion model. Vietnamese e-commerce runs on speed, local influencers, and live streams, not on long brand campaigns. If we transfer this to Russia, the conclusion is simple: don't try to be everywhere. Choose one platform, one product line, and one strong content partner, and squeeze that combination for three to four months before scaling.
CONCLUSIONS AND WHAT TO DO
- Choose one flagship SKU and build a 90-day content cycle around it: two live streams per week, ten short videos per month, synchronized posts between the product card and external platforms. Don't spread yourself across the entire assortment.
- Find a content partner before launching ads, not after. In Russian conditions, this could be a local agency or a micro-KOL with an audience of 10,000–50,000; what matters is not the size but the regularity of output and understanding of the category.
- Build reviews into content production: after each batch of orders, collect 5–10 detailed reviews with photos and videos, turn them into product cards, live-stream scripts, and ad creatives. A review is the cheapest and highest-converting material.
- Check which in-platform promotion tools are already available in your category and set up one automated campaign instead of ten manual ones. The Vietnamese TikTok Shop experience shows that bid automation and a single campaign deliver more than manually managing dozens of ad groups.
- Tap into local support programs: regional export centers, industry associations, specialized trade shows. In Vietnam, it was exactly this contact between the state and platforms that gave brands access to tools they would not have obtained on their own.
Source: Vietnam.vn, September 23, 2026