Mục đích của bài viết này là xem xét các thuộc tính quan trọng để thu hút được người tiêu dùng trực tuyến tại Việt Nam. Điều này được thực hiện bằng cách khám phá các yếu tố thúc đẩy người tiêu dùng Việt Nam mua hàng trực tuyến hoặc ngoại tuyến thông qua phân tích các yếu tố như giá tốt nhất, sở thích trang web, lựa chọn giao hàng tốt nhất và giá cả, chủng loại phong phú và sản phẩm & dịch vụ.
Trang 1ty of products offered on e-commerce sites via the latter’s web interface (Jiang and Benbasat, 2004)
Conceivably, consumers’ purchase intentions are driven by the extent to which their positive feelings about e-commerce sites are induced by trustworthy signals that are costly to manipulate (Walther and Parks, 2002)
Park and Kim (2003; 17) stated that consumers' trust to a provider or supplier results with becoming committed to the company Trust issue is exceeding with a few successful transactions, after individuals start feel safe and believe that this supplier answers their needs and wants On the other hand, provided information is another issue in terms of online shopping for Park and Kim (2003;17) Since online shopping is an activity which related to a comput-er-system, individuals cannot touch or feel prod-ucts Therefore, their decisions based on the infor-mation that provided by online retailer Information issue not only important in terms of availability situation, it is also important in convenience and personalization concept Web site design, access to information, access time to information also influ-ence on behaviors of consumers
There is a positive relationship between consumers’ familiarity with an e-commerce site and their trust in this site (Kim et al., 2008) As during the final product decision stage, price remains as the most common consideration when consumers are deciding where to buy (Figure 2.8),
particularly in certain categories such as ics Having a website that consumers like and/or trust is also important, especially in Asia, where consumers said buying from a preferred website was more important than price (KPMG, 2017) According to many authors, an effective website design is critical to the success of electronic com-merce, and the functionality, usability, ease-of-nav-igation and interfaces of the websites themselves are vital building blocks for sustainable success (Constantinides, 2004; Yen et al., 2007; Lim et al.,
electron-2009, Colla and Lapoule, 2011)
Best Delivery Options/ Price
Price and Delivery options are one of the most
important factors to drive consumers online (KPMG, 2017)
Young generation are no longer satisfied to place orders via mobile phones, they also hope to receive goods more quickly Instant gratification has become a feature of this generation of users Some research show that 63 percent of post-80s and 90s are very interested in same-day delivery, even half of them are willing to pay premiums for
it Therefore, enterprises can provide instant
servic-es such as same-day delivery, online purchase and offline pickup, etc., to keep pace with the consump-tion habits of the young generation and improve user experience Finally, in terms of aftersales service, enterprises can simplify procedures and optimize service experience through a series of aftersales services provided directly on APP including goods exchanging and purchase feed-backs (Deloitte, 2017)
Last mile delivery is one of the paint paints of online shopping in China (Fung Business Intelli-gence, 2017)
Rich Assortment
Merchandising includes product-related
charac-teristics such as assortment, variety, and product
information (Jarvenpaa and Todd, 1997) Rich
product assortment can increase the probability that
consumer-needs will be met and satisfied The
online shopping environment enables consumers to
reduce their decision-making efforts by providing
vast selection, information screening, reliability,
and product comparison (Alba et al, 1997) The
research conducted by Q&Me shown that Product
variety is one of the reasons to shop online for
Viet-namese (Q&Me, 2017)
KEY ATTRIBUTES TO WIN ONLINE CONSUMERS IN VIETNAM
CÁC THUỘC TÍNH QUAN TRỌNG ĐỂ THU HÚT NGƯỜI TIÊU DÙNG
TRỰC TUYẾN TẠI VIỆT NAM
Tóm tắt
Mục đích của bài viết này là xem xét các thuộc tính quan trọng để thu hút được người tiêu dùng trực tuyến tại Việt Nam Điều này được thực hiện bằng cách khám phá các yếu tố thúc đẩy người tiêu dùng Việt Nam mua hàng trực tuyến hoặc ngoại tuyến thông qua phân tích các yếu tố như giá tốt nhất, sở thích trang web, lựa chọn giao hàng tốt nhất và giá cả, chủng loại phong phú và sản phẩm & dịch vụ Ngoài
ra, nghiên cứu cũng đã khám phá cách thức quyết định mua bán trực tuyến bị ảnh hưởng bởi giới tính, tuổi tác, khu vực sinh sống, nghề nghiệp, trình độ học vấn và thu nhập Các thuộc tính ảnh hưởng đến việc người Việt Nam mua trực tuyến hoặc ngoại tuyến đã được tiết lộ thông qua nghiên cứu định lượng bằng cách phân tích dữ liệu thu thập được thông qua bảng câu hỏi điều tra Mẫu này bao gồm hơn 300 người hoặc đang mua hàng trực tuyến hoặc ngoại tuyến trả lời Những phát hiện của nghiên cứu cho thấy rằng các thuộc tính chính để giành được người tiêu dùng mua sắm trực tuyến Việt Nam là giá tốt hơn, sở thích trang web, lựa chọn giao hàng tốt nhất /giá cả, chất lượng sản phẩm và dịch vụ Một phát hiện thú vị nữa
từ nghiên cứu này là nhóm nhà giàu có có thể gây ảnh hưởng tiêu cực đến trải nghiệm người tiêu dùng trực tuyến Nghiên cứu cũng cho thấy những người trả lời từ 18 đến 36 tuổi có thu nhập trung bình 1000 USD / tháng chọn mua sắm trực tuyến nhiều hơn các nhóm khác và người trả lời sống ở thành phố Hồ Chí Minh có xu hướng mua sắm trực tuyến nhiều hơn ở Hà Nội Các yếu tố có lợi nhất của mua sắm trực tuyến đã được xác định là khả năng mua ở mức giá thấp hơn và thuận tiện Nghiên cứu được thực hiện dựa trên các điều kiện chung và không chỉ định cho kinh doanh điện tử và có thể không nhất thiết phải áp dụng cho kinh doanh điện tử Do đó, nghiên cứu trong tương lai có thể được thực hiện bởi nhóm sản phẩm Các thuộc tính được xác định bởi nghiên cứu này có thể giúp Thương mại điện tử khởi động, giúp Thương mại điện tử quốc tế tiến vào thị trường trực tuyến Việt Nam để hình thành chiến lược tiếp thị trực tuyến tốt hơn về mặt địa lý, ưu tiên của khách hàng để thu hút người tiêu dùng Việt Nam mua hàng trực tuyến, sau đó chọn trang web của họ hơn người khác.
Từ khóa: Trực tuyến, thương mại điện tử, thuộc tính, Việt Nam, người tiêu dùng.
Summary
The purpose of this paper was to look at key attributes to win online consumers in Vietnam This was done by exploring factors that drive a Vietnamese consumer to buy online or offline through analysis of factors such as best price, website preference, best delivery option & price, rich assortment and product
& service In addition, the research was also explored how online decision affected by gender, age, areas
of living, occupation, education level and income The attributes that influence Vietnamese to buy online
or offline have been disclosed through quantitative research by analyzing data collected via questionnaire survey The sample was consisted of over 300 respondents who either are buying online or offline The findings of the study indicate that the main attributes to win Vietnamese online shopping consumers are better price, website preference, best delivery option/price and quality of product and service One more interesting finding from the research was the rich assortment can give negative affect online consumer experience The research also showed that respondents of the 18 to 36 years age group with the average income of USD 1000 per month choose shopping online more than other groups and respondents living
in Ho Chi Minh city tend to shop online more than those in Hanoi The most beneficial factors of shopping online have been identified as the possibility of buying at lower price and the convenience The research was done based on general conditions and do not specify to e-business and may not necessarily be appli- cable to e-business Therefore, the future research can be done by product group Attributes identified by this study could help e-Commerce Start-ups, International E-commerce entering Vietnamese online market to better form their online e-marketing strategies in terms of geography areas, customer prefer- ence to attract Vietnamese consumers online first, then choose their website over others
Keywords: Online, e-commerce, attribute, Vietnam, consumer.
NGUYEN DUC QUYNH LAN * NGUYEN DUC BAO LONG *
* Dong Do University, Vietnam Ngày nhận bài: 5/5/2018; ngày thẩm định 15/7/2018; ngày duyệt đăng: 15/9/2018
Consumer satisfaction is a popular concept in marketing It is a measure of how products or services meet the buyer’s expectation This concept normally is considered as consumer’s expectations prior to purchase or use of a product and the relative perception of the quality of that product after using it
Consumer satisfaction is very important because
of its close relationship with consumer loyalty and the profitability of a business Loyalty behaviors include continuous relationship and recommenda-tions (word of mouth advertising) of the product
As a result, for a loyal consumer, the quality of value received from one supplier is greater than that available from the others (Roger Hallowell, 2006)
Consumer satisfaction is more important in the e-commerce side of the fashion industry because of the higher expectation of the buyer For example, the potential buyer can only see a fashion product with its design and color on websites but does not know if the product will fit his/her body and if its feeling (aesthetic feel or tactile quality) is good
That explains why there are more buyers nowadays who look up information about fashion products through websites and then go to the store in town to try and buy them
Problem statements
Vietnam is at the pivotal stage of developing the e-commerce owing to its large population and the rapid growth of Internet users Shopping online now in Vietnam is a new lifestyle that has been attracting a lot of young people who enjoy chatting with social networks while shopping The Vietnam E-commerce and Informatics Technology Agency (VECITA) predicted that the B2C trade volume ratio of total retail sales of goods and services in Vietnam will increase by 5% within the next five years
panies offer on the website play a very important
role in their purchase decision (Berthon et al.,
1996; Geissler, 2001; Korner& Zimmermann,
2000; Selz, 1998) Then some experts stated that
the website is more conducive to relationship
mar-keting compared to media tools such as direct mail
and catalogs (Geissler, 2001; Shetty, 1999) The
reason is that via websites, companies can
intro-duce new chances to establish, build and manage
relationships with their consumers
Nowadays, one of the most important issues
concerning all businesses is consumer satisfaction
It is the principle of the continuous improvement in
the modern enterprise to measure how well a
com-pany does to satisfy consumers demands Another
reason is consumer satisfaction should be measured
and translated into some measurable parameter As
a result, the consumer satisfaction measurement
may be used as the most reliable feedback It
provides client’ preferences and experiences in an
effective, direct, meaningful and objective way
Hence, it will lead to the consideration that
consumer satisfaction is a baseline standard of
performance as well as a possible standard of
excel-lence for any business organization (Gerson, 1993)
In Vietnam, online payment is yet to be popular
because of the trust in the security for customers
Several researches have been done in Vietnam on
e-commerce on in different businesses and topics
In 2014, Google Vietnam did a research on the
behaviors of Vietnamese online shoppers
Accord-ing to their report, there are 71% of online shoppers
who pay cash when receiving goods It was found
that Vietnamese buyers only made online payments
with big and trust-worthy e-retailers Several
authors also studied the online fashion business but
none of them developed a model related to factors
that might contribute to the consumers' online
shopping experiences Many Vietnamese
research-ers conducted research on e-commerce in Vietnam
such as the research by Nguyen Xuan Thuy (2016),
which addressed the application of e-commerce in
leading economic zones of Vietnam, or Nguyen
Duc Tai (2012), who looked into solutions to improve
the state management of e-commerce in Vietnam
Through the review of several literature on
customer satisfaction and online shopping such as
those of Besterfield, 1994; Barsky (1995), Kanji
and Moura (2002); Fecikova, (2004) or Veloutsou
et al (2005) on different construct of customer
Although online fashion trading covers a relatively big share of the world’s online transac-tions, it seems that this business is still quite quiet
in Vietnam at the moment There are many namese Internet users who surf the web, find needed information on desired goods and then go
Viet-to buy the items at conventional sViet-tores
Internet user/ population
There are many problems that might hinder shoppers in Vietnam from shopping online, namely:
(i) Existing website technology does not support online shoppers very well Internet users in Viet-nam normally complain about the internet speed to access to information Sometimes, they got troubles
in activating the website and finding the necessary information Online shoppers in Vietnam are also worried about the security of websites as their personal, and financial information could be stolen
by hackers Many online shoppers choose to pay cash when receiving products to avoid risks related
to online trading (Google, 2014)
(ii) Websites that can attract online shoppers with abundant information with attractive and tempting product’s photos are quite little At the moment, there are not many websites that can provide 3D-photos of the product’s details Young people prefer to chat and communicate with others while shopping on the internet, but most B2C web-sites in Vietnam are yet to be able to satisfy them
(iii) There are also concerns about the real
quali-ty and size specifications versus advertised online quality of fashion products The price of online products is also an important factor when most consumers want to buy products at a cheaper price compared to those sold at conventional stores
(iv) Most B2C online retailers do not have good marketing strategies to advertise their brands and identities in the market as well as to appeal to
buyers to come back again Many websites do not allow buyers to return purchased goods even in cases of poor quality
(v) Online fashion business does not have any logistic power which makes them unable to control the delivering of products Most deliveries are late against being promised by online fashion business
Research Questions
The paper attempts to answer three main research questions:
- What are influential factors on online
consum-er satisfaction in the fashion industry in Vietnam?
- How do these influential factors affect the satisfaction of online consumers in the fashion industry in Vietnam?
- What recommendations can be given to satisfy online consumers in the fashion industry in Vietnam?
Literature Review
With the advancement of technology, the opment of the online shopping market is marked by the appearance of many retail websites that offer a variety of products and services As defined by Choi, Stalh, and Whiston (1997), e-commerce is a
devel-“process of seeking for product information, ing products as well as paying for goods and servic-es” Nowadays, the consumers can approach fully
order-to the technological development of the Internet
They begin to use online platforms for information search to seek for available products as well as suitable services (Tim Jackson & David Shaw, 2009) However, it was found that consumers spend less time accessing to fashion brand’s websites than going to an actual store Therefore, the main chan-nels of selling products and services are still conventional physical stores By expanding their reputation via the internet, these retailers can maxi-mize their market coverage
According to Edwards (2007), there are four main reasons for most people to decide to buy prod-ucts online – money, time-saving, convenience, an indispensable shopping trends People spend a considerable amount of money buying stylish clothes, perfumes, books and especially acne treat-ments because they want to feel better about them-selves and be more confident in social situations
As stated by Anamika in 2012, whatever tions do to boost their sales, it's all because they want to convince consumers about their ability to create good products as well as to save money for
organiza-clients Besides, it also helps consumers to feel how clever they are when they decide to purchase a product from the company
Many years ago, many researchers investigated the buying habit of consumers relying on the deci-sion-making process Up to 1979, Bettman pointed out that this type of action was actually simpler than everyone had ever thought He stated that
“consumers may sometimes typically rely on simple strategies rather than going through a series
of steps or processes rationally when they made purchase decisions” To prove it, Sproles examined some typical obvious dimensions or characteristics (Sproles, 1985) In 1986, Sproles and Kendall first-
ly publicized their study on investigating consumer decision-making processes by classifying consum-ers into different decision-making styles Interest-ingly, some of these consumers have been seen to
be highly correlated with some product tics (price, country of origin and brand) It is to say that the apparel’s product characteristics can always be determined by consumers They have the right to give the ultimate purchase acceptance or rejection (Sproles, 1979)
characteris-Consumer decision-making styles are patterned, mental and cognitive orientations It will dominate the consumer’s approach in making purchase choices (Sproles, 1985; Sproles and Kendall, 1986) A model of the style's concept which com-posed of eight mental orientations was established
by Sproles and Kendall (1986) These are: tionism consciousness”, “brand consciousness”,
“perfec-“novelty and fashion consciousness”, “recreational and hedonistic shopping consciousness”, “price and value consciousness”, “impulsive and careless consumer”, “confused by over choice consumer”
and “habitual and brand loyal consumer”
Consumers usually use price expectations in their purchase decision for a product The expecta-tions of price are then used as reference points to compare with store prices and make purchase deci-sions (Monroe 1973)
In reality, the role of fashion websites has been evolving with time Pastore (2000) did a study on
500 Internet users on purchasing behavior The research found that 41% of consumer confirmed they shopped for clothing online at least once a month, while 56% purchased at least once online It means that approximately 40% of online shoppers
were expected to buy more clothing online in the future (Pastore, 2000)
Many researchers have suggested that the
quali-ty of the product and service information that panies offer on the website play a very important role in their purchase decision (Berthon et al., 1996;
com-Geissler, 2001; Korner& Zimmermann, 2000; Selz, 1998) Then some experts stated that the website is more conducive to relationship marketing com-pared to media tools such as direct mail and cata-logs (Geissler, 2001; Shetty, 1999) The reason is that via websites, companies can introduce new chances to establish, build and manage relation-ships with their consumers
Nowadays, one of the most important issues concerning all businesses is consumer satisfaction
It is the principle of the continuous improvement in the modern enterprise to measure how well a com-pany does to satisfy consumers demands Another reason is consumer satisfaction should be measured and translated into some measurable parameter As
a result, the consumer satisfaction measurement may be used as the most reliable feedback It provides client’ preferences and experiences in an effective, direct, meaningful and objective way
Hence, it will lead to the consideration that consumer satisfaction is a baseline standard of performance as well as a possible standard of excel-lence for any business organization (Gerson, 1993)
In Vietnam, online payment is yet to be popular because of the trust in the security for customers
Several researches have been done in Vietnam on e-commerce on in different businesses and topics
In 2014, Google Vietnam did a research on the behaviors of Vietnamese online shoppers Accord-ing to their report, there are 71% of online shoppers who pay cash when receiving goods It was found that Vietnamese buyers only made online payments with big and trust-worthy e-retailers Several authors also studied the online fashion business but none of them developed a model related to factors that might contribute to the consumers' online shopping experiences Many Vietnamese research-ers conducted research on e-commerce in Vietnam such as the research by Nguyen Xuan Thuy (2016), which addressed the application of e-commerce in leading economic zones of Vietnam, or Nguyen Duc Tai (2012), who looked into solutions to improve the state management of e-commerce in Vietnam
Through the review of several literature on customer satisfaction and online shopping such as those of Besterfield, 1994; Barsky (1995), Kanji and Moura (2002); Fecikova, (2004) or Veloutsou
et al (2005) on different construct of customer satisfaction; discussions on the subject of satisfac-tion in the traditional retailing literature (Mason and Bearden, 1979; Oliver, 1980; Anderson et al., 1994; Terblanche and Boshoff, 2001a,b; Johan, 2006; Ofir and Simonson, 2007); the exploration of dimensions and determinations of satisfaction under e-commerce context (Heiner et al., 2004), six factors including technology, websites, products, marketing activities, delivery and payment have been identified to have potential influences on customer satisfaction in online fashion shopping
Literature Review
With the advancement of technology, the opment of the online shopping market is marked by the appearance of many retail websites that offer a variety of products and services As defined by Choi, Stalh, and Whiston (1997), e-commerce is a
devel-“process of seeking for product information, ing products as well as paying for goods and servic-es” Nowadays, the consumers can approach fully
order-to the technological development of the Internet
They begin to use online platforms for information search to seek for available products as well as suitable services (Tim Jackson & David Shaw, 2009) However, it was found that consumers spend less time accessing to fashion brand’s websites than going to an actual store Therefore, the main chan-nels of selling products and services are still conventional physical stores By expanding their reputation via the internet, these retailers can maxi-mize their market coverage
According to Edwards (2007), there are four main reasons for most people to decide to buy prod-ucts online – money, time-saving, convenience, an indispensable shopping trends People spend a considerable amount of money buying stylish clothes, perfumes, books and especially acne treat-ments because they want to feel better about them-selves and be more confident in social situations
As stated by Anamika in 2012, whatever tions do to boost their sales, it's all because they want to convince consumers about their ability to create good products as well as to save money for clients Besides, it also helps consumers to feel how clever they are when they decide to purchase a product from the company
organiza-Many years ago, many researchers investigated the buying habit of consumers relying on the deci-sion-making process Up to 1979, Bettman pointed out that this type of action was actually simpler than everyone had ever thought He stated that
“consumers may sometimes typically rely on simple strategies rather than going through a series
of steps or processes rationally when they made purchase decisions” To prove it, Sproles examined some typical obvious dimensions or characteristics (Sproles, 1985) In 1986, Sproles and Kendall first-
ly publicized their study on investigating consumer decision-making processes by classifying consum-ers into different decision-making styles Interest-ingly, some of these consumers have been seen to
be highly correlated with some product tics (price, country of origin and brand) It is to say that the apparel’s product characteristics can always be determined by consumers They have the right to give the ultimate purchase acceptance or rejection (Sproles, 1979)
characteris-Consumer decision-making styles are patterned, mental and cognitive orientations It will dominate the consumer’s approach in making purchase choices (Sproles, 1985; Sproles and Kendall, 1986) A model of the style's concept which com-posed of eight mental orientations was established
by Sproles and Kendall (1986) These are: tionism consciousness”, “brand consciousness”,
“perfec-“novelty and fashion consciousness”, “recreational and hedonistic shopping consciousness”, “price and value consciousness”, “impulsive and careless consumer”, “confused by over choice consumer” and “habitual and brand loyal consumer”
Consumers usually use price expectations in their purchase decision for a product The expecta-tions of price are then used as reference points to compare with store prices and make purchase deci-sions (Monroe 1973)
In reality, the role of fashion websites has been evolving with time Pastore (2000) did a study on
500 Internet users on purchasing behavior The research found that 41% of consumer confirmed they shopped for clothing online at least once a month, while 56% purchased at least once online It means that approximately 40% of online shoppers were expected to buy more clothing online in the future (Pastore, 2000)
Many researchers have suggested that the
quali-ty of the product and service information that
com-satisfaction; discussions on the subject of tion in the traditional retailing literature (Mason
