The figure "VND 411 trillion" gets brought up in meetings as an argument: the market is huge, we need to enter. I don't argue with the scale. But when I start breaking down what that number is made of and how it relates to a seller's actual operations, the conversation changes. Because behind the market volume lies a second figure that usually goes unmentioned: the cost of entry and the cost of money within that market.
Let's be honest: 411 trillion is not the number I see in primary sources for 2025. And that's where we should start, because accuracy matters more than a catchy headline.
What Actually Happened
The combined GMV of Vietnam's four largest marketplaces—Shopee, TikTok Shop, Lazada, and Tiki—for 2025 totaled VND 429.7 trillion, or about $16.35 billion. This is reported by VCCI, citing Metric data. Year-over-year growth is around 35%.
So the 411 trillion figure circulating in presentations is an aggregate from a different sample or a different period. I couldn't find a public link to exactly 411 trillion in open sources. And this is the first lesson for a Russian brand: in Vietnamese e-commerce, different methodologies produce a spread of tens of trillions of dong, and building a business plan on a number without a primary source is a bad idea.
What matters more than the sum itself is the dynamics. According to Metric data cited by Vietnam News, Vietnamese consumers spent about $45 million per day on online purchases in 2025. This is not a forecast. It's a fact from last year.
What 2026 Data Shows
The first half of 2026 already produced a range of VND 264.8–291.6 trillion across the four platforms—estimates from Metric.vn and YouNet ECI, as reported by VnEconomy. The range is wide because the two analytics firms calculate differently. But the direction is the same: the market continues to grow at double-digit rates, and 2026 is on track to exceed 2025's result.
The second layer of data is payments. And here's where it gets most interesting for a Russian seller.
- As of July 1, 2025, e-wallets in Vietnam received the status of an official means of payment—according to VietnamNet.
- As of March 31, 2025, Vietnam had 47 licensed e-wallet providers—this is not a two-player market, it's a dense competitive environment.
- On February 9, 2026, stricter regulations on trading and renting e-wallets took effect—Decree 340/2025/ND-CP, as reported by SGGP.
- The basic regulation of e-money is set by Decree 52/2024/ND-CP, in effect since July 1, 2024: electronic money is the equivalent of dong stored electronically, including in wallets.
Four facts that add up to one picture: the market is growing, payment infrastructure is being built out, and the state is simultaneously legalizing wallets and tightening the screws around renting and trading them.
What's the Twist for Russian Sellers
I often hear this in negotiations: "Vietnam is the next China, only cheaper." The logic is clear. In reality, it's not, and here's why.
For Russian e-commerce, China is primarily sourcing and production. Vietnam today is both a sales market and a production base at the same time. These are two different games, and confusing them is costly. If you go to Vietnam only for goods, you're competing with logistics that are already streamlined. If you go for the buyer, you're entering a market where payment behavior changes faster than you can adapt your funnel.
The second twist is payments. When wallets become an official means of payment and there are already 47 of them, the battle is not over "who is more convenient" but over who offers the seller the best commission and settles faster. For a Russian brand, this means: the payment gateway on Shopee or TikTok Shop is no longer a technical detail but a line item in unit economics. The difference in commission between wallets is your margin, not an abstraction.
And the third twist is regulatory. The tightening on renting and trading wallets from February 2026 means one thing: gray schemes for accepting payments are closing. If your partner in Vietnam offers to "sort out the money acceptance issue" through someone else's wallet, that's not flexibility—it's a risk of frozen funds.
What I See from Operations
At VietSmart, we launch partners on Shopee Mall from Ho Chi Minh City, and I see a pattern that repeats month after month. Brands come with a plan to "enter one platform, one wallet, one channel." A quarter later, it turns out the buyer pays in a way they didn't bet on.
Repeat purchases are noticeably higher among partners who connected two or three payment instruments from the start and didn't tie themselves to a single wallet. I can't give an exact percentage—it depends heavily on the category. But the direction is consistent: the wider the payment funnel, the lower the drop-off at the payment stage.
The second mistake I see most often: a brand calculates the cost of entry using the Chinese model—sourcing plus logistics. But in Vietnam, the cost of entry also includes the cost of the local payment and tax circuit. And this is where many underestimate the scale.
What a Brand Should Do
Three steps I recommend taking before you sign your first contract with a Vietnamese partner.
- Ask your partner for a list of payment providers with an SBV license and verify each one in the registry—47 organizations as of March 2025 is a verifiable list, not "we work with everyone."
- Calculate unit economics for two or three wallets separately: commission, settlement time, transaction limits. The difference in margin between them is your real cost of entry.
- Check how your partner complies with Decree 340/2025/ND-CP from February 2026: if payment acceptance goes through a rented wallet, that's a red flag, not a "local quirk."
- Cross-check your market model with Metric and YouNet data for the first half of 2026—not with a number from a presentation, but with the primary source.
This isn't about caution. It's about making sure your margin doesn't dissolve in commissions and blockages at the stage when you've already invested in listing.
At VietSmart, we cover exactly this area for Russian brands: selecting the payment circuit for your category, verifying partners for compliance with current decrees, and launching on Shopee Mall with unit economics calculated for each wallet separately. First sales on a Vietnamese marketplace can realistically be achieved in 60–90 days—if the payment funnel is set up correctly from day one. If it's set up incorrectly, you'll lose the buyer at the last step and won't understand why your conversion doesn't match the market.