satisfac-and Bearden, 1979; Oliver, 1980; Anderson et al., 1994; Terblanche and Boshoff, 2001a,b; Johan,
2006; Ofir and Simonson, 2007); the exploration of dimensions and determinations of satisfaction
under e-commerce context (Heiner et al., 2004), six factors including technology, websites, products,
marketing activities, delivery and payment have been identified to have potential influences on
customer satisfaction in online fashion shopping
Research framework
Base on the literature review, six influential factors on the satisfaction of online consumers were pointed out to formalize the research frame-
work and hypotheses as below:
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69
SỐ 4 (2018)
Introduction Research Background
In many countries, shopping habits are changing fast In the last decade, the use of e-Commerce has become very common following the spread of IT system such as laptops, tablets and smartphones
Today e-shoppers penetration is 43.5% in Asia Pacific, 58% Europe and 70% in North America (e-Commerce Foundation, 2017) More precisely, 83% of China consumers and 74% of Thailand consumers purchase physical and virtual goods (Statista, 2018) Mobility is everything, as we spend on an average more than four hours per day
on our phones For most e-Commerce sites, mobile visits now account for more than 50% of total traffic The biggest challenge is that 86% of that mobile time we spend in apps like social media and messaging, and therefore significant less time in browsers So, you must find ways to engage the customers where they are – how do you use the new channels to drive conversion both directly in the messaging and social interface like we do on Pinterest for example, but also by driving them to your website (Jeff, 2017)
Enabled by technology, the continued year over year growth in online shopping has been fueled by
a new generation of consumers who want greater convenience, value and options These poses both challenges and significant opportunities (KPMG, 2017)
According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoT), Vietnam is one of the world’s fastest grow-ing e-Commerce countries The country’s e-Com-merce market is growing by 35% a year, 2.5 times faster than Japan’s
Over the past few years, Vietnam’s continuous rapid economic growth has manifested itself in its population’s consumption power Vietnamese Internet users have increased their online spending over the years Currently their online average annual spending per user is USD 70.18, an increase
of USD 15.18 from 2016 (USD 55 per annum)
Vietnamese online shopping lists have also ened considerably, shifting from the initial selec-tion of books to now a large collection of product categories, including fashion, electronics and media, food and personal care, furniture and appli-ances, toys, hobbies, DIY and many others
broad-According to VECITA, Vietnam e-Commerce has even reached 4.07 billion dollars in 2015 and expected to expand to 10 billion dollars 2020 (Viet-nam E-Commerce and information Technology
Within the dynamic Asian region Vietnam is, fueled by the strong growth in GDP and regional developments like TPP, one of the fastest growing nations in the world and expected to continue to do
so in the years to come
Figure 1 B2C E-Commerce Growth Rate: By Country Source: e-Commerce Foundation, 2017
Figure 3 Vietnam Consumers Connect More
and More Via Mobile Source: GWI Vietnam Report, Mar 2017
Figure 2 GDP Vietnam Development Vietnam vs World
Source: World Bank
Agency, 2016) Though there are different statistics from different sources, there is one general trend which is Vietnam e-Commerce market is rapidly growing
Though fast growth the past few years, Vietnam e-Commerce is still in its infancy Percentage of
Website Preference
Consumers generally do not possess perfect information prior to purchase (Biswas and Biswas, 2004) and thus can only indirectly assess the quali-
ty of products offered on e-commerce sites via the latter’s web interface (Jiang and Benbasat, 2004)
Conceivably, consumers’ purchase intentions are driven by the extent to which their positive feelings about e-commerce sites are induced by trustworthy signals that are costly to manipulate (Walther and Parks, 2002)
Park and Kim (2003; 17) stated that consumers' trust to a provider or supplier results with becoming committed to the company Trust issue is exceeding with a few successful transactions, after individuals start feel safe and believe that this supplier answers their needs and wants On the other hand, provided information is another issue in terms of online shopping for Park and Kim (2003;17) Since online shopping is an activity which related to a comput-er-system, individuals cannot touch or feel prod-ucts Therefore, their decisions based on the infor-mation that provided by online retailer Information issue not only important in terms of availability situation, it is also important in convenience and personalization concept Web site design, access to information, access time to information also influ-ence on behaviors of consumers
There is a positive relationship between consumers’ familiarity with an e-commerce site and their trust in this site (Kim et al., 2008) As during the final product decision stage, price remains as the most common consideration when consumers are deciding where to buy (Figure 2.8),
particularly in certain categories such as ics Having a website that consumers like and/or trust is also important, especially in Asia, where consumers said buying from a preferred website was more important than price (KPMG, 2017) According to many authors, an effective website design is critical to the success of electronic com-merce, and the functionality, usability, ease-of-nav-igation and interfaces of the websites themselves are vital building blocks for sustainable success (Constantinides, 2004; Yen et al., 2007; Lim et al.,
electron-2009, Colla and Lapoule, 2011)
Best Delivery Options/ Price
Price and Delivery options are one of the most
important factors to drive consumers online (KPMG, 2017)
Young generation are no longer satisfied to place orders via mobile phones, they also hope to receive goods more quickly Instant gratification has become a feature of this generation of users Some research show that 63 percent of post-80s and 90s are very interested in same-day delivery, even half of them are willing to pay premiums for
it Therefore, enterprises can provide instant
servic-es such as same-day delivery, online purchase and offline pickup, etc., to keep pace with the consump-tion habits of the young generation and improve user experience Finally, in terms of aftersales service, enterprises can simplify procedures and optimize service experience through a series of aftersales services provided directly on APP including goods exchanging and purchase feed-backs (Deloitte, 2017)
Last mile delivery is one of the paint paints of online shopping in China (Fung Business Intelli-gence, 2017)
Rich Assortment
Merchandising includes product-related
charac-teristics such as assortment, variety, and product
information (Jarvenpaa and Todd, 1997) Rich
product assortment can increase the probability that
consumer-needs will be met and satisfied The
online shopping environment enables consumers to
reduce their decision-making efforts by providing
vast selection, information screening, reliability,
and product comparison (Alba et al, 1997) The
research conducted by Q&Me shown that Product
variety is one of the reasons to shop online for
Viet-namese (Q&Me, 2017)
retail sales made online in Vietnam is only 0.6% of total retail sales while more mature market such as China can reach 15.9%, Japan 4.4%, and our neigh-borhood countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand already hit 1.7%, 1.1% and 0.8% accord-ingly ((E-marketer, 2015))
Consumer satisfaction is a popular concept in marketing It is a measure of how products or services meet the buyer’s expectation This concept normally is considered as consumer’s expectations prior to purchase or use of a product and the relative perception of the quality of that product after using it
Consumer satisfaction is very important because
of its close relationship with consumer loyalty and the profitability of a business Loyalty behaviors include continuous relationship and recommenda-tions (word of mouth advertising) of the product
As a result, for a loyal consumer, the quality of value received from one supplier is greater than that available from the others (Roger Hallowell, 2006)
Consumer satisfaction is more important in the e-commerce side of the fashion industry because of the higher expectation of the buyer For example, the potential buyer can only see a fashion product with its design and color on websites but does not know if the product will fit his/her body and if its feeling (aesthetic feel or tactile quality) is good
That explains why there are more buyers nowadays who look up information about fashion products through websites and then go to the store in town to try and buy them
Problem statements
Vietnam is at the pivotal stage of developing the e-commerce owing to its large population and the rapid growth of Internet users Shopping online now in Vietnam is a new lifestyle that has been attracting a lot of young people who enjoy chatting with social networks while shopping The Vietnam E-commerce and Informatics Technology Agency (VECITA) predicted that the B2C trade volume ratio of total retail sales of goods and services in Vietnam will increase by 5% within the next five years
panies offer on the website play a very important
role in their purchase decision (Berthon et al.,
1996; Geissler, 2001; Korner& Zimmermann,
2000; Selz, 1998) Then some experts stated that
the website is more conducive to relationship
mar-keting compared to media tools such as direct mail
and catalogs (Geissler, 2001; Shetty, 1999) The
reason is that via websites, companies can
intro-duce new chances to establish, build and manage
relationships with their consumers
Nowadays, one of the most important issues
concerning all businesses is consumer satisfaction
It is the principle of the continuous improvement in
the modern enterprise to measure how well a
com-pany does to satisfy consumers demands Another
reason is consumer satisfaction should be measured
and translated into some measurable parameter As
a result, the consumer satisfaction measurement
may be used as the most reliable feedback It
provides client’ preferences and experiences in an
effective, direct, meaningful and objective way
Hence, it will lead to the consideration that
consumer satisfaction is a baseline standard of
performance as well as a possible standard of
excel-lence for any business organization (Gerson, 1993)
In Vietnam, online payment is yet to be popular
because of the trust in the security for customers
Several researches have been done in Vietnam on
e-commerce on in different businesses and topics
In 2014, Google Vietnam did a research on the
behaviors of Vietnamese online shoppers
Accord-ing to their report, there are 71% of online shoppers
who pay cash when receiving goods It was found
that Vietnamese buyers only made online payments
with big and trust-worthy e-retailers Several
authors also studied the online fashion business but
none of them developed a model related to factors
that might contribute to the consumers' online
shopping experiences Many Vietnamese
research-ers conducted research on e-commerce in Vietnam
such as the research by Nguyen Xuan Thuy (2016),
which addressed the application of e-commerce in
leading economic zones of Vietnam, or Nguyen
Duc Tai (2012), who looked into solutions to improve
the state management of e-commerce in Vietnam
Through the review of several literature on
customer satisfaction and online shopping such as
those of Besterfield, 1994; Barsky (1995), Kanji
and Moura (2002); Fecikova, (2004) or Veloutsou
et al (2005) on different construct of customer
Although online fashion trading covers a relatively big share of the world’s online transac-tions, it seems that this business is still quite quiet
in Vietnam at the moment There are many namese Internet users who surf the web, find needed information on desired goods and then go
Viet-to buy the items at conventional sViet-tores
Internet user/ population
There are many problems that might hinder shoppers in Vietnam from shopping online, namely:
(i) Existing website technology does not support online shoppers very well Internet users in Viet-nam normally complain about the internet speed to access to information Sometimes, they got troubles
in activating the website and finding the necessary information Online shoppers in Vietnam are also worried about the security of websites as their personal, and financial information could be stolen
by hackers Many online shoppers choose to pay cash when receiving products to avoid risks related
to online trading (Google, 2014)
(ii) Websites that can attract online shoppers with abundant information with attractive and tempting product’s photos are quite little At the moment, there are not many websites that can provide 3D-photos of the product’s details Young people prefer to chat and communicate with others while shopping on the internet, but most B2C web-sites in Vietnam are yet to be able to satisfy them
(iii) There are also concerns about the real
quali-ty and size specifications versus advertised online quality of fashion products The price of online products is also an important factor when most consumers want to buy products at a cheaper price compared to those sold at conventional stores
(iv) Most B2C online retailers do not have good marketing strategies to advertise their brands and identities in the market as well as to appeal to
buyers to come back again Many websites do not allow buyers to return purchased goods even in cases of poor quality
(v) Online fashion business does not have any logistic power which makes them unable to control the delivering of products Most deliveries are late against being promised by online fashion business
Research Questions
The paper attempts to answer three main research questions:
- What are influential factors on online
consum-er satisfaction in the fashion industry in Vietnam?
- How do these influential factors affect the satisfaction of online consumers in the fashion industry in Vietnam?
- What recommendations can be given to satisfy online consumers in the fashion industry in Vietnam?
Literature Review
With the advancement of technology, the opment of the online shopping market is marked by the appearance of many retail websites that offer a variety of products and services As defined by Choi, Stalh, and Whiston (1997), e-commerce is a
devel-“process of seeking for product information, ing products as well as paying for goods and servic-es” Nowadays, the consumers can approach fully
order-to the technological development of the Internet
They begin to use online platforms for information search to seek for available products as well as suitable services (Tim Jackson & David Shaw, 2009) However, it was found that consumers spend less time accessing to fashion brand’s websites than going to an actual store Therefore, the main chan-nels of selling products and services are still conventional physical stores By expanding their reputation via the internet, these retailers can maxi-mize their market coverage
According to Edwards (2007), there are four main reasons for most people to decide to buy prod-ucts online – money, time-saving, convenience, an indispensable shopping trends People spend a considerable amount of money buying stylish clothes, perfumes, books and especially acne treat-ments because they want to feel better about them-selves and be more confident in social situations
As stated by Anamika in 2012, whatever tions do to boost their sales, it's all because they want to convince consumers about their ability to create good products as well as to save money for
organiza-clients Besides, it also helps consumers to feel how clever they are when they decide to purchase a product from the company
Many years ago, many researchers investigated the buying habit of consumers relying on the deci-sion-making process Up to 1979, Bettman pointed out that this type of action was actually simpler than everyone had ever thought He stated that
“consumers may sometimes typically rely on simple strategies rather than going through a series
of steps or processes rationally when they made purchase decisions” To prove it, Sproles examined some typical obvious dimensions or characteristics (Sproles, 1985) In 1986, Sproles and Kendall first-
ly publicized their study on investigating consumer decision-making processes by classifying consum-ers into different decision-making styles Interest-ingly, some of these consumers have been seen to
be highly correlated with some product tics (price, country of origin and brand) It is to say that the apparel’s product characteristics can always be determined by consumers They have the right to give the ultimate purchase acceptance or rejection (Sproles, 1979)
characteris-Consumer decision-making styles are patterned, mental and cognitive orientations It will dominate the consumer’s approach in making purchase choices (Sproles, 1985; Sproles and Kendall, 1986) A model of the style's concept which com-posed of eight mental orientations was established
by Sproles and Kendall (1986) These are: tionism consciousness”, “brand consciousness”,
“perfec-“novelty and fashion consciousness”, “recreational and hedonistic shopping consciousness”, “price and value consciousness”, “impulsive and careless consumer”, “confused by over choice consumer”
and “habitual and brand loyal consumer”
Consumers usually use price expectations in their purchase decision for a product The expecta-tions of price are then used as reference points to compare with store prices and make purchase deci-sions (Monroe 1973)
In reality, the role of fashion websites has been evolving with time Pastore (2000) did a study on
500 Internet users on purchasing behavior The research found that 41% of consumer confirmed they shopped for clothing online at least once a month, while 56% purchased at least once online It means that approximately 40% of online shoppers
were expected to buy more clothing online in the future (Pastore, 2000)
Many researchers have suggested that the
quali-ty of the product and service information that panies offer on the website play a very important role in their purchase decision (Berthon et al., 1996;
com-Geissler, 2001; Korner& Zimmermann, 2000; Selz, 1998) Then some experts stated that the website is more conducive to relationship marketing com-pared to media tools such as direct mail and cata-logs (Geissler, 2001; Shetty, 1999) The reason is that via websites, companies can introduce new chances to establish, build and manage relation-ships with their consumers
Nowadays, one of the most important issues concerning all businesses is consumer satisfaction
It is the principle of the continuous improvement in the modern enterprise to measure how well a com-pany does to satisfy consumers demands Another reason is consumer satisfaction should be measured and translated into some measurable parameter As
a result, the consumer satisfaction measurement may be used as the most reliable feedback It provides client’ preferences and experiences in an effective, direct, meaningful and objective way
Hence, it will lead to the consideration that consumer satisfaction is a baseline standard of performance as well as a possible standard of excel-lence for any business organization (Gerson, 1993)
In Vietnam, online payment is yet to be popular because of the trust in the security for customers
Several researches have been done in Vietnam on e-commerce on in different businesses and topics
In 2014, Google Vietnam did a research on the behaviors of Vietnamese online shoppers Accord-ing to their report, there are 71% of online shoppers who pay cash when receiving goods It was found that Vietnamese buyers only made online payments with big and trust-worthy e-retailers Several authors also studied the online fashion business but none of them developed a model related to factors that might contribute to the consumers' online shopping experiences Many Vietnamese research-ers conducted research on e-commerce in Vietnam such as the research by Nguyen Xuan Thuy (2016), which addressed the application of e-commerce in leading economic zones of Vietnam, or Nguyen Duc Tai (2012), who looked into solutions to improve the state management of e-commerce in Vietnam
Through the review of several literature on customer satisfaction and online shopping such as those of Besterfield, 1994; Barsky (1995), Kanji and Moura (2002); Fecikova, (2004) or Veloutsou
et al (2005) on different construct of customer satisfaction; discussions on the subject of satisfac-tion in the traditional retailing literature (Mason and Bearden, 1979; Oliver, 1980; Anderson et al., 1994; Terblanche and Boshoff, 2001a,b; Johan, 2006; Ofir and Simonson, 2007); the exploration of dimensions and determinations of satisfaction under e-commerce context (Heiner et al., 2004), six factors including technology, websites, products, marketing activities, delivery and payment have been identified to have potential influences on customer satisfaction in online fashion shopping
Literature Review
With the advancement of technology, the opment of the online shopping market is marked by the appearance of many retail websites that offer a variety of products and services As defined by Choi, Stalh, and Whiston (1997), e-commerce is a
devel-“process of seeking for product information, ing products as well as paying for goods and servic-es” Nowadays, the consumers can approach fully
order-to the technological development of the Internet
They begin to use online platforms for information search to seek for available products as well as suitable services (Tim Jackson & David Shaw, 2009) However, it was found that consumers spend less time accessing to fashion brand’s websites than going to an actual store Therefore, the main chan-nels of selling products and services are still conventional physical stores By expanding their reputation via the internet, these retailers can maxi-mize their market coverage
According to Edwards (2007), there are four main reasons for most people to decide to buy prod-ucts online – money, time-saving, convenience, an indispensable shopping trends People spend a considerable amount of money buying stylish clothes, perfumes, books and especially acne treat-ments because they want to feel better about them-selves and be more confident in social situations
As stated by Anamika in 2012, whatever tions do to boost their sales, it's all because they want to convince consumers about their ability to create good products as well as to save money for clients Besides, it also helps consumers to feel how clever they are when they decide to purchase a product from the company
organiza-Many years ago, many researchers investigated the buying habit of consumers relying on the deci-sion-making process Up to 1979, Bettman pointed out that this type of action was actually simpler than everyone had ever thought He stated that
“consumers may sometimes typically rely on simple strategies rather than going through a series
of steps or processes rationally when they made purchase decisions” To prove it, Sproles examined some typical obvious dimensions or characteristics (Sproles, 1985) In 1986, Sproles and Kendall first-
ly publicized their study on investigating consumer decision-making processes by classifying consum-ers into different decision-making styles Interest-ingly, some of these consumers have been seen to
be highly correlated with some product tics (price, country of origin and brand) It is to say that the apparel’s product characteristics can always be determined by consumers They have the right to give the ultimate purchase acceptance or rejection (Sproles, 1979)
characteris-Consumer decision-making styles are patterned, mental and cognitive orientations It will dominate the consumer’s approach in making purchase choices (Sproles, 1985; Sproles and Kendall, 1986) A model of the style's concept which com-posed of eight mental orientations was established
by Sproles and Kendall (1986) These are: tionism consciousness”, “brand consciousness”,
“perfec-“novelty and fashion consciousness”, “recreational and hedonistic shopping consciousness”, “price and value consciousness”, “impulsive and careless consumer”, “confused by over choice consumer” and “habitual and brand loyal consumer”
Consumers usually use price expectations in their purchase decision for a product The expecta-tions of price are then used as reference points to compare with store prices and make purchase deci-sions (Monroe 1973)
In reality, the role of fashion websites has been evolving with time Pastore (2000) did a study on
500 Internet users on purchasing behavior The research found that 41% of consumer confirmed they shopped for clothing online at least once a month, while 56% purchased at least once online It means that approximately 40% of online shoppers were expected to buy more clothing online in the future (Pastore, 2000)
Many researchers have suggested that the
quali-ty of the product and service information that
com-satisfaction; discussions on the subject of tion in the traditional retailing literature (Mason
satisfac-and Bearden, 1979; Oliver, 1980; Anderson et al., 1994; Terblanche and Boshoff, 2001a,b; Johan,
2006; Ofir and Simonson, 2007); the exploration of dimensions and determinations of satisfaction
under e-commerce context (Heiner et al., 2004), six factors including technology, websites, products,
marketing activities, delivery and payment have been identified to have potential influences on
customer satisfaction in online fashion shopping
Research framework
Base on the literature review, six influential factors on the satisfaction of online consumers were pointed out to formalize the research frame-
work and hypotheses as below:
Trang 3e-Com-faster than Japan’s.
Over the past few years, Vietnam’s continuous rapid economic growth has manifested itself in its population’s consumption power Vietnamese
Internet users have increased their online spending over the years Currently their online average
annual spending per user is USD 70.18, an increase
of USD 15.18 from 2016 (USD 55 per annum)
Vietnamese online shopping lists have also ened considerably, shifting from the initial selec-tion of books to now a large collection of product
broad-categories, including fashion, electronics and media, food and personal care, furniture and appli-
ances, toys, hobbies, DIY and many others
According to VECITA, Vietnam e-Commerce has even reached 4.07 billion dollars in 2015 and
expected to expand to 10 billion dollars 2020 nam E-Commerce and information Technology
(Viet-In addition while only 39% of internet users has purchased a product or service online, the penetra-tion rate is forecasted to reach 44.9% in 2022 (Lazada, 2016) If we compare with our neighbor market such as Thailand at 74%, Indonesia at 79%, this forecast is not a dream
With large population at 94.5 million (World Bank, 2016), fast GDP growth, income increase, more and more people are connected to internet, mobile, fast smartphone pentration growth, Viet-nam e-Commerce are having fundamentals in place for an explonential growth and attraction for investment both from internation players as well as startups
According to the survey of VECITA for the last
5 years, the application of e-Commerce in prises not only focused on the big cities but also spread nationwide Many new and diverse forms of businesses are operated and implemented (VECI-
enter-TA, 2015)
Problem Statement/ Research question
There were more than 10,000 e-Commerce platforms and websites registered by 2015 in Viet-nam, doubling the number from 2014 (VnExpress, 2016) Vietnam e-Commerce market is quite young (only 5 years old) The largest players in the market are Lazada, Adayroi.com, Cho Tot, Senda.vn, The-gioididong, Tiki.vn, Shoppe On top of local play-ers, Vietnam e-Commerce market is attracting many e-Commerce giants investing into the market such as Alibaba, JD, Amazon
Figure 5 Vietnam e-Commerce Key Advantages
for Growth Source: Tradingecomonics.com, 2017
Agency, 2016) Though there are different statistics from different sources, there is one general trend
which is Vietnam e-Commerce market is rapidly growing
Though fast growth the past few years, Vietnam e-Commerce is still in its infancy Percentage of
Figure 4 Vietnam e-Commerce is Still in Its Infancy Source: Q&me, Google and Temasek,
Figure 7 Notification/registration e-Commerce
websites confirmed in Vietnam Source: VECITA, 2015
Consumers’ perception and consumption patterns have changed a lot in the mobile Internet age As new purchase desires and demands are created, consumers have higher and new demands for the connotation and denotation of goods, consumption scenarios and experience along with consumption upgrade and update, thus consump-tion demands have various new business formats
Accurate understanding of consumers’ demands is
an important premise for enterprises to follow the trend and readjust strategic orientation (Deloitte, 2015) Along of the market growth, to get growth and opportunity momentum, understanding how consumers expect, how they behave are very criti-cal to win the online consumers in Vietnam
Competition is tougher and tougher KPMG reports has shown that, although price was cited by 36% of consumers as a top factor in deciding which website to buy from, having the most competitive price won’t guarantee a sale Having the right prod-uct mix is no longer suffcient to attract the new wave of consumers including
Millennials, who are entirely focused on one transaction – theirs Consumers today are shopping all the time and everywhere; and in a truly global online marketplace, products can easily be purchased from retailers and manufacturers located anywhere in the world – or from those with no physical retail locations at all Understanding what drives a consumer to buy online or offline, why do they trust these website over others are critical for e-Commerce players to formulate their best offer-ings as well as marketing strategies What influence winning the online consumers in Vietnam?
- Does the best price influence winning the online consumers in Vietnam?
- Does the website preference influence winning the online consumers in Vietnam?
- Does the best delivery options/price ence winning the online consumers in Vietnam?
influ Does the rich assortment influence winning the online consumers in Vietnam?
- Does the product/service influence winning the online consumers in Vietnam?
Literature Review
This Chapter reviews literature that is relevant to the research conducted for this thesis It explores the development and current status of the world e-Commerce industry as well as that of China (a
model e-Commerce market) and ASEAN It looks
at the technological factors, consumer related factors as well as factors of pricing and factors of product and service Reviews of generation behav-iors toward online shopping versus traditional shopping are also posted in this chapter The Chap-ter also goes into details of research and studies on some research and development concepts related to the e-Commerce Consumer Behaviors
Best Price
When consumers were asked what factors vated them to buy online instead of going to a shop, the top reasons were time flexibility and cost savings (KPMG, 2017)
moti-Website Preference
Consumers generally do not possess perfect information prior to purchase (Biswas and Biswas, 2004) and thus can only indirectly assess the quali-
ty of products offered on e-commerce sites via the latter’s web interface (Jiang and Benbasat, 2004)
Conceivably, consumers’ purchase intentions are driven by the extent to which their positive feelings about e-commerce sites are induced by trustworthy signals that are costly to manipulate (Walther and Parks, 2002)
Park and Kim (2003; 17) stated that consumers' trust to a provider or supplier results with becoming committed to the company Trust issue is exceeding with a few successful transactions, after individuals start feel safe and believe that this supplier answers their needs and wants On the other hand, provided information is another issue in terms of online shopping for Park and Kim (2003;17) Since online shopping is an activity which related to a comput-er-system, individuals cannot touch or feel prod-ucts Therefore, their decisions based on the infor-mation that provided by online retailer Information issue not only important in terms of availability situation, it is also important in convenience and personalization concept Web site design, access to information, access time to information also influ-ence on behaviors of consumers
There is a positive relationship between consumers’ familiarity with an e-commerce site and their trust in this site (Kim et al., 2008) As during the final product decision stage, price remains as the most common consideration when consumers are deciding where to buy (Figure 2.8),
particularly in certain categories such as ics Having a website that consumers like and/or trust is also important, especially in Asia, where consumers said buying from a preferred website was more important than price (KPMG, 2017) According to many authors, an effective website design is critical to the success of electronic com-merce, and the functionality, usability, ease-of-nav-igation and interfaces of the websites themselves are vital building blocks for sustainable success (Constantinides, 2004; Yen et al., 2007; Lim et al.,
electron-2009, Colla and Lapoule, 2011)
Best Delivery Options/ Price
Price and Delivery options are one of the most
important factors to drive consumers online (KPMG, 2017)
Young generation are no longer satisfied to place orders via mobile phones, they also hope to receive goods more quickly Instant gratification has become a feature of this generation of users Some research show that 63 percent of post-80s and 90s are very interested in same-day delivery, even half of them are willing to pay premiums for
it Therefore, enterprises can provide instant
servic-es such as same-day delivery, online purchase and offline pickup, etc., to keep pace with the consump-tion habits of the young generation and improve user experience Finally, in terms of aftersales service, enterprises can simplify procedures and optimize service experience through a series of aftersales services provided directly on APP including goods exchanging and purchase feed-backs (Deloitte, 2017)
Last mile delivery is one of the paint paints of online shopping in China (Fung Business Intelli-gence, 2017)
Rich Assortment
Merchandising includes product-related
charac-teristics such as assortment, variety, and product
information (Jarvenpaa and Todd, 1997) Rich
product assortment can increase the probability that
consumer-needs will be met and satisfied The
online shopping environment enables consumers to
reduce their decision-making efforts by providing
vast selection, information screening, reliability,
and product comparison (Alba et al, 1997) The
research conducted by Q&Me shown that Product
variety is one of the reasons to shop online for
Viet-namese (Q&Me, 2017)
retail sales made online in Vietnam is only 0.6% of total retail sales while more mature market such as China can reach 15.9%, Japan 4.4%, and our neigh-borhood countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand already hit 1.7%, 1.1% and 0.8% accord-ingly ((E-marketer, 2015))
Consumer satisfaction is a popular concept in marketing It is a measure of how products or services meet the buyer’s expectation This concept
normally is considered as consumer’s expectations prior to purchase or use of a product and the
relative perception of the quality of that product after using it
Consumer satisfaction is very important because
of its close relationship with consumer loyalty and the profitability of a business Loyalty behaviors include continuous relationship and recommenda-
tions (word of mouth advertising) of the product
As a result, for a loyal consumer, the quality of value received from one supplier is greater than that
available from the others (Roger Hallowell, 2006)
Consumer satisfaction is more important in the e-commerce side of the fashion industry because of the higher expectation of the buyer For example, the potential buyer can only see a fashion product with its design and color on websites but does not know if the product will fit his/her body and if its feeling (aesthetic feel or tactile quality) is good
That explains why there are more buyers nowadays who look up information about fashion products
through websites and then go to the store in town to try and buy them
Problem statements
Vietnam is at the pivotal stage of developing the e-commerce owing to its large population and the rapid growth of Internet users Shopping online
now in Vietnam is a new lifestyle that has been attracting a lot of young people who enjoy chatting
with social networks while shopping The Vietnam E-commerce and Informatics Technology Agency (VECITA) predicted that the B2C trade volume ratio of total retail sales of goods and services in Vietnam will increase by 5% within the next five
years
panies offer on the website play a very important
role in their purchase decision (Berthon et al.,
1996; Geissler, 2001; Korner& Zimmermann,
2000; Selz, 1998) Then some experts stated that
the website is more conducive to relationship
mar-keting compared to media tools such as direct mail
and catalogs (Geissler, 2001; Shetty, 1999) The
reason is that via websites, companies can
intro-duce new chances to establish, build and manage
relationships with their consumers
Nowadays, one of the most important issues
concerning all businesses is consumer satisfaction
It is the principle of the continuous improvement in
the modern enterprise to measure how well a
com-pany does to satisfy consumers demands Another
reason is consumer satisfaction should be measured
and translated into some measurable parameter As
a result, the consumer satisfaction measurement
may be used as the most reliable feedback It
provides client’ preferences and experiences in an
effective, direct, meaningful and objective way
Hence, it will lead to the consideration that
consumer satisfaction is a baseline standard of
performance as well as a possible standard of
excel-lence for any business organization (Gerson, 1993)
In Vietnam, online payment is yet to be popular
because of the trust in the security for customers
Several researches have been done in Vietnam on
e-commerce on in different businesses and topics
In 2014, Google Vietnam did a research on the
behaviors of Vietnamese online shoppers
Accord-ing to their report, there are 71% of online shoppers
who pay cash when receiving goods It was found
that Vietnamese buyers only made online payments
with big and trust-worthy e-retailers Several
authors also studied the online fashion business but
none of them developed a model related to factors
that might contribute to the consumers' online
shopping experiences Many Vietnamese
research-ers conducted research on e-commerce in Vietnam
such as the research by Nguyen Xuan Thuy (2016),
which addressed the application of e-commerce in
leading economic zones of Vietnam, or Nguyen
Duc Tai (2012), who looked into solutions to improve
the state management of e-commerce in Vietnam
Through the review of several literature on
customer satisfaction and online shopping such as
those of Besterfield, 1994; Barsky (1995), Kanji
and Moura (2002); Fecikova, (2004) or Veloutsou
et al (2005) on different construct of customer
Although online fashion trading covers a relatively big share of the world’s online transac-tions, it seems that this business is still quite quiet
in Vietnam at the moment There are many namese Internet users who surf the web, find needed information on desired goods and then go
Viet-to buy the items at conventional sViet-tores
Internet user/ population
There are many problems that might hinder shoppers in Vietnam from shopping online, namely:
(i) Existing website technology does not support online shoppers very well Internet users in Viet-nam normally complain about the internet speed to access to information Sometimes, they got troubles
in activating the website and finding the necessary information Online shoppers in Vietnam are also worried about the security of websites as their personal, and financial information could be stolen
by hackers Many online shoppers choose to pay cash when receiving products to avoid risks related
to online trading (Google, 2014)
(ii) Websites that can attract online shoppers with abundant information with attractive and tempting product’s photos are quite little At the moment, there are not many websites that can provide 3D-photos of the product’s details Young people prefer to chat and communicate with others while shopping on the internet, but most B2C web-sites in Vietnam are yet to be able to satisfy them
(iii) There are also concerns about the real
quali-ty and size specifications versus advertised online quality of fashion products The price of online products is also an important factor when most consumers want to buy products at a cheaper price compared to those sold at conventional stores
(iv) Most B2C online retailers do not have good marketing strategies to advertise their brands and identities in the market as well as to appeal to
buyers to come back again Many websites do not allow buyers to return purchased goods even in cases of poor quality
(v) Online fashion business does not have any logistic power which makes them unable to control the delivering of products Most deliveries are late against being promised by online fashion business
Research Questions
The paper attempts to answer three main research questions:
- What are influential factors on online
consum-er satisfaction in the fashion industry in Vietnam?
- How do these influential factors affect the satisfaction of online consumers in the fashion industry in Vietnam?
- What recommendations can be given to satisfy online consumers in the fashion industry in Vietnam?
Literature Review
With the advancement of technology, the opment of the online shopping market is marked by the appearance of many retail websites that offer a variety of products and services As defined by Choi, Stalh, and Whiston (1997), e-commerce is a
devel-“process of seeking for product information, ing products as well as paying for goods and servic-es” Nowadays, the consumers can approach fully
order-to the technological development of the Internet
They begin to use online platforms for information search to seek for available products as well as suitable services (Tim Jackson & David Shaw, 2009) However, it was found that consumers spend less time accessing to fashion brand’s websites than going to an actual store Therefore, the main chan-nels of selling products and services are still conventional physical stores By expanding their reputation via the internet, these retailers can maxi-mize their market coverage
According to Edwards (2007), there are four main reasons for most people to decide to buy prod-ucts online – money, time-saving, convenience, an indispensable shopping trends People spend a considerable amount of money buying stylish clothes, perfumes, books and especially acne treat-ments because they want to feel better about them-selves and be more confident in social situations
As stated by Anamika in 2012, whatever tions do to boost their sales, it's all because they want to convince consumers about their ability to create good products as well as to save money for
organiza-clients Besides, it also helps consumers to feel how clever they are when they decide to purchase a product from the company
Many years ago, many researchers investigated the buying habit of consumers relying on the deci-sion-making process Up to 1979, Bettman pointed out that this type of action was actually simpler than everyone had ever thought He stated that
“consumers may sometimes typically rely on simple strategies rather than going through a series
of steps or processes rationally when they made purchase decisions” To prove it, Sproles examined some typical obvious dimensions or characteristics (Sproles, 1985) In 1986, Sproles and Kendall first-
ly publicized their study on investigating consumer decision-making processes by classifying consum-ers into different decision-making styles Interest-ingly, some of these consumers have been seen to
be highly correlated with some product tics (price, country of origin and brand) It is to say that the apparel’s product characteristics can always be determined by consumers They have the right to give the ultimate purchase acceptance or rejection (Sproles, 1979)
characteris-Consumer decision-making styles are patterned, mental and cognitive orientations It will dominate the consumer’s approach in making purchase choices (Sproles, 1985; Sproles and Kendall, 1986) A model of the style's concept which com-posed of eight mental orientations was established
by Sproles and Kendall (1986) These are: tionism consciousness”, “brand consciousness”,
“perfec-“novelty and fashion consciousness”, “recreational and hedonistic shopping consciousness”, “price and value consciousness”, “impulsive and careless consumer”, “confused by over choice consumer”
and “habitual and brand loyal consumer”
Consumers usually use price expectations in their purchase decision for a product The expecta-tions of price are then used as reference points to compare with store prices and make purchase deci-sions (Monroe 1973)
In reality, the role of fashion websites has been evolving with time Pastore (2000) did a study on
500 Internet users on purchasing behavior The research found that 41% of consumer confirmed they shopped for clothing online at least once a month, while 56% purchased at least once online It means that approximately 40% of online shoppers
were expected to buy more clothing online in the future (Pastore, 2000)
Many researchers have suggested that the
quali-ty of the product and service information that panies offer on the website play a very important role in their purchase decision (Berthon et al., 1996;
com-Geissler, 2001; Korner& Zimmermann, 2000; Selz, 1998) Then some experts stated that the website is more conducive to relationship marketing com-pared to media tools such as direct mail and cata-logs (Geissler, 2001; Shetty, 1999) The reason is that via websites, companies can introduce new chances to establish, build and manage relation-ships with their consumers
Nowadays, one of the most important issues concerning all businesses is consumer satisfaction
It is the principle of the continuous improvement in the modern enterprise to measure how well a com-pany does to satisfy consumers demands Another reason is consumer satisfaction should be measured and translated into some measurable parameter As
a result, the consumer satisfaction measurement may be used as the most reliable feedback It provides client’ preferences and experiences in an effective, direct, meaningful and objective way
Hence, it will lead to the consideration that consumer satisfaction is a baseline standard of performance as well as a possible standard of excel-lence for any business organization (Gerson, 1993)
In Vietnam, online payment is yet to be popular because of the trust in the security for customers
Several researches have been done in Vietnam on e-commerce on in different businesses and topics
In 2014, Google Vietnam did a research on the behaviors of Vietnamese online shoppers Accord-ing to their report, there are 71% of online shoppers who pay cash when receiving goods It was found that Vietnamese buyers only made online payments with big and trust-worthy e-retailers Several authors also studied the online fashion business but none of them developed a model related to factors that might contribute to the consumers' online shopping experiences Many Vietnamese research-ers conducted research on e-commerce in Vietnam such as the research by Nguyen Xuan Thuy (2016), which addressed the application of e-commerce in leading economic zones of Vietnam, or Nguyen Duc Tai (2012), who looked into solutions to improve the state management of e-commerce in Vietnam
Through the review of several literature on customer satisfaction and online shopping such as those of Besterfield, 1994; Barsky (1995), Kanji and Moura (2002); Fecikova, (2004) or Veloutsou
et al (2005) on different construct of customer satisfaction; discussions on the subject of satisfac-tion in the traditional retailing literature (Mason and Bearden, 1979; Oliver, 1980; Anderson et al., 1994; Terblanche and Boshoff, 2001a,b; Johan, 2006; Ofir and Simonson, 2007); the exploration of dimensions and determinations of satisfaction under e-commerce context (Heiner et al., 2004), six factors including technology, websites, products, marketing activities, delivery and payment have been identified to have potential influences on customer satisfaction in online fashion shopping
Literature Review
With the advancement of technology, the opment of the online shopping market is marked by the appearance of many retail websites that offer a variety of products and services As defined by Choi, Stalh, and Whiston (1997), e-commerce is a
devel-“process of seeking for product information, ing products as well as paying for goods and servic-es” Nowadays, the consumers can approach fully
order-to the technological development of the Internet
They begin to use online platforms for information search to seek for available products as well as suitable services (Tim Jackson & David Shaw, 2009) However, it was found that consumers spend less time accessing to fashion brand’s websites than going to an actual store Therefore, the main chan-nels of selling products and services are still conventional physical stores By expanding their reputation via the internet, these retailers can maxi-mize their market coverage
According to Edwards (2007), there are four main reasons for most people to decide to buy prod-ucts online – money, time-saving, convenience, an indispensable shopping trends People spend a considerable amount of money buying stylish clothes, perfumes, books and especially acne treat-ments because they want to feel better about them-selves and be more confident in social situations
As stated by Anamika in 2012, whatever tions do to boost their sales, it's all because they want to convince consumers about their ability to create good products as well as to save money for clients Besides, it also helps consumers to feel how clever they are when they decide to purchase a product from the company
organiza-Many years ago, many researchers investigated the buying habit of consumers relying on the deci-sion-making process Up to 1979, Bettman pointed out that this type of action was actually simpler than everyone had ever thought He stated that
“consumers may sometimes typically rely on simple strategies rather than going through a series
of steps or processes rationally when they made purchase decisions” To prove it, Sproles examined some typical obvious dimensions or characteristics (Sproles, 1985) In 1986, Sproles and Kendall first-
ly publicized their study on investigating consumer decision-making processes by classifying consum-ers into different decision-making styles Interest-ingly, some of these consumers have been seen to
be highly correlated with some product tics (price, country of origin and brand) It is to say that the apparel’s product characteristics can always be determined by consumers They have the right to give the ultimate purchase acceptance or rejection (Sproles, 1979)
characteris-Consumer decision-making styles are patterned, mental and cognitive orientations It will dominate the consumer’s approach in making purchase choices (Sproles, 1985; Sproles and Kendall, 1986) A model of the style's concept which com-posed of eight mental orientations was established
by Sproles and Kendall (1986) These are: tionism consciousness”, “brand consciousness”,
“perfec-“novelty and fashion consciousness”, “recreational and hedonistic shopping consciousness”, “price and value consciousness”, “impulsive and careless consumer”, “confused by over choice consumer” and “habitual and brand loyal consumer”
Consumers usually use price expectations in their purchase decision for a product The expecta-tions of price are then used as reference points to compare with store prices and make purchase deci-sions (Monroe 1973)
In reality, the role of fashion websites has been evolving with time Pastore (2000) did a study on
500 Internet users on purchasing behavior The research found that 41% of consumer confirmed they shopped for clothing online at least once a month, while 56% purchased at least once online It means that approximately 40% of online shoppers were expected to buy more clothing online in the future (Pastore, 2000)
Many researchers have suggested that the
quali-ty of the product and service information that
com-satisfaction; discussions on the subject of tion in the traditional retailing literature (Mason
satisfac-and Bearden, 1979; Oliver, 1980; Anderson et al., 1994; Terblanche and Boshoff, 2001a,b; Johan,
2006; Ofir and Simonson, 2007); the exploration of dimensions and determinations of satisfaction
under e-commerce context (Heiner et al., 2004), six factors including technology, websites, products,
marketing activities, delivery and payment have been identified to have potential influences on
customer satisfaction in online fashion shopping
Research framework
Base on the literature review, six influential factors on the satisfaction of online consumers were pointed out to formalize the research frame-
work and hypotheses as below:
Trang 4.+2$+&9j&1*1*+ ơ1*ơTạp chí.LQKQJKLÇP7KâFWLỈQ
71
SỐ 4 (2018)
According to the survey of VECITA for the last
5 years, the application of e-Commerce in prises not only focused on the big cities but also
enter-spread nationwide Many new and diverse forms of businesses are operated and implemented (VECI-
Consumers’ perception and consumption patterns have changed a lot in the mobile Internet age As new purchase desires and demands are created, consumers have higher and new demands for the connotation and denotation of goods, consumption scenarios and experience along with consumption upgrade and update, thus consump-tion demands have various new business formats
Accurate understanding of consumers’ demands is
an important premise for enterprises to follow the trend and readjust strategic orientation (Deloitte, 2015) Along of the market growth, to get growth and opportunity momentum, understanding how consumers expect, how they behave are very criti-cal to win the online consumers in Vietnam
Competition is tougher and tougher KPMG reports has shown that, although price was cited by 36% of consumers as a top factor in deciding which website to buy from, having the most competitive price won’t guarantee a sale Having the right prod-uct mix is no longer suffcient to attract the new wave of consumers including
Millennials, who are entirely focused on one transaction – theirs Consumers today are shopping all the time and everywhere; and in a truly global online marketplace, products can easily be purchased from retailers and manufacturers located anywhere in the world – or from those with no physical retail locations at all Understanding what drives a consumer to buy online or offline, why do they trust these website over others are critical for e-Commerce players to formulate their best offer-ings as well as marketing strategies What influence winning the online consumers in Vietnam?
- Does the best price influence winning the online consumers in Vietnam?
- Does the website preference influence winning the online consumers in Vietnam?
- Does the best delivery options/price ence winning the online consumers in Vietnam?
influ Does the rich assortment influence winning the online consumers in Vietnam?
- Does the product/service influence winning the online consumers in Vietnam?
Literature Review
This Chapter reviews literature that is relevant to the research conducted for this thesis It explores the development and current status of the world e-Commerce industry as well as that of China (a
model e-Commerce market) and ASEAN It looks
at the technological factors, consumer related factors as well as factors of pricing and factors of product and service Reviews of generation behav-iors toward online shopping versus traditional shopping are also posted in this chapter The Chap-ter also goes into details of research and studies on some research and development concepts related to the e-Commerce Consumer Behaviors
Best Price
When consumers were asked what factors vated them to buy online instead of going to a shop, the top reasons were time flexibility and cost savings (KPMG, 2017)
moti-Price was a critical factor for customer on online shopping (Heim and Sinha, 2001) However, Li et
al (1999) argued that often online shoppers were not price-sensitive, cause of these consumers’ price comparisons among different e-retailers on each product was time consuming and the price differ-ence was very small
Website Preference
Consumers generally do not possess perfect information prior to purchase (Biswas and Biswas, 2004) and thus can only indirectly assess the quali-
ty of products offered on e-commerce sites via the latter’s web interface (Jiang and Benbasat, 2004)
Conceivably, consumers’ purchase intentions are driven by the extent to which their positive feelings about e-commerce sites are induced by trustworthy signals that are costly to manipulate (Walther and Parks, 2002)
Park and Kim (2003; 17) stated that consumers' trust to a provider or supplier results with becoming committed to the company Trust issue is exceeding with a few successful transactions, after individuals start feel safe and believe that this supplier answers their needs and wants On the other hand, provided information is another issue in terms of online shopping for Park and Kim (2003;17) Since online shopping is an activity which related to a comput-er-system, individuals cannot touch or feel prod-ucts Therefore, their decisions based on the infor-mation that provided by online retailer Information issue not only important in terms of availability situation, it is also important in convenience and personalization concept Web site design, access to information, access time to information also influ-ence on behaviors of consumers
There is a positive relationship between consumers’ familiarity with an e-commerce site and their trust in this site (Kim et al., 2008) As during the final product decision stage, price remains as the most common consideration when consumers are deciding where to buy (Figure 2.8),
particularly in certain categories such as ics Having a website that consumers like and/or trust is also important, especially in Asia, where consumers said buying from a preferred website was more important than price (KPMG, 2017) According to many authors, an effective website design is critical to the success of electronic com-merce, and the functionality, usability, ease-of-nav-igation and interfaces of the websites themselves are vital building blocks for sustainable success (Constantinides, 2004; Yen et al., 2007; Lim et al.,
electron-2009, Colla and Lapoule, 2011)
Best Delivery Options/ Price
Price and Delivery options are one of the most
important factors to drive consumers online (KPMG, 2017)
Young generation are no longer satisfied to place orders via mobile phones, they also hope to receive goods more quickly Instant gratification has become a feature of this generation of users Some research show that 63 percent of post-80s and 90s are very interested in same-day delivery, even half of them are willing to pay premiums for
it Therefore, enterprises can provide instant
servic-es such as same-day delivery, online purchase and offline pickup, etc., to keep pace with the consump-tion habits of the young generation and improve user experience Finally, in terms of aftersales service, enterprises can simplify procedures and optimize service experience through a series of aftersales services provided directly on APP including goods exchanging and purchase feed-backs (Deloitte, 2017)
Last mile delivery is one of the paint paints of online shopping in China (Fung Business Intelli-gence, 2017)
Rich Assortment
Merchandising includes product-related
charac-teristics such as assortment, variety, and product
information (Jarvenpaa and Todd, 1997) Rich
product assortment can increase the probability that
consumer-needs will be met and satisfied The
online shopping environment enables consumers to
reduce their decision-making efforts by providing
vast selection, information screening, reliability,
and product comparison (Alba et al, 1997) The
research conducted by Q&Me shown that Product
variety is one of the reasons to shop online for
Viet-namese (Q&Me, 2017)
Consumer satisfaction is a popular concept in marketing It is a measure of how products or services meet the buyer’s expectation This concept
normally is considered as consumer’s expectations prior to purchase or use of a product and the
relative perception of the quality of that product after using it
Consumer satisfaction is very important because
of its close relationship with consumer loyalty and the profitability of a business Loyalty behaviors include continuous relationship and recommenda-
tions (word of mouth advertising) of the product
As a result, for a loyal consumer, the quality of value received from one supplier is greater than that
available from the others (Roger Hallowell, 2006)
Consumer satisfaction is more important in the e-commerce side of the fashion industry because of the higher expectation of the buyer For example, the potential buyer can only see a fashion product with its design and color on websites but does not know if the product will fit his/her body and if its feeling (aesthetic feel or tactile quality) is good
That explains why there are more buyers nowadays who look up information about fashion products
through websites and then go to the store in town to try and buy them
Problem statements
Vietnam is at the pivotal stage of developing the e-commerce owing to its large population and the rapid growth of Internet users Shopping online
now in Vietnam is a new lifestyle that has been attracting a lot of young people who enjoy chatting
with social networks while shopping The Vietnam E-commerce and Informatics Technology Agency (VECITA) predicted that the B2C trade volume ratio of total retail sales of goods and services in Vietnam will increase by 5% within the next five
years
panies offer on the website play a very important
role in their purchase decision (Berthon et al.,
1996; Geissler, 2001; Korner& Zimmermann,
2000; Selz, 1998) Then some experts stated that
the website is more conducive to relationship
mar-keting compared to media tools such as direct mail
and catalogs (Geissler, 2001; Shetty, 1999) The
reason is that via websites, companies can
intro-duce new chances to establish, build and manage
relationships with their consumers
Nowadays, one of the most important issues
concerning all businesses is consumer satisfaction
It is the principle of the continuous improvement in
the modern enterprise to measure how well a
com-pany does to satisfy consumers demands Another
reason is consumer satisfaction should be measured
and translated into some measurable parameter As
a result, the consumer satisfaction measurement
may be used as the most reliable feedback It
provides client’ preferences and experiences in an
effective, direct, meaningful and objective way
Hence, it will lead to the consideration that
consumer satisfaction is a baseline standard of
performance as well as a possible standard of
excel-lence for any business organization (Gerson, 1993)
In Vietnam, online payment is yet to be popular
because of the trust in the security for customers
Several researches have been done in Vietnam on
e-commerce on in different businesses and topics
In 2014, Google Vietnam did a research on the
behaviors of Vietnamese online shoppers
Accord-ing to their report, there are 71% of online shoppers
who pay cash when receiving goods It was found
that Vietnamese buyers only made online payments
with big and trust-worthy e-retailers Several
authors also studied the online fashion business but
none of them developed a model related to factors
that might contribute to the consumers' online
shopping experiences Many Vietnamese
research-ers conducted research on e-commerce in Vietnam
such as the research by Nguyen Xuan Thuy (2016),
which addressed the application of e-commerce in
leading economic zones of Vietnam, or Nguyen
Duc Tai (2012), who looked into solutions to improve
the state management of e-commerce in Vietnam
Through the review of several literature on
customer satisfaction and online shopping such as
those of Besterfield, 1994; Barsky (1995), Kanji
and Moura (2002); Fecikova, (2004) or Veloutsou
et al (2005) on different construct of customer
Although online fashion trading covers a relatively big share of the world’s online transac-
tions, it seems that this business is still quite quiet
in Vietnam at the moment There are many namese Internet users who surf the web, find
Viet-needed information on desired goods and then go
to buy the items at conventional stores
Internet user/ population
There are many problems that might hinder shoppers in Vietnam from shopping online, namely:
(i) Existing website technology does not support online shoppers very well Internet users in Viet-
nam normally complain about the internet speed to access to information Sometimes, they got troubles
in activating the website and finding the necessary information Online shoppers in Vietnam are also worried about the security of websites as their
personal, and financial information could be stolen
by hackers Many online shoppers choose to pay cash when receiving products to avoid risks related
to online trading (Google, 2014)
(ii) Websites that can attract online shoppers with abundant information with attractive and
tempting product’s photos are quite little At the moment, there are not many websites that can provide 3D-photos of the product’s details Young
people prefer to chat and communicate with others while shopping on the internet, but most B2C web-
sites in Vietnam are yet to be able to satisfy them
(iii) There are also concerns about the real
quali-ty and size specifications versus advertised online quality of fashion products The price of online products is also an important factor when most consumers want to buy products at a cheaper price
compared to those sold at conventional stores
(iv) Most B2C online retailers do not have good marketing strategies to advertise their brands and
identities in the market as well as to appeal to
buyers to come back again Many websites do not allow buyers to return purchased goods even in
cases of poor quality
(v) Online fashion business does not have any logistic power which makes them unable to control the delivering of products Most deliveries are late against being promised by online fashion business
Research Questions
The paper attempts to answer three main research questions:
- What are influential factors on online
consum-er satisfaction in the fashion industry in Vietnam?
- How do these influential factors affect the satisfaction of online consumers in the fashion
Choi, Stalh, and Whiston (1997), e-commerce is a
“process of seeking for product information, ing products as well as paying for goods and servic-es” Nowadays, the consumers can approach fully
order-to the technological development of the Internet
They begin to use online platforms for information search to seek for available products as well as
suitable services (Tim Jackson & David Shaw, 2009) However, it was found that consumers spend
less time accessing to fashion brand’s websites than going to an actual store Therefore, the main chan-
nels of selling products and services are still conventional physical stores By expanding their
reputation via the internet, these retailers can mize their market coverage
maxi-According to Edwards (2007), there are four main reasons for most people to decide to buy prod-
ucts online – money, time-saving, convenience, an indispensable shopping trends People spend a
considerable amount of money buying stylish clothes, perfumes, books and especially acne treat-
ments because they want to feel better about selves and be more confident in social situations
them-As stated by Anamika in 2012, whatever tions do to boost their sales, it's all because they
organiza-want to convince consumers about their ability to create good products as well as to save money for
clients Besides, it also helps consumers to feel how clever they are when they decide to purchase a product from the company
Many years ago, many researchers investigated the buying habit of consumers relying on the deci-sion-making process Up to 1979, Bettman pointed out that this type of action was actually simpler than everyone had ever thought He stated that
“consumers may sometimes typically rely on simple strategies rather than going through a series
of steps or processes rationally when they made purchase decisions” To prove it, Sproles examined some typical obvious dimensions or characteristics (Sproles, 1985) In 1986, Sproles and Kendall first-
ly publicized their study on investigating consumer decision-making processes by classifying consum-ers into different decision-making styles Interest-ingly, some of these consumers have been seen to
be highly correlated with some product tics (price, country of origin and brand) It is to say that the apparel’s product characteristics can always be determined by consumers They have the right to give the ultimate purchase acceptance or rejection (Sproles, 1979)
characteris-Consumer decision-making styles are patterned, mental and cognitive orientations It will dominate the consumer’s approach in making purchase choices (Sproles, 1985; Sproles and Kendall, 1986) A model of the style's concept which com-posed of eight mental orientations was established
by Sproles and Kendall (1986) These are: tionism consciousness”, “brand consciousness”,
“perfec-“novelty and fashion consciousness”, “recreational and hedonistic shopping consciousness”, “price and value consciousness”, “impulsive and careless consumer”, “confused by over choice consumer”
and “habitual and brand loyal consumer”
Consumers usually use price expectations in their purchase decision for a product The expecta-tions of price are then used as reference points to compare with store prices and make purchase deci-sions (Monroe 1973)
In reality, the role of fashion websites has been evolving with time Pastore (2000) did a study on
500 Internet users on purchasing behavior The research found that 41% of consumer confirmed they shopped for clothing online at least once a month, while 56% purchased at least once online It means that approximately 40% of online shoppers
were expected to buy more clothing online in the future (Pastore, 2000)
Many researchers have suggested that the
quali-ty of the product and service information that panies offer on the website play a very important role in their purchase decision (Berthon et al., 1996;
com-Geissler, 2001; Korner& Zimmermann, 2000; Selz, 1998) Then some experts stated that the website is more conducive to relationship marketing com-pared to media tools such as direct mail and cata-logs (Geissler, 2001; Shetty, 1999) The reason is that via websites, companies can introduce new chances to establish, build and manage relation-ships with their consumers
Nowadays, one of the most important issues concerning all businesses is consumer satisfaction
It is the principle of the continuous improvement in the modern enterprise to measure how well a com-pany does to satisfy consumers demands Another reason is consumer satisfaction should be measured and translated into some measurable parameter As
a result, the consumer satisfaction measurement may be used as the most reliable feedback It provides client’ preferences and experiences in an effective, direct, meaningful and objective way
Hence, it will lead to the consideration that consumer satisfaction is a baseline standard of performance as well as a possible standard of excel-lence for any business organization (Gerson, 1993)
In Vietnam, online payment is yet to be popular because of the trust in the security for customers
Several researches have been done in Vietnam on e-commerce on in different businesses and topics
In 2014, Google Vietnam did a research on the behaviors of Vietnamese online shoppers Accord-ing to their report, there are 71% of online shoppers who pay cash when receiving goods It was found that Vietnamese buyers only made online payments with big and trust-worthy e-retailers Several authors also studied the online fashion business but none of them developed a model related to factors that might contribute to the consumers' online shopping experiences Many Vietnamese research-ers conducted research on e-commerce in Vietnam such as the research by Nguyen Xuan Thuy (2016), which addressed the application of e-commerce in leading economic zones of Vietnam, or Nguyen Duc Tai (2012), who looked into solutions to improve the state management of e-commerce in Vietnam
Through the review of several literature on customer satisfaction and online shopping such as those of Besterfield, 1994; Barsky (1995), Kanji and Moura (2002); Fecikova, (2004) or Veloutsou
et al (2005) on different construct of customer satisfaction; discussions on the subject of satisfac-tion in the traditional retailing literature (Mason and Bearden, 1979; Oliver, 1980; Anderson et al., 1994; Terblanche and Boshoff, 2001a,b; Johan, 2006; Ofir and Simonson, 2007); the exploration of dimensions and determinations of satisfaction under e-commerce context (Heiner et al., 2004), six factors including technology, websites, products, marketing activities, delivery and payment have been identified to have potential influences on customer satisfaction in online fashion shopping
Literature Review
With the advancement of technology, the opment of the online shopping market is marked by the appearance of many retail websites that offer a variety of products and services As defined by Choi, Stalh, and Whiston (1997), e-commerce is a
devel-“process of seeking for product information, ing products as well as paying for goods and servic-es” Nowadays, the consumers can approach fully
order-to the technological development of the Internet
They begin to use online platforms for information search to seek for available products as well as suitable services (Tim Jackson & David Shaw, 2009) However, it was found that consumers spend less time accessing to fashion brand’s websites than going to an actual store Therefore, the main chan-nels of selling products and services are still conventional physical stores By expanding their reputation via the internet, these retailers can maxi-mize their market coverage
According to Edwards (2007), there are four main reasons for most people to decide to buy prod-ucts online – money, time-saving, convenience, an indispensable shopping trends People spend a considerable amount of money buying stylish clothes, perfumes, books and especially acne treat-ments because they want to feel better about them-selves and be more confident in social situations
As stated by Anamika in 2012, whatever tions do to boost their sales, it's all because they want to convince consumers about their ability to create good products as well as to save money for clients Besides, it also helps consumers to feel how clever they are when they decide to purchase a product from the company
organiza-Many years ago, many researchers investigated the buying habit of consumers relying on the deci-sion-making process Up to 1979, Bettman pointed out that this type of action was actually simpler than everyone had ever thought He stated that
“consumers may sometimes typically rely on simple strategies rather than going through a series
of steps or processes rationally when they made purchase decisions” To prove it, Sproles examined some typical obvious dimensions or characteristics (Sproles, 1985) In 1986, Sproles and Kendall first-
ly publicized their study on investigating consumer decision-making processes by classifying consum-ers into different decision-making styles Interest-ingly, some of these consumers have been seen to
be highly correlated with some product tics (price, country of origin and brand) It is to say that the apparel’s product characteristics can always be determined by consumers They have the right to give the ultimate purchase acceptance or rejection (Sproles, 1979)
characteris-Consumer decision-making styles are patterned, mental and cognitive orientations It will dominate the consumer’s approach in making purchase choices (Sproles, 1985; Sproles and Kendall, 1986) A model of the style's concept which com-posed of eight mental orientations was established
by Sproles and Kendall (1986) These are: tionism consciousness”, “brand consciousness”,
“perfec-“novelty and fashion consciousness”, “recreational and hedonistic shopping consciousness”, “price and value consciousness”, “impulsive and careless consumer”, “confused by over choice consumer” and “habitual and brand loyal consumer”
Consumers usually use price expectations in their purchase decision for a product The expecta-tions of price are then used as reference points to compare with store prices and make purchase deci-sions (Monroe 1973)
In reality, the role of fashion websites has been evolving with time Pastore (2000) did a study on
500 Internet users on purchasing behavior The research found that 41% of consumer confirmed they shopped for clothing online at least once a month, while 56% purchased at least once online It means that approximately 40% of online shoppers were expected to buy more clothing online in the future (Pastore, 2000)
Many researchers have suggested that the
quali-ty of the product and service information that
com-satisfaction; discussions on the subject of tion in the traditional retailing literature (Mason
satisfac-and Bearden, 1979; Oliver, 1980; Anderson et al., 1994; Terblanche and Boshoff, 2001a,b; Johan,
2006; Ofir and Simonson, 2007); the exploration of dimensions and determinations of satisfaction
under e-commerce context (Heiner et al., 2004), six factors including technology, websites, products,
marketing activities, delivery and payment have been identified to have potential influences on
customer satisfaction in online fashion shopping
Research framework
Base on the literature review, six influential factors on the satisfaction of online consumers were pointed out to formalize the research frame-
work and hypotheses as below:
Trang 5Website Preference
Consumers generally do not possess perfect information prior to purchase (Biswas and Biswas, 2004) and thus can only indirectly assess the quali-
ty of products offered on e-commerce sites via the latter’s web interface (Jiang and Benbasat, 2004)
Conceivably, consumers’ purchase intentions are driven by the extent to which their positive feelings about e-commerce sites are induced by trustworthy signals that are costly to manipulate (Walther and Parks, 2002)
Park and Kim (2003; 17) stated that consumers' trust to a provider or supplier results with becoming committed to the company Trust issue is exceeding with a few successful transactions, after individuals start feel safe and believe that this supplier answers their needs and wants On the other hand, provided information is another issue in terms of online shopping for Park and Kim (2003;17) Since online shopping is an activity which related to a comput-er-system, individuals cannot touch or feel prod-ucts Therefore, their decisions based on the infor-mation that provided by online retailer Information issue not only important in terms of availability situation, it is also important in convenience and personalization concept Web site design, access to information, access time to information also influ-ence on behaviors of consumers
There is a positive relationship between consumers’ familiarity with an e-commerce site and their trust in this site (Kim et al., 2008) As during the final product decision stage, price remains as the most common consideration when consumers are deciding where to buy (Figure 2.8),
particularly in certain categories such as ics Having a website that consumers like and/or trust is also important, especially in Asia, where consumers said buying from a preferred website was more important than price (KPMG, 2017) According to many authors, an effective website design is critical to the success of electronic com-merce, and the functionality, usability, ease-of-nav-igation and interfaces of the websites themselves are vital building blocks for sustainable success (Constantinides, 2004; Yen et al., 2007; Lim et al.,
electron-2009, Colla and Lapoule, 2011)
Best Delivery Options/ Price
Price and Delivery options are one of the most
important factors to drive consumers online (KPMG, 2017)
Young generation are no longer satisfied to place orders via mobile phones, they also hope to receive goods more quickly Instant gratification has become a feature of this generation of users Some research show that 63 percent of post-80s and 90s are very interested in same-day delivery, even half of them are willing to pay premiums for
it Therefore, enterprises can provide instant
servic-es such as same-day delivery, online purchase and offline pickup, etc., to keep pace with the consump-tion habits of the young generation and improve user experience Finally, in terms of aftersales service, enterprises can simplify procedures and optimize service experience through a series of aftersales services provided directly on APP including goods exchanging and purchase feed-backs (Deloitte, 2017)
Last mile delivery is one of the paint paints of online shopping in China (Fung Business Intelli-gence, 2017)
Rich Assortment
Merchandising includes product-related
charac-teristics such as assortment, variety, and product
information (Jarvenpaa and Todd, 1997) Rich
product assortment can increase the probability that
consumer-needs will be met and satisfied The
online shopping environment enables consumers to
reduce their decision-making efforts by providing
vast selection, information screening, reliability,
and product comparison (Alba et al, 1997) The
research conducted by Q&Me shown that Product
variety is one of the reasons to shop online for
Viet-namese (Q&Me, 2017)
Consumer satisfaction is a popular concept in marketing It is a measure of how products or services meet the buyer’s expectation This concept
normally is considered as consumer’s expectations prior to purchase or use of a product and the
relative perception of the quality of that product after using it
Consumer satisfaction is very important because
of its close relationship with consumer loyalty and the profitability of a business Loyalty behaviors include continuous relationship and recommenda-
tions (word of mouth advertising) of the product
As a result, for a loyal consumer, the quality of value received from one supplier is greater than that
available from the others (Roger Hallowell, 2006)
Consumer satisfaction is more important in the e-commerce side of the fashion industry because of the higher expectation of the buyer For example, the potential buyer can only see a fashion product with its design and color on websites but does not know if the product will fit his/her body and if its feeling (aesthetic feel or tactile quality) is good
That explains why there are more buyers nowadays who look up information about fashion products
through websites and then go to the store in town to try and buy them
Problem statements
Vietnam is at the pivotal stage of developing the e-commerce owing to its large population and the rapid growth of Internet users Shopping online
now in Vietnam is a new lifestyle that has been attracting a lot of young people who enjoy chatting
with social networks while shopping The Vietnam E-commerce and Informatics Technology Agency (VECITA) predicted that the B2C trade volume ratio of total retail sales of goods and services in Vietnam will increase by 5% within the next five
years
panies offer on the website play a very important
role in their purchase decision (Berthon et al.,
1996; Geissler, 2001; Korner& Zimmermann,
2000; Selz, 1998) Then some experts stated that
the website is more conducive to relationship
mar-keting compared to media tools such as direct mail
and catalogs (Geissler, 2001; Shetty, 1999) The
reason is that via websites, companies can
intro-duce new chances to establish, build and manage
relationships with their consumers
Nowadays, one of the most important issues
concerning all businesses is consumer satisfaction
It is the principle of the continuous improvement in
the modern enterprise to measure how well a
com-pany does to satisfy consumers demands Another
reason is consumer satisfaction should be measured
and translated into some measurable parameter As
a result, the consumer satisfaction measurement
may be used as the most reliable feedback It
provides client’ preferences and experiences in an
effective, direct, meaningful and objective way
Hence, it will lead to the consideration that
consumer satisfaction is a baseline standard of
performance as well as a possible standard of
excel-lence for any business organization (Gerson, 1993)
In Vietnam, online payment is yet to be popular
because of the trust in the security for customers
Several researches have been done in Vietnam on
e-commerce on in different businesses and topics
In 2014, Google Vietnam did a research on the
behaviors of Vietnamese online shoppers
Accord-ing to their report, there are 71% of online shoppers
who pay cash when receiving goods It was found
that Vietnamese buyers only made online payments
with big and trust-worthy e-retailers Several
authors also studied the online fashion business but
none of them developed a model related to factors
that might contribute to the consumers' online
shopping experiences Many Vietnamese
research-ers conducted research on e-commerce in Vietnam
such as the research by Nguyen Xuan Thuy (2016),
which addressed the application of e-commerce in
leading economic zones of Vietnam, or Nguyen
Duc Tai (2012), who looked into solutions to improve
the state management of e-commerce in Vietnam
Through the review of several literature on
customer satisfaction and online shopping such as
those of Besterfield, 1994; Barsky (1995), Kanji
and Moura (2002); Fecikova, (2004) or Veloutsou
et al (2005) on different construct of customer
Although online fashion trading covers a relatively big share of the world’s online transac-
tions, it seems that this business is still quite quiet
in Vietnam at the moment There are many namese Internet users who surf the web, find
Viet-needed information on desired goods and then go
to buy the items at conventional stores
Internet user/ population
There are many problems that might hinder shoppers in Vietnam from shopping online, namely:
(i) Existing website technology does not support online shoppers very well Internet users in Viet-
nam normally complain about the internet speed to access to information Sometimes, they got troubles
in activating the website and finding the necessary information Online shoppers in Vietnam are also worried about the security of websites as their
personal, and financial information could be stolen
by hackers Many online shoppers choose to pay cash when receiving products to avoid risks related
to online trading (Google, 2014)
(ii) Websites that can attract online shoppers with abundant information with attractive and
tempting product’s photos are quite little At the moment, there are not many websites that can provide 3D-photos of the product’s details Young
people prefer to chat and communicate with others while shopping on the internet, but most B2C web-
sites in Vietnam are yet to be able to satisfy them
(iii) There are also concerns about the real
quali-ty and size specifications versus advertised online quality of fashion products The price of online products is also an important factor when most consumers want to buy products at a cheaper price
compared to those sold at conventional stores
(iv) Most B2C online retailers do not have good marketing strategies to advertise their brands and
identities in the market as well as to appeal to
buyers to come back again Many websites do not allow buyers to return purchased goods even in
cases of poor quality
(v) Online fashion business does not have any logistic power which makes them unable to control the delivering of products Most deliveries are late against being promised by online fashion business
Research Questions
The paper attempts to answer three main research questions:
- What are influential factors on online
consum-er satisfaction in the fashion industry in Vietnam?
- How do these influential factors affect the satisfaction of online consumers in the fashion
Choi, Stalh, and Whiston (1997), e-commerce is a
“process of seeking for product information, ing products as well as paying for goods and servic-es” Nowadays, the consumers can approach fully
order-to the technological development of the Internet
They begin to use online platforms for information search to seek for available products as well as
suitable services (Tim Jackson & David Shaw, 2009) However, it was found that consumers spend
less time accessing to fashion brand’s websites than going to an actual store Therefore, the main chan-
nels of selling products and services are still conventional physical stores By expanding their
reputation via the internet, these retailers can mize their market coverage
maxi-According to Edwards (2007), there are four main reasons for most people to decide to buy prod-
ucts online – money, time-saving, convenience, an indispensable shopping trends People spend a
considerable amount of money buying stylish clothes, perfumes, books and especially acne treat-
ments because they want to feel better about selves and be more confident in social situations
them-As stated by Anamika in 2012, whatever tions do to boost their sales, it's all because they
organiza-want to convince consumers about their ability to create good products as well as to save money for
clients Besides, it also helps consumers to feel how clever they are when they decide to purchase a
product from the company
Many years ago, many researchers investigated the buying habit of consumers relying on the deci-
sion-making process Up to 1979, Bettman pointed out that this type of action was actually simpler
than everyone had ever thought He stated that
“consumers may sometimes typically rely on simple strategies rather than going through a series
of steps or processes rationally when they made purchase decisions” To prove it, Sproles examined
some typical obvious dimensions or characteristics (Sproles, 1985) In 1986, Sproles and Kendall first-
ly publicized their study on investigating consumer decision-making processes by classifying consum-
ers into different decision-making styles ingly, some of these consumers have been seen to
Interest-be highly correlated with some product tics (price, country of origin and brand) It is to say
characteris-that the apparel’s product characteristics can always be determined by consumers They have the
right to give the ultimate purchase acceptance or rejection (Sproles, 1979)
Consumer decision-making styles are patterned, mental and cognitive orientations It will dominate the consumer’s approach in making purchase
choices (Sproles, 1985; Sproles and Kendall, 1986) A model of the style's concept which com-
posed of eight mental orientations was established
by Sproles and Kendall (1986) These are: tionism consciousness”, “brand consciousness”,
“perfec-“novelty and fashion consciousness”, “recreational and hedonistic shopping consciousness”, “price
and value consciousness”, “impulsive and careless consumer”, “confused by over choice consumer”
and “habitual and brand loyal consumer”
Consumers usually use price expectations in their purchase decision for a product The expecta-
tions of price are then used as reference points to compare with store prices and make purchase deci-
means that approximately 40% of online shoppers
were expected to buy more clothing online in the future (Pastore, 2000)
Many researchers have suggested that the
quali-ty of the product and service information that panies offer on the website play a very important
com-role in their purchase decision (Berthon et al., 1996;
Geissler, 2001; Korner& Zimmermann, 2000; Selz, 1998) Then some experts stated that the website is more conducive to relationship marketing com-
pared to media tools such as direct mail and logs (Geissler, 2001; Shetty, 1999) The reason is
cata-that via websites, companies can introduce new chances to establish, build and manage relation-
ships with their consumers
Nowadays, one of the most important issues concerning all businesses is consumer satisfaction
It is the principle of the continuous improvement in the modern enterprise to measure how well a com-
pany does to satisfy consumers demands Another reason is consumer satisfaction should be measured and translated into some measurable parameter As
a result, the consumer satisfaction measurement may be used as the most reliable feedback It provides client’ preferences and experiences in an
effective, direct, meaningful and objective way
Hence, it will lead to the consideration that consumer satisfaction is a baseline standard of performance as well as a possible standard of excel-
lence for any business organization (Gerson, 1993)
In Vietnam, online payment is yet to be popular because of the trust in the security for customers
Several researches have been done in Vietnam on e-commerce on in different businesses and topics
In 2014, Google Vietnam did a research on the behaviors of Vietnamese online shoppers Accord-
ing to their report, there are 71% of online shoppers who pay cash when receiving goods It was found that Vietnamese buyers only made online payments with big and trust-worthy e-retailers Several
authors also studied the online fashion business but none of them developed a model related to factors that might contribute to the consumers' online
shopping experiences Many Vietnamese ers conducted research on e-commerce in Vietnam
research-such as the research by Nguyen Xuan Thuy (2016), which addressed the application of e-commerce in leading economic zones of Vietnam, or Nguyen Duc Tai (2012), who looked into solutions to improve the
state management of e-commerce in Vietnam
Through the review of several literature on customer satisfaction and online shopping such as those of Besterfield, 1994; Barsky (1995), Kanji and Moura (2002); Fecikova, (2004) or Veloutsou
et al (2005) on different construct of customer satisfaction; discussions on the subject of satisfac-tion in the traditional retailing literature (Mason and Bearden, 1979; Oliver, 1980; Anderson et al., 1994; Terblanche and Boshoff, 2001a,b; Johan, 2006; Ofir and Simonson, 2007); the exploration of dimensions and determinations of satisfaction under e-commerce context (Heiner et al., 2004), six factors including technology, websites, products, marketing activities, delivery and payment have been identified to have potential influences on customer satisfaction in online fashion shopping
Literature Review
With the advancement of technology, the opment of the online shopping market is marked by the appearance of many retail websites that offer a variety of products and services As defined by Choi, Stalh, and Whiston (1997), e-commerce is a
devel-“process of seeking for product information, ing products as well as paying for goods and servic-es” Nowadays, the consumers can approach fully
order-to the technological development of the Internet
They begin to use online platforms for information search to seek for available products as well as suitable services (Tim Jackson & David Shaw, 2009) However, it was found that consumers spend less time accessing to fashion brand’s websites than going to an actual store Therefore, the main chan-nels of selling products and services are still conventional physical stores By expanding their reputation via the internet, these retailers can maxi-mize their market coverage
According to Edwards (2007), there are four main reasons for most people to decide to buy prod-ucts online – money, time-saving, convenience, an indispensable shopping trends People spend a considerable amount of money buying stylish clothes, perfumes, books and especially acne treat-ments because they want to feel better about them-selves and be more confident in social situations
As stated by Anamika in 2012, whatever tions do to boost their sales, it's all because they want to convince consumers about their ability to create good products as well as to save money for clients Besides, it also helps consumers to feel how clever they are when they decide to purchase a product from the company
organiza-Many years ago, many researchers investigated the buying habit of consumers relying on the deci-sion-making process Up to 1979, Bettman pointed out that this type of action was actually simpler than everyone had ever thought He stated that
“consumers may sometimes typically rely on simple strategies rather than going through a series
of steps or processes rationally when they made purchase decisions” To prove it, Sproles examined some typical obvious dimensions or characteristics (Sproles, 1985) In 1986, Sproles and Kendall first-
ly publicized their study on investigating consumer decision-making processes by classifying consum-ers into different decision-making styles Interest-ingly, some of these consumers have been seen to
be highly correlated with some product tics (price, country of origin and brand) It is to say that the apparel’s product characteristics can always be determined by consumers They have the right to give the ultimate purchase acceptance or rejection (Sproles, 1979)
characteris-Consumer decision-making styles are patterned, mental and cognitive orientations It will dominate the consumer’s approach in making purchase choices (Sproles, 1985; Sproles and Kendall, 1986) A model of the style's concept which com-posed of eight mental orientations was established
by Sproles and Kendall (1986) These are: tionism consciousness”, “brand consciousness”,
“perfec-“novelty and fashion consciousness”, “recreational and hedonistic shopping consciousness”, “price and value consciousness”, “impulsive and careless consumer”, “confused by over choice consumer” and “habitual and brand loyal consumer”
Consumers usually use price expectations in their purchase decision for a product The expecta-tions of price are then used as reference points to compare with store prices and make purchase deci-sions (Monroe 1973)
In reality, the role of fashion websites has been evolving with time Pastore (2000) did a study on
500 Internet users on purchasing behavior The research found that 41% of consumer confirmed they shopped for clothing online at least once a month, while 56% purchased at least once online It means that approximately 40% of online shoppers were expected to buy more clothing online in the future (Pastore, 2000)
Many researchers have suggested that the
quali-ty of the product and service information that
com-satisfaction; discussions on the subject of tion in the traditional retailing literature (Mason
satisfac-and Bearden, 1979; Oliver, 1980; Anderson et al., 1994; Terblanche and Boshoff, 2001a,b; Johan,
2006; Ofir and Simonson, 2007); the exploration of dimensions and determinations of satisfaction
under e-commerce context (Heiner et al., 2004), six factors including technology, websites, products,
marketing activities, delivery and payment have been identified to have potential influences on
customer satisfaction in online fashion shopping
Research framework
Base on the literature review, six influential factors on the satisfaction of online consumers were pointed out to formalize the research frame-
work and hypotheses as below:
Trang 6.+2$+&9j&1*1*+ ơ1*ơTạp chí.LQKQJKLÇP7KâFWLỈQ
73
SỐ 4 (2018)
Figure 12 Waiting for the online purchase is not
always an exciting experience
Source: Fung Business Intelligence, 2017
Figure 14 Stated Market Consideration Factors
Source: Lazada, 2017
Figure 15 Reasons Consumers Shop in Stores instead of Online Source: KPMG, 2017
Figure 16 Consumer Behavior: Purchase Decision
ty of products offered on e-commerce sites via the latter’s web interface (Jiang and Benbasat, 2004)
Conceivably, consumers’ purchase intentions are driven by the extent to which their positive feelings about e-commerce sites are induced by trustworthy signals that are costly to manipulate (Walther and Parks, 2002)
Park and Kim (2003; 17) stated that consumers' trust to a provider or supplier results with becoming committed to the company Trust issue is exceeding with a few successful transactions, after individuals start feel safe and believe that this supplier answers their needs and wants On the other hand, provided information is another issue in terms of online shopping for Park and Kim (2003;17) Since online shopping is an activity which related to a comput-er-system, individuals cannot touch or feel prod-ucts Therefore, their decisions based on the infor-mation that provided by online retailer Information issue not only important in terms of availability situation, it is also important in convenience and personalization concept Web site design, access to information, access time to information also influ-ence on behaviors of consumers
There is a positive relationship between consumers’ familiarity with an e-commerce site and their trust in this site (Kim et al., 2008) As during the final product decision stage, price remains as the most common consideration when consumers are deciding where to buy (Figure 2.8),
particularly in certain categories such as ics Having a website that consumers like and/or trust is also important, especially in Asia, where consumers said buying from a preferred website was more important than price (KPMG, 2017) According to many authors, an effective website design is critical to the success of electronic com-merce, and the functionality, usability, ease-of-nav-igation and interfaces of the websites themselves are vital building blocks for sustainable success (Constantinides, 2004; Yen et al., 2007; Lim et al.,
electron-2009, Colla and Lapoule, 2011)
Best Delivery Options/ Price
Price and Delivery options are one of the most
important factors to drive consumers online (KPMG, 2017)
Young generation are no longer satisfied to place orders via mobile phones, they also hope to receive goods more quickly Instant gratification has become a feature of this generation of users Some research show that 63 percent of post-80s and 90s are very interested in same-day delivery, even half of them are willing to pay premiums for
it Therefore, enterprises can provide instant
servic-es such as same-day delivery, online purchase and offline pickup, etc., to keep pace with the consump-tion habits of the young generation and improve user experience Finally, in terms of aftersales service, enterprises can simplify procedures and optimize service experience through a series of aftersales services provided directly on APP including goods exchanging and purchase feed-backs (Deloitte, 2017)
Last mile delivery is one of the paint paints of online shopping in China (Fung Business Intelli-gence, 2017)
Rich Assortment
Merchandising includes product-related
charac-teristics such as assortment, variety, and product
information (Jarvenpaa and Todd, 1997) Rich
product assortment can increase the probability that
consumer-needs will be met and satisfied The
online shopping environment enables consumers to
reduce their decision-making efforts by providing
vast selection, information screening, reliability,
and product comparison (Alba et al, 1997) The
research conducted by Q&Me shown that Product
variety is one of the reasons to shop online for
Viet-namese (Q&Me, 2017)
Product detail, fast delivery, cash-on delivery,
wide product range and product reviews are stated
drivers to online shopping (Lazada, 2017)
Product and ServiceMany consumers who are deciding to buy in-store because they are concerned about prod-ucts/services and delivery time
Price/promotions and product features drive most purchase decisions globally
on drugs has nearly doubled from 2000 to 2007, accounting for about 40% of total medical costs society
Statistics of the Vietnam Social Insurance recently showed medicine costs are a high proportion (60-70%) of total health care costs health insurance
Drug market in Vietnam is very diverse and rich
in both quantity and quality In 2009, out of 22,615 drug registration numbers which were valid, there were 10,692 and 11,923 domestic pharmaceutical drugs imported from abroad Domestic production value increased from U.S $ 111.4 million in 1996
to U.S $ 919 million in 2010 Drug products produced in the country was increasingly high proportion of the total value of drug consumption,
up from 26% in 1996 to over 48% in 2010
Drugs are increasingly produced in the country
to meet the treatment needs, in 1996, drug tion in the country only has about 3,400 drug names with less than 200 active, but now there are about
produc-500 active substances of 1,produc-500 active ingredients in the drug is registered domestic proportion
The supply of medicines to hospitals must be through bidding based on the current regulations
However, practice has shown that there are some shortcomings issues in the drug supply for patients
in general and patients with health insurance in particular Traditional tender mechanism is not effective, it is necessary to adjust and strengthen the implementation of the tendering process at hospitals and get drug prices more reasonable
The application of electronic tender for the purchase and sale of drugs in public hospitals is inevitable and important to improve the quality and effectiveness of procurement as well as improve the shortcomings that traditional procurement face
Due to weaknesses of chemical, 90% of the materials for production of western drugs are imported The main types of imported pharmaceuti-cal materials are antibiotics and vitamins, which account for more than 80% of the import value
China and India are two biggest exporters of pharmaceutical materials into Vietnam, accounting for 25% and 21% respectively in 2008 As Viet-namese companies at present are mainly producing common drugs, they are using many types of cheap pharmaceutical materials imported from the two countries
The pharmaceutical industry gets access to consumers through treatment distribution system and commercial distribution network
Treatment distribution network The treatment network includes hospitals and other treatment units of different levels The total number of medi-cal examination and treatment units in Vietnam in
2007 was 13,438 Almost all pharmaceutical panies wish to promote this distribution channel because of its large consumption quantity
com-The biggest consumption channel of medicine in Vietnam for treatment products is public hospitals
Pharmaceutical products are provided to hospital through tender Additionally, selling through hospi-tals occupies a high amount of working capital of pharmaceutical companies because hospitals normally settle payment at the end of the year
Commercial distribution network The cial network includes branches, agents, distributors and drugstores At present, domestic pharmaceuti-cal companies are trying their best to promote the commercial distribution channel in order to reduce the dependence on the treatment distribution network which is facing intense competition This distribution network mainly consists of domestic distributors meanwhile there are only three foreign distributors in the market, including Zeullig Pharma, Diethelm and Megaproduct
commer-In this research, the researcher focuses on the supply of pharmaceutical products to public hospi-tals through pharmaceutical tender With an aim to promote the application of e-tender in pharmaceuti-cal sector, the researcher has conducts the research
in the context of the North Western
The supply of pharmaceutical products in public hospitals in the North Western reflects many gener-
al characteristics of Vietnam pharmaceutical supply regulations such as medicine is supplied through tender At each province, the Department of Health will develop the tender plan annually or for every 6 months (medicines are bought according to the list
of essential medicines) The budget for this tender
comes from (1) national budget, (2) health ance, and (3) hospital revenue Pharmaceutical suppliers are those who have capabilities, experi-ences and conditions to take part in the tender The tender is valid in 1 year
insur-However, this tender carries in itself many lems including:
prob-Information of tender is public only on “Tender Magazine”, a quite unpopular magazine that not many people follow which make many tenders unaware of the tenders
Tender documents are sold only at tender er’s office which is sometimes a geographic chal-lenge to many bidders
own-Some staff members of the tender owner are sometimes even do not want to sell too many tender documents to avoid evaluating to many bidders’
documents
Time for preparing and submitting tender ments is too short while most of the provinces in the North Western are quite far from central areas This makes many bidders unable to participate in tender
docu-The tender evaluation scale reflects some unfair criteria
The traditional tender costs time, effort and money a lot
of the value of the work When considered against
a success ratio of, say, one in five, Hughes reported that the cost of each winning bid can be as much as 6% of the value of the work In addition, the cost of tendering was considered to be very expensive by 93% of respondents to an eTendering survey carried out by CITA in 2006
Barriers to application of e-tenderMartin (2003) found during his UK survey that project collaboration technologies had a number of advantages, some of which were discussed in the above paragraphs, and disadvantages As discussed earlier, the advantages of such a system includes items, such as, increased transparency, speed of information transfer and increased accessibility On the negative side, Martin found that individuals
revealed there was a cost, in both time and money,
to print scale drawings Additionally, it was lished that some members did not have adequate IT and there was a lack of a filing index
estab-More relevant to eTendering is the paper by Eadie et al., (2007) Their literature review and survey suggest that there were eleven marked barri-ers to the eTendering process being undertaken in Northern Ireland These barriers were: the legal position of e-procurement, company culture, upper management support, IT infrastructure, IT systems too costly, lack of technical expertise, lack of e-pro-curement knowledge / skilled personnel, lack of business relationship with suppliers providing e-procurement, security of transactions, interopera-bility concerns, no business benefit realised
Transparency problemsAlso, “trust” is an overused word when discuss-ing procurement According to Kashiwagi, “Trust and rules of encouragement are not enough Trans-parency is what is needed When there is only trust, risk goes up” When there is transparency everyone knows what is going on and can address issues in a timely manner, reducing risk and liability Then
“trust” is not necessary anymore The job of the contractor is to “educate the client” and “the client must learn to let go of the controls” This, he says, requires a “paradigm shift” in the process
Of course such a shift does not happen night And when listening to the issues confronting Peter Lundhus with the Fehmarnbelt Link project, the question becomes how do you overcome the obstacles that hinder communication and coopera-tive, pro-active contractor contributions? For the Fehmarnbelt Link, a State Treaty between Den-mark and Germany was signed in 2006 with the intention to build starting in 2008 with completion scheduled for 2020 The first issue confronting the Fehmarnbelt group was determining whether a bridge or tunnel would be the most reasonable connection between northern Germany and south-ern Denmark
over-Procurement of Medicine in Public Hospitals in Viet Nam
In medicine management, the State issued lations to ensure public medicines are procured efficiently and patients are provided with good and cheap medicines The inter-ministerial Circular No 10/2007/TTLT-BYT-BTC dated 10/8/2007 of the Ministry of Health – Ministry of Finance provided
regu-guidelines on 3 forms of procurement
including:-Concentrated procurement (form 1) With this
form, the Ministry of Health will organize the
concentrated procurement of medicines of frequent
demand and big quantity for all local public health
units The list of procured medicines will be
consolidated based on the demand of local public
health care centers The procurement of medicines
will be conducted directly between public health
care units and selected medicine providers
Representative procurement (form 2): Under
this form, Departments of Health shall assign one
or some health care units to organize the
represent-ative procurement (usually the provincial hospital
and one district hospital Traditional medicines will
be procured by the provincial traditional hospital
Other public health care units will use the
procure-ment results for their buying of medicines
Apply-ing this form, medicine prices will be fixed
consist-ently throughout the province but the portfolio of
medicines of other hospitals will depend on the list
of procured medicines Selected medicine
provid-ers will provide medicines for hospitals directly or
through an authorized providers
Independently procurement (Form 3): With this
form, public hospitals will conduct the
procure-ment of medicines by themselves The list of
procured medicines will be developed based on the
need of each hospital Selected prices of medicines
may not be consistent among hospitals This form
is usually applied in central hospitals
Research Methodology
The target population was 250 medicine traders
in Vietnam provided by Ministry of Health of
Viet-nam The target response ratio was determined
based on the distribution of the respondents based
on their geographic allocation The sample list was
compiled by a randomized selection of the
respond-ents in each province to meet the expected response
ratio In cases in which a response could not be
reasonably be obtained from a company in the
sample list, a substitute was included being the next
firm on the list
The scope of interviews was based on variables
of the research framework, covering transparency,
competitiveness, equality, procurement fees and
international participants Therefore the
respond-ents needed to understand and have the authority to
provide the necessary data; therefore, the
respond-ents should be directors of these companies
The variables for study included demographic variables, respondent profile The study had inde-pendent variables (transparency, competitiveness, equality, procurement fees and international partic-ipants) and a dependent variable (pharmaceutical e-tender).The quantitative study was applied to 250 valid companies The Cronbach’s Alpha ( ) was used to test the reliability of the research variables
The results of the Cronbach’s Alpha ( ) are all over 0.9 for all variables as below:
Reliability Statistics
Trang 7ty of products offered on e-commerce sites via the latter’s web interface (Jiang and Benbasat, 2004)
Conceivably, consumers’ purchase intentions are driven by the extent to which their positive feelings about e-commerce sites are induced by trustworthy signals that are costly to manipulate (Walther and Parks, 2002)
Park and Kim (2003; 17) stated that consumers' trust to a provider or supplier results with becoming committed to the company Trust issue is exceeding with a few successful transactions, after individuals start feel safe and believe that this supplier answers their needs and wants On the other hand, provided information is another issue in terms of online shopping for Park and Kim (2003;17) Since online shopping is an activity which related to a comput-er-system, individuals cannot touch or feel prod-ucts Therefore, their decisions based on the infor-mation that provided by online retailer Information issue not only important in terms of availability situation, it is also important in convenience and personalization concept Web site design, access to information, access time to information also influ-ence on behaviors of consumers
There is a positive relationship between consumers’ familiarity with an e-commerce site and their trust in this site (Kim et al., 2008) As during the final product decision stage, price remains as the most common consideration when consumers are deciding where to buy (Figure 2.8),
particularly in certain categories such as ics Having a website that consumers like and/or trust is also important, especially in Asia, where consumers said buying from a preferred website was more important than price (KPMG, 2017) According to many authors, an effective website design is critical to the success of electronic com-merce, and the functionality, usability, ease-of-nav-igation and interfaces of the websites themselves are vital building blocks for sustainable success (Constantinides, 2004; Yen et al., 2007; Lim et al.,
electron-2009, Colla and Lapoule, 2011)
Best Delivery Options/ Price
Price and Delivery options are one of the most
important factors to drive consumers online (KPMG, 2017)
Young generation are no longer satisfied to place orders via mobile phones, they also hope to receive goods more quickly Instant gratification has become a feature of this generation of users Some research show that 63 percent of post-80s and 90s are very interested in same-day delivery, even half of them are willing to pay premiums for
it Therefore, enterprises can provide instant
servic-es such as same-day delivery, online purchase and offline pickup, etc., to keep pace with the consump-tion habits of the young generation and improve user experience Finally, in terms of aftersales service, enterprises can simplify procedures and optimize service experience through a series of aftersales services provided directly on APP including goods exchanging and purchase feed-backs (Deloitte, 2017)
Last mile delivery is one of the paint paints of online shopping in China (Fung Business Intelli-gence, 2017)
Rich Assortment
Merchandising includes product-related
charac-teristics such as assortment, variety, and product
information (Jarvenpaa and Todd, 1997) Rich
product assortment can increase the probability that
consumer-needs will be met and satisfied The
online shopping environment enables consumers to
reduce their decision-making efforts by providing
vast selection, information screening, reliability,
and product comparison (Alba et al, 1997) The
research conducted by Q&Me shown that Product
variety is one of the reasons to shop online for
The researcher identified five factors that might have relationship with the online consumers’
behavior in Vietnam including technological factors, consumer related factors, factors of pricing and factors of product/service
Figure 17 Attributes Winning Online Consumer Theoretical Framework
Research Hypotheses
Based on the above discussion, hypotheses were developed to predict the overall relationship between winning online consumers and some relat-
- H3: There is a relationship between best delivery options/price and winning the online consumers in Vietnam
- H4: There is a relationship between rich assortment and winning the online consumers in Vietnam
- H5: There is a relationship between product/service and winning the online consumers
in Vietnam
Data Collection
This research used interviews, questionnaires and documents provided by the organisation as part
of the data collection process during this study
As most respondents are spread amongst Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi and other provinces, question-naire have been collected through Google Forms for collaboration In general there were no prob-lems encountered with this process
The objectives of the research and questionnaire were stated clearly in the introduction to ensure the participants understood what was required of them
Data Analysis and Findings
Multicollinearity
Table 1 shows the test of collinearity The values
of the independent variables are in the range of 1.435 and 3.894, which is much lower than 10
Therefore, multicollinearity issue does not exist
Table 3 Model Summary
The output of the ANOVA analysis shows that there is a statistically significant difference between the factors We can see that the signifi-cance level is 0.000 (p = 000), which is below 0.05 and, therefore, there is a statistically signifi-cant difference among the factors analyzed
Website Preference 498 2.007 Best Delivery options/price 415 2.407
Product and Service 428 2.335
Table 1 Test of Collinearity Factors Analysis Results on Key attributes on winning online consumers
Reliability test was conducted to test the ity of primary data before proceeding to factor analysis Table below shows the Cronbach’s alpha values for independent variables “Best price, Web-site Preference, Delivery options/price, Rich assortment, Product and Service” and dependent variable “Winning the online shopping consum-ers” All the Cronbach’s alpha values are higher than 0.6 (Malhotra, 2004), and it may be safely assumed that all the constructs are proven internal-
reliabil-ly consistent or reliable
Website preference 0.725 5 Accepted Best delivery options/ price 0.752 5 Accepted Rich assortment 0.832 5 Accepted Product/ service 0.796 5 Accepted Winning the online consumers in Vietnam 0.712 5 Accepted
Table 2 Cronbach’s alpha
Besides, as tested above, the Cronbach’s alpha value of “Best Price”, “Website Preference”, “Best Delivery Options/price”, “Rich Assortment”,
“Product and Service” are both above 0.6, which means that they are accepted as factors of the framework Therefore, construct validity test on lecturers’ development strategy indicates that these five constructs are valid for further analysis
Hence, multiple linear regression analysis ensues
to investigate the influence of these five constructs
on lecturer’s development strategy
Multiple Linear Regression Between ning Online Shopping Consumers and Its Attributes
Win-In Table 4.11, the adjusted R-square of multiple correlation coefficient (adjusted R2) value indi-cates that 44%% of the variances associated with Winning Online Shopping Consumers can be explained from the 5 development characteristics
Table 4 ANOVA
Model 1 in Table 13 shows the coefficients for the five predictors’ variables with Winning Online Shopping Consumers as base level The significant value of constant (p < 0.05) indicates that there is relationship between Winning Online Shopping Consumers and its components P-value for Best Price & Website Preference < 0.05 which are relat-
ed P-value for Best Delivery Option/ Price, Rich Assortment, Products & Service are greater than the common alpha level of 0.05, which indicates that it is not statistically significant Beta of Web-site Preference =0.154 which is mostly significant
on drugs has nearly doubled from 2000 to 2007, accounting for about 40% of total medical costs society
Statistics of the Vietnam Social Insurance recently showed medicine costs are a high proportion (60-70%) of total health care costs health insurance
Drug market in Vietnam is very diverse and rich
in both quantity and quality In 2009, out of 22,615 drug registration numbers which were valid, there were 10,692 and 11,923 domestic pharmaceutical drugs imported from abroad Domestic production value increased from U.S $ 111.4 million in 1996
to U.S $ 919 million in 2010 Drug products produced in the country was increasingly high proportion of the total value of drug consumption,
up from 26% in 1996 to over 48% in 2010
Drugs are increasingly produced in the country
to meet the treatment needs, in 1996, drug tion in the country only has about 3,400 drug names with less than 200 active, but now there are about
produc-500 active substances of 1,produc-500 active ingredients in the drug is registered domestic proportion
The supply of medicines to hospitals must be through bidding based on the current regulations
However, practice has shown that there are some shortcomings issues in the drug supply for patients
in general and patients with health insurance in particular Traditional tender mechanism is not effective, it is necessary to adjust and strengthen the implementation of the tendering process at hospitals and get drug prices more reasonable
The application of electronic tender for the purchase and sale of drugs in public hospitals is inevitable and important to improve the quality and effectiveness of procurement as well as improve the shortcomings that traditional procurement face
Due to weaknesses of chemical, 90% of the materials for production of western drugs are imported The main types of imported pharmaceuti-cal materials are antibiotics and vitamins, which account for more than 80% of the import value
China and India are two biggest exporters of pharmaceutical materials into Vietnam, accounting for 25% and 21% respectively in 2008 As Viet-namese companies at present are mainly producing common drugs, they are using many types of cheap pharmaceutical materials imported from the two countries
The pharmaceutical industry gets access to consumers through treatment distribution system and commercial distribution network
Treatment distribution network The treatment network includes hospitals and other treatment units of different levels The total number of medi-cal examination and treatment units in Vietnam in
2007 was 13,438 Almost all pharmaceutical panies wish to promote this distribution channel because of its large consumption quantity
com-The biggest consumption channel of medicine in Vietnam for treatment products is public hospitals
Pharmaceutical products are provided to hospital through tender Additionally, selling through hospi-tals occupies a high amount of working capital of pharmaceutical companies because hospitals normally settle payment at the end of the year
Commercial distribution network The cial network includes branches, agents, distributors and drugstores At present, domestic pharmaceuti-cal companies are trying their best to promote the commercial distribution channel in order to reduce the dependence on the treatment distribution network which is facing intense competition This distribution network mainly consists of domestic distributors meanwhile there are only three foreign distributors in the market, including Zeullig Pharma, Diethelm and Megaproduct
commer-In this research, the researcher focuses on the supply of pharmaceutical products to public hospi-tals through pharmaceutical tender With an aim to promote the application of e-tender in pharmaceuti-cal sector, the researcher has conducts the research
in the context of the North Western
The supply of pharmaceutical products in public hospitals in the North Western reflects many gener-
al characteristics of Vietnam pharmaceutical supply regulations such as medicine is supplied through tender At each province, the Department of Health will develop the tender plan annually or for every 6 months (medicines are bought according to the list
of essential medicines) The budget for this tender
comes from (1) national budget, (2) health ance, and (3) hospital revenue Pharmaceutical suppliers are those who have capabilities, experi-ences and conditions to take part in the tender The tender is valid in 1 year
insur-However, this tender carries in itself many lems including:
prob-Information of tender is public only on “Tender Magazine”, a quite unpopular magazine that not many people follow which make many tenders unaware of the tenders
Tender documents are sold only at tender er’s office which is sometimes a geographic chal-lenge to many bidders
own-Some staff members of the tender owner are sometimes even do not want to sell too many tender documents to avoid evaluating to many bidders’
documents
Time for preparing and submitting tender ments is too short while most of the provinces in the North Western are quite far from central areas This makes many bidders unable to participate in tender
docu-The tender evaluation scale reflects some unfair criteria
The traditional tender costs time, effort and money a lot
of the value of the work When considered against
a success ratio of, say, one in five, Hughes reported that the cost of each winning bid can be as much as 6% of the value of the work In addition, the cost of tendering was considered to be very expensive by 93% of respondents to an eTendering survey carried out by CITA in 2006
Barriers to application of e-tenderMartin (2003) found during his UK survey that project collaboration technologies had a number of advantages, some of which were discussed in the above paragraphs, and disadvantages As discussed earlier, the advantages of such a system includes items, such as, increased transparency, speed of information transfer and increased accessibility On the negative side, Martin found that individuals
revealed there was a cost, in both time and money,
to print scale drawings Additionally, it was lished that some members did not have adequate IT and there was a lack of a filing index
estab-More relevant to eTendering is the paper by Eadie et al., (2007) Their literature review and survey suggest that there were eleven marked barri-ers to the eTendering process being undertaken in Northern Ireland These barriers were: the legal position of e-procurement, company culture, upper management support, IT infrastructure, IT systems too costly, lack of technical expertise, lack of e-pro-curement knowledge / skilled personnel, lack of business relationship with suppliers providing e-procurement, security of transactions, interopera-bility concerns, no business benefit realised
Transparency problemsAlso, “trust” is an overused word when discuss-ing procurement According to Kashiwagi, “Trust and rules of encouragement are not enough Trans-parency is what is needed When there is only trust, risk goes up” When there is transparency everyone knows what is going on and can address issues in a timely manner, reducing risk and liability Then
“trust” is not necessary anymore The job of the contractor is to “educate the client” and “the client must learn to let go of the controls” This, he says, requires a “paradigm shift” in the process
Of course such a shift does not happen night And when listening to the issues confronting Peter Lundhus with the Fehmarnbelt Link project, the question becomes how do you overcome the obstacles that hinder communication and coopera-tive, pro-active contractor contributions? For the Fehmarnbelt Link, a State Treaty between Den-mark and Germany was signed in 2006 with the intention to build starting in 2008 with completion scheduled for 2020 The first issue confronting the Fehmarnbelt group was determining whether a bridge or tunnel would be the most reasonable connection between northern Germany and south-ern Denmark
over-Procurement of Medicine in Public Hospitals in Viet Nam
In medicine management, the State issued lations to ensure public medicines are procured efficiently and patients are provided with good and cheap medicines The inter-ministerial Circular No 10/2007/TTLT-BYT-BTC dated 10/8/2007 of the Ministry of Health – Ministry of Finance provided
regu-guidelines on 3 forms of procurement
including:-Concentrated procurement (form 1) With this
form, the Ministry of Health will organize the
concentrated procurement of medicines of frequent
demand and big quantity for all local public health
units The list of procured medicines will be
consolidated based on the demand of local public
health care centers The procurement of medicines
will be conducted directly between public health
care units and selected medicine providers
Representative procurement (form 2): Under
this form, Departments of Health shall assign one
or some health care units to organize the
represent-ative procurement (usually the provincial hospital
and one district hospital Traditional medicines will
be procured by the provincial traditional hospital
Other public health care units will use the
procure-ment results for their buying of medicines
Apply-ing this form, medicine prices will be fixed
consist-ently throughout the province but the portfolio of
medicines of other hospitals will depend on the list
of procured medicines Selected medicine
provid-ers will provide medicines for hospitals directly or
through an authorized providers
Independently procurement (Form 3): With this
form, public hospitals will conduct the
procure-ment of medicines by themselves The list of
procured medicines will be developed based on the
need of each hospital Selected prices of medicines
may not be consistent among hospitals This form
is usually applied in central hospitals
Research Methodology
The target population was 250 medicine traders
in Vietnam provided by Ministry of Health of
Viet-nam The target response ratio was determined
based on the distribution of the respondents based
on their geographic allocation The sample list was
compiled by a randomized selection of the
respond-ents in each province to meet the expected response
ratio In cases in which a response could not be
reasonably be obtained from a company in the
sample list, a substitute was included being the next
firm on the list
The scope of interviews was based on variables
of the research framework, covering transparency,
competitiveness, equality, procurement fees and
international participants Therefore the
respond-ents needed to understand and have the authority to
provide the necessary data; therefore, the
respond-ents should be directors of these companies
The variables for study included demographic variables, respondent profile The study had inde-
pendent variables (transparency, competitiveness, equality, procurement fees and international partic-
ipants) and a dependent variable (pharmaceutical e-tender).The quantitative study was applied to 250
valid companies The Cronbach’s Alpha ( ) was used to test the reliability of the research variables
The results of the Cronbach’s Alpha ( ) are all over 0.9 for all variables as below:
Reliability Statistics
Best price Website preference Best delivery options/ price Rich assortment
Product/ service
Winning the online consumers in Vietnam
Trang 8.+2$+&9j&1*1*+ ơ1*ơTạp chí.LQKQJKLÇP7KâFWLỈQ
ty of products offered on e-commerce sites via the latter’s web interface (Jiang and Benbasat, 2004)
Conceivably, consumers’ purchase intentions are driven by the extent to which their positive feelings about e-commerce sites are induced by trustworthy signals that are costly to manipulate (Walther and Parks, 2002)
Park and Kim (2003; 17) stated that consumers' trust to a provider or supplier results with becoming committed to the company Trust issue is exceeding with a few successful transactions, after individuals start feel safe and believe that this supplier answers their needs and wants On the other hand, provided information is another issue in terms of online shopping for Park and Kim (2003;17) Since online shopping is an activity which related to a comput-er-system, individuals cannot touch or feel prod-ucts Therefore, their decisions based on the infor-mation that provided by online retailer Information issue not only important in terms of availability situation, it is also important in convenience and personalization concept Web site design, access to information, access time to information also influ-ence on behaviors of consumers
There is a positive relationship between consumers’ familiarity with an e-commerce site and their trust in this site (Kim et al., 2008) As during the final product decision stage, price remains as the most common consideration when consumers are deciding where to buy (Figure 2.8),
particularly in certain categories such as ics Having a website that consumers like and/or trust is also important, especially in Asia, where consumers said buying from a preferred website was more important than price (KPMG, 2017) According to many authors, an effective website design is critical to the success of electronic com-merce, and the functionality, usability, ease-of-nav-igation and interfaces of the websites themselves are vital building blocks for sustainable success (Constantinides, 2004; Yen et al., 2007; Lim et al.,
electron-2009, Colla and Lapoule, 2011)
Best Delivery Options/ Price
Price and Delivery options are one of the most
important factors to drive consumers online (KPMG, 2017)
Young generation are no longer satisfied to place orders via mobile phones, they also hope to receive goods more quickly Instant gratification has become a feature of this generation of users Some research show that 63 percent of post-80s and 90s are very interested in same-day delivery, even half of them are willing to pay premiums for
it Therefore, enterprises can provide instant
servic-es such as same-day delivery, online purchase and offline pickup, etc., to keep pace with the consump-tion habits of the young generation and improve user experience Finally, in terms of aftersales service, enterprises can simplify procedures and optimize service experience through a series of aftersales services provided directly on APP including goods exchanging and purchase feed-backs (Deloitte, 2017)
Last mile delivery is one of the paint paints of online shopping in China (Fung Business Intelli-gence, 2017)
Rich Assortment
Merchandising includes product-related
charac-teristics such as assortment, variety, and product
information (Jarvenpaa and Todd, 1997) Rich
product assortment can increase the probability that
consumer-needs will be met and satisfied The
online shopping environment enables consumers to
reduce their decision-making efforts by providing
vast selection, information screening, reliability,
and product comparison (Alba et al, 1997) The
research conducted by Q&Me shown that Product
variety is one of the reasons to shop online for
over time, rather than mere frequencies or incidence, which supports the research question
The researcher identified five factors that might have relationship with the online consumers’
behavior in Vietnam including technological factors, consumer related factors, factors of pricing
and factors of product/service
Figure 17 Attributes Winning Online Consumer Theoretical Framework
of the data collection process during this study
As most respondents are spread amongst Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi and other provinces, question-
naire have been collected through Google Forms for collaboration In general there were no prob-
lems encountered with this process
The objectives of the research and questionnaire were stated clearly in the introduction to ensure the participants understood what was required of them
Data Analysis and Findings
Multicollinearity
Table 1 shows the test of collinearity The values
of the independent variables are in the range of 1.435 and 3.894, which is much lower than 10
Therefore, multicollinearity issue does not exist
Table 3 Model Summary
The output of the ANOVA analysis shows that there is a statistically significant difference between the factors We can see that the signifi-cance level is 0.000 (p = 000), which is below 0.05 and, therefore, there is a statistically signifi-cant difference among the factors analyzed
Table 1 Test of Collinearity Factors Analysis Results on Key attributes on
winning online consumers
Reliability test was conducted to test the ity of primary data before proceeding to factor
reliabil-analysis Table below shows the Cronbach’s alpha values for independent variables “Best price, Web-
site Preference, Delivery options/price, Rich assortment, Product and Service” and dependent
variable “Winning the online shopping ers” All the Cronbach’s alpha values are higher
consum-than 0.6 (Malhotra, 2004), and it may be safely assumed that all the constructs are proven internal-
ly consistent or reliable
Table 2 Cronbach’s alpha
Besides, as tested above, the Cronbach’s alpha value of “Best Price”, “Website Preference”, “Best Delivery Options/price”, “Rich Assortment”,
“Product and Service” are both above 0.6, which means that they are accepted as factors of the framework Therefore, construct validity test on lecturers’ development strategy indicates that these five constructs are valid for further analysis
Hence, multiple linear regression analysis ensues
to investigate the influence of these five constructs
on lecturer’s development strategy
Multiple Linear Regression Between ning Online Shopping Consumers and Its Attributes
Win-In Table 4.11, the adjusted R-square of multiple correlation coefficient (adjusted R2) value indi-cates that 44%% of the variances associated with Winning Online Shopping Consumers can be explained from the 5 development characteristics
Model R R Square Adjusted R Square Std Error of the Estimate
Model Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig
1
Regression Regression 10.907 5 2.181 5.281 Residual Residual 126.813 307 413 Total Total 137.720 312
a Predictors: (Constant), Best Price, Website Preference, Best Delivery Options/Price, Rich Assortment, Product and Service
b Dependent Variable: Winning Online Shopping Consumers
ed P-value for Best Delivery Option/ Price, Rich Assortment, Products & Service are greater than the common alpha level of 0.05, which indicates that it is not statistically significant Beta of Web-site Preference =0.154 which is mostly significant
Model
Unstandardized Coefficients Standardized Coefficients t Sig
B Std Error Beta
1
(Constant) 1.861 156 11.947 000 Best price 151 075 141 2.029 043 Website preference 205 103 .154 1.989 .048 Best delivery options/ price 144 116 142 2.123 040 Rich assortment 121 131 101 1.992 .398
P-value for Rich assortment is greater than the common alpha level of 0.05, which indicates that it
is not statistically significant
Beta of Website preference = 0.154 mostly significant
Summary of Hypotheses
Through results from data analysis, the five hypotheses of this research are proved to be supported Hypotheses findings are summarized as followed:
Table 6 Hypothesis Summary
Conclusions
The overall conclusion was that the five fied attributes can be parts of the Startups, Enter-prises strategies on growing eCommerce in Viet-nam From this framework, policy makers, researchers and enterprises can cooperate to devel-
identi-op a better environment for eCommerce market to grow Implication of the quantitative and qualita-tive theory and practice emanating from the find-
1 There is a relationship between best price and winning the online consumers in Vietnam Supported
2 There is a relationship between website preference and winning the online consumers in Vietnam Supported
3 There is a relationship between best delivery options/price and winning the online consumers in Vietnam Supported
4 There is a relationship between rich assortment and winning the online consumers in Vietnam Supported
5 There is a relationship between product/service and winning the online consumers in Vietnam Supported
ings were discussed in depth and implications involving policy were speculated upon based on a review of the literature This research has contribut-
ed to the body of knowledge by providing a ical framework for proving the relationship between winning online consumers in Vietnam and its possible attributes
theoret-The study also raised questions requiring further research that is theoretical and practical interest
Improving and boosting eCommerce in Vietnam will continue challenge the enterprises, governors, managers and researchers Therefore, this is a topic that will continue to have and require continuous research
Findings
Statistics and results from the analysis reveal many things about the five factors that have influ-enced on winning the online consumers in Vietnam
- Product categories that customers frequently purchase online are household/appliances, elec-tronics, clothing, cosmetics, toys and books
- Vietnamese people have had the tendency purchasing online
- Many people agree that price is important for them to decide buying online and they will prefer online shopping only if online prices are lower than offline prices
- However, price is not enough to convert people from offline to online Many people also agree that they must trust an e-retailer before making a purchase and the ease and user-friendliness of the website will win consumers from one website over another
- Most of the survey participants also agree that one of the conveniences of online shopping is home delivery which is important for consumers Along with this, order tracking visibility, delivery speed and shipping fee are important for consumers and impact consumer experience
- Many people believe that large selection of products is also important for consumers to decide purchasing online However, it does not mean that
online shopping offers better variety than
tradition-al stores
- The fact that online consumers rely on pictures, images, description of the website/platform to purchase products People also believe that detailed description and information availability to every product is important when shopping online
- Vietnamese consumers love shopping online and they believe that that online shopping trend is given and will be taking over a big part of tradition-
al shopping The biggest concerns are security and trust over the websites
Product price and website preference are the most factors over winning online consumers in Vietnamese in which trust over e-tailers, website appearance, website user-friendliness, the ability for customers to interact with platforms, terms and conditions of the platforms over online purchase transactions are all critical to win online consumers from one platform over another, from traditional shopping over online shopping
There are three specific objectives in this research Two of them have been addressed after this analysis
- Objective number one: find out consumers perceptions over e-Commerce, Online Shopping and their belief on the future of e-Commerce indus-try in Vietnam The research results have shown
and evolving The rapid growth of the internet and mobile usage has been helping e-Commerce to be established as a new shopping channel rapidly
Though Vietnamese online consumers have some concerns over online shopping, the answer to the question whether online consumers believe in e-Com- merce growth and future in Vietnam is “Yes” They continue purchasing online The average revenue per user continues increasing from US dollar 55 in 2016 to
US dollar 70.18 currently
- Objective number two: find out five attributes of winning online consumers in Vietnam have been iden- tified including: best price, website preference, best delivery options/price, rich assortment and product and service Of which, “website preference” is the
most critical, even over “Best price” while “Rich assortment” can give negative impact Having trusted website will always be important Competitive pricing
is expected to rise in the importance during the tion what website to purchase Price and promotions most likely influence consumers’ decision on what product or brand to buy online Advances in technolo-
selec-gy, data technoloselec-gy, logistics, payment methods, consumer demand for convenience and trust are much higher than before Price is important for online consumers However, price does not guarantee sales
Shopping experience, keeping pace with consumers’
preferences today and tomorrow are important with all enterprises, especially e-Commerce enterprises
to attract and win online consumers Beyond quick and good customer service, the right content strate-
gy is also critical The research results have shown e-Commerce Startups, new entrance, and even growing e-Commerce platforms that to win, they need to transform and build a customer-centric and virtually borderless operating model The facts are online consumers easily move back and forth between online and offline, from one website to another website to check prices before deciding the online purchase, having the efficient supply chain, the lean and agile last mile operations will be important for e-Commerce enterprises Younger generation are increasingly comfortable with buying products online without seeing them first
However, they also have much higher demand for quick delivery, low shipping fee or even free ship-ping Companies will need to innovate in order to have shorter delivery time, lowest last mile cost in order to satisfy demanding consumer expectations
if they would like to win online consumers The research results have met the research objectives, helping companies to understand that providing positive and unique shopping experience is one of the most critical motivators to win
- The final objective will be addressed in the recommendation
Research limitations
The research was done based on general
condi-tions and do not specify to a particular e-business and may not necessarily be applicable to a particu-lar e-business Therefore, the future research can be done by product group
Practical implications
Attributes identified by this study could help E-commerce Start-ups, International E-commerce entering Vietnamese online market to better form their online e-marketing strategies in terms of geography areas, customer preference to attract Vietnamese consumers online first, then choose their website over others
Recommendations
Human resource development for e-Commerce
Vietnam is thirsty for e-Commerce talents
According to Vietnamworks.com (ranked in the 171thplace among the most visited websites in Vietnam15), the labour demand of the internet/
online media category has dramatically increased
in recent years The vacancies related to merce including internet/ online media staffs hold 9% of the total advertised vacancies on this web-site Up to September 2015, Vietnam had more than 513,000 enterprises with more than 12.8 million labours According to Vecita’s 2015 survey, approximately 45% of enterprises had websites on which information was periodically updated The number of enterprises having websites was around 200,000 If each enterprise is estimated to have one e-Commerce specialized staff that may be a techni-cal, online sale, marketing, staff, delivery or human resource management staff; or manager…, the total e-commerce specialized staffs could reach at least 200,000 (Vecita, 2017) Availability of well-trained resource will be critical to boosting the growth of Vietnam e-Commerce as well as facilitating employment goals Hence adequate steps should be taken by government to ensure availability of quali-
e-com-ty resource for e-Commerce Colleges, Universities and Vocational School should be encouraged to formulate a Training Programme, Materials, Meth-ods, source of qualify lecturers for e-Commerce
Enhance Consumer Trust Toward merce
E-Com-One of the key factors to grow e-Commerce share in Vietnam is to improve consumers’ trust-worthiness toward e-Commerce This require the effort from both enterprises and government
E-tailers can pay attention to building their tion, invest more on online or offline advertise-ments, pay attention to the reviews generated by consumers, which spread fast in the online environ-ment E-tailers also need to invest into information quality and security protections for consumers
reputa-Information quality here refers to ensure the racy, completeness, and updates of the product information on their websites (the products display style, virtual design of the website, and photograph processing…) E-tailers can select trusted and repu-table payment tools, invest into data protection which can help improve the security protection for consumers
accu-Enhance online shopping experience through data technological innovations
More and more innovative technologies should
be applied in order to enhance customer ence, e.g integrate virtual information into the real world to generate more comprehensive experience through integration of virtual information and reali-
experi-ty According to Deloitte’s 2015 Global Mobile Consumer Survey, China Edition, almost all awakened mobile consumers across the world check their phones at least once in three hours, while in emerging markets 93 percent awakened consumers check their phones in one hour or less, and people in the Asia Pacific region are most addictive to smartphone Socialized online shopping is a critical trend drive users’ final purchase if enterprises can integrate functions such as socializing, payment and shopping Con-sumers can know product information more quickly through various devices (e.g
cell-phones, tablets, PCs) and Internet platforms (e.g search engines) Consumers continue to spend more time on obtaining product informa-
tion in the multi-channel environment, and large numbers of customers spend 90 percent time to browse products for a comprehensive research before purchasing Big data can be explored in order to facilitate the last-mile service to achieve rapid delivery With the popularity of digital channels and mobile terminals, retail enterprises must deepen the layout of multiple touch points and channels, to realize interactive, personalized and socialized marketing which need a lot of innovations from data technology
Innovative Business Model to Improve Efficiency
Consumers shop online to save money poor logistics infrastructure and last mile networks, poor reverse logistics, Cash on Delivery, lack of an effective online payment mechanism, ineffective administration and legislation leads to higher costs
In addition, omni-channel construction, tion amongst leading enterprises are potential solu-tions toward last mile bottlenecks, facilitate the optimization and upgrade of the whole supply chain From the enterprise perspective, investments into own delivery and payment capabilities can be considered in order to meet the growing demand as well as improve the efficiency, raising customer experience into e-Commerce From policy maker perspective, legislation for e-Commerce should be put in place so that enterprises are more confident into investing and pushing the industry growth
coopera-Logistics infrastructure such as freighters between
Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi, road conditions, port condition…need improvement to bring down total logistics cost
Cross border e-Commerce
Retail sales of import e-commerce still
account-ed for a relatively small proportion in the online retail market in Vietnam There is a huge potential for the development of import e-commerce retail business given the trends This need the support from government in terms of policies, tax tariff,
customer formality process, legislation such as permits, licences, logistics infrastructure From enterprise perspective, cross border supply chain management and operation model need to be trans-formed and make it more efficiency
Investment boosts the development of tive business
innova-e-Commerce industry is finance intensive A great financial pressure to local enterprises in order
to compete with international players Financing raising, M&A have become an essential stage for the transformation of traditional retailing enterpris-
es and as well as local e-tailers This will need a strong support from government from both policy
as well as support
REFERENCES
1 al., G e (2015) Consumer Behavior towards online shopping of Smart Phones in Male- gaon City.
2 al., Ž e (2015) E-Commerce Factors Influencing Consumers' Online Shopping Decision.
3 Anh, L M (2017) E-Commerce-Market Potential in Vietnam Smartosc.
4 Anil Bilgihan et al (2015) Towards a unified customer experience in online shopping environments: Antecedents and outcomes.
5 (2016) China E-Retail Market Report
2016 Deloitte.
6 Chung‐Hoon Park et al (2003) Identifying key factors affecting consumer purchase behavior
in an online shopping context.
7 Constantinides, E (2004) Influencing the online consumer’s behavior: the Web experience.
8 Dardy, A (2017) Vietnam E-Commerce, Need For Speed
9 Dohert, N F ( 2010) Internet retailing: the past, the present and the future.
10 Eleonora et al (2014) The impact of e-Commerce on final deliveries: alternative parcel delivery services in France and Germany.
11 Enrico e al (2012) E-commerce: exploring the critical success factors.
12 Fei Liu et al (2017) The art of appeal in electronic commerce: Understanding the impact of product and website quality on online purchases.
13 (2017) Global E-Commerce Report 2017
E-Commerce Foundation.
14 Jano et al (2017) Destination website quality, users’ attitudes and the willingness to participate in online co-creation experiences.
15 Jin-Feng Wu et al (2015) Multichannel integration quality, online perceived value and online purchase intention: A perspective of land-based retailers.
16 KPMG (2017) The Truth About Online Consumers KPMG.
17 (2017) Last mile delivery: A pain point of online shopping Fung Business Intelligence.
18 Lin Xiao et al (2016) Building loyalty in e-commerce: Towards a multidimensional trust-based framework for the case of China.
on drugs has nearly doubled from 2000 to 2007, accounting for about 40% of total medical costs society
Statistics of the Vietnam Social Insurance recently showed medicine costs are a high proportion (60-70%) of total health care costs health insurance
Drug market in Vietnam is very diverse and rich
in both quantity and quality In 2009, out of 22,615 drug registration numbers which were valid, there were 10,692 and 11,923 domestic pharmaceutical drugs imported from abroad Domestic production value increased from U.S $ 111.4 million in 1996
to U.S $ 919 million in 2010 Drug products produced in the country was increasingly high proportion of the total value of drug consumption,
up from 26% in 1996 to over 48% in 2010
Drugs are increasingly produced in the country
to meet the treatment needs, in 1996, drug tion in the country only has about 3,400 drug names with less than 200 active, but now there are about
produc-500 active substances of 1,produc-500 active ingredients in the drug is registered domestic proportion
The supply of medicines to hospitals must be through bidding based on the current regulations
However, practice has shown that there are some shortcomings issues in the drug supply for patients
in general and patients with health insurance in particular Traditional tender mechanism is not effective, it is necessary to adjust and strengthen the implementation of the tendering process at hospitals and get drug prices more reasonable
The application of electronic tender for the purchase and sale of drugs in public hospitals is inevitable and important to improve the quality and effectiveness of procurement as well as improve the shortcomings that traditional procurement face
Due to weaknesses of chemical, 90% of the materials for production of western drugs are imported The main types of imported pharmaceuti-cal materials are antibiotics and vitamins, which account for more than 80% of the import value
China and India are two biggest exporters of pharmaceutical materials into Vietnam, accounting for 25% and 21% respectively in 2008 As Viet-namese companies at present are mainly producing common drugs, they are using many types of cheap pharmaceutical materials imported from the two countries
The pharmaceutical industry gets access to consumers through treatment distribution system and commercial distribution network
Treatment distribution network The treatment network includes hospitals and other treatment units of different levels The total number of medi-cal examination and treatment units in Vietnam in
2007 was 13,438 Almost all pharmaceutical panies wish to promote this distribution channel because of its large consumption quantity
com-The biggest consumption channel of medicine in Vietnam for treatment products is public hospitals
Pharmaceutical products are provided to hospital through tender Additionally, selling through hospi-tals occupies a high amount of working capital of pharmaceutical companies because hospitals normally settle payment at the end of the year
Commercial distribution network The cial network includes branches, agents, distributors and drugstores At present, domestic pharmaceuti-cal companies are trying their best to promote the commercial distribution channel in order to reduce the dependence on the treatment distribution network which is facing intense competition This distribution network mainly consists of domestic distributors meanwhile there are only three foreign distributors in the market, including Zeullig Pharma, Diethelm and Megaproduct
commer-In this research, the researcher focuses on the supply of pharmaceutical products to public hospi-tals through pharmaceutical tender With an aim to promote the application of e-tender in pharmaceuti-cal sector, the researcher has conducts the research
in the context of the North Western
The supply of pharmaceutical products in public hospitals in the North Western reflects many gener-
al characteristics of Vietnam pharmaceutical supply regulations such as medicine is supplied through tender At each province, the Department of Health will develop the tender plan annually or for every 6 months (medicines are bought according to the list
of essential medicines) The budget for this tender
comes from (1) national budget, (2) health ance, and (3) hospital revenue Pharmaceutical suppliers are those who have capabilities, experi-ences and conditions to take part in the tender The tender is valid in 1 year
insur-However, this tender carries in itself many lems including:
prob-Information of tender is public only on “Tender Magazine”, a quite unpopular magazine that not many people follow which make many tenders unaware of the tenders
Tender documents are sold only at tender er’s office which is sometimes a geographic chal-lenge to many bidders
own-Some staff members of the tender owner are sometimes even do not want to sell too many tender documents to avoid evaluating to many bidders’
documents
Time for preparing and submitting tender ments is too short while most of the provinces in the North Western are quite far from central areas This makes many bidders unable to participate in tender
docu-The tender evaluation scale reflects some unfair criteria
The traditional tender costs time, effort and money a lot
of the value of the work When considered against
a success ratio of, say, one in five, Hughes reported that the cost of each winning bid can be as much as 6% of the value of the work In addition, the cost of tendering was considered to be very expensive by 93% of respondents to an eTendering survey carried out by CITA in 2006
Barriers to application of e-tenderMartin (2003) found during his UK survey that project collaboration technologies had a number of advantages, some of which were discussed in the above paragraphs, and disadvantages As discussed earlier, the advantages of such a system includes items, such as, increased transparency, speed of information transfer and increased accessibility On the negative side, Martin found that individuals
revealed there was a cost, in both time and money,
to print scale drawings Additionally, it was lished that some members did not have adequate IT and there was a lack of a filing index
estab-More relevant to eTendering is the paper by Eadie et al., (2007) Their literature review and survey suggest that there were eleven marked barri-ers to the eTendering process being undertaken in Northern Ireland These barriers were: the legal position of e-procurement, company culture, upper management support, IT infrastructure, IT systems too costly, lack of technical expertise, lack of e-pro-curement knowledge / skilled personnel, lack of business relationship with suppliers providing e-procurement, security of transactions, interopera-bility concerns, no business benefit realised
Transparency problemsAlso, “trust” is an overused word when discuss-ing procurement According to Kashiwagi, “Trust and rules of encouragement are not enough Trans-parency is what is needed When there is only trust, risk goes up” When there is transparency everyone knows what is going on and can address issues in a timely manner, reducing risk and liability Then
“trust” is not necessary anymore The job of the contractor is to “educate the client” and “the client must learn to let go of the controls” This, he says, requires a “paradigm shift” in the process
Of course such a shift does not happen night And when listening to the issues confronting Peter Lundhus with the Fehmarnbelt Link project, the question becomes how do you overcome the obstacles that hinder communication and coopera-tive, pro-active contractor contributions? For the Fehmarnbelt Link, a State Treaty between Den-mark and Germany was signed in 2006 with the intention to build starting in 2008 with completion scheduled for 2020 The first issue confronting the Fehmarnbelt group was determining whether a bridge or tunnel would be the most reasonable connection between northern Germany and south-ern Denmark
over-Procurement of Medicine in Public Hospitals in Viet Nam
In medicine management, the State issued lations to ensure public medicines are procured efficiently and patients are provided with good and cheap medicines The inter-ministerial Circular No 10/2007/TTLT-BYT-BTC dated 10/8/2007 of the Ministry of Health – Ministry of Finance provided
regu-guidelines on 3 forms of procurement
including:-Concentrated procurement (form 1) With this
form, the Ministry of Health will organize the
concentrated procurement of medicines of frequent
demand and big quantity for all local public health
units The list of procured medicines will be
consolidated based on the demand of local public
health care centers The procurement of medicines
will be conducted directly between public health
care units and selected medicine providers
Representative procurement (form 2): Under
this form, Departments of Health shall assign one
or some health care units to organize the
represent-ative procurement (usually the provincial hospital
and one district hospital Traditional medicines will
be procured by the provincial traditional hospital
Other public health care units will use the
procure-ment results for their buying of medicines
Apply-ing this form, medicine prices will be fixed
consist-ently throughout the province but the portfolio of
medicines of other hospitals will depend on the list
of procured medicines Selected medicine
provid-ers will provide medicines for hospitals directly or
through an authorized providers
Independently procurement (Form 3): With this
form, public hospitals will conduct the
procure-ment of medicines by themselves The list of
procured medicines will be developed based on the
need of each hospital Selected prices of medicines
may not be consistent among hospitals This form
is usually applied in central hospitals
Research Methodology
The target population was 250 medicine traders
in Vietnam provided by Ministry of Health of
Viet-nam The target response ratio was determined
based on the distribution of the respondents based
on their geographic allocation The sample list was
compiled by a randomized selection of the
respond-ents in each province to meet the expected response
ratio In cases in which a response could not be
reasonably be obtained from a company in the
sample list, a substitute was included being the next
firm on the list
The scope of interviews was based on variables
of the research framework, covering transparency,
competitiveness, equality, procurement fees and
international participants Therefore the
respond-ents needed to understand and have the authority to
provide the necessary data; therefore, the
respond-ents should be directors of these companies
The variables for study included demographic variables, respondent profile The study had inde-
pendent variables (transparency, competitiveness, equality, procurement fees and international partic-
ipants) and a dependent variable (pharmaceutical e-tender).The quantitative study was applied to 250
valid companies The Cronbach’s Alpha ( ) was used to test the reliability of the research variables
The results of the Cronbach’s Alpha ( ) are all over 0.9 for all variables as below:
Reliability Statistics
Trang 9ty of products offered on e-commerce sites via the latter’s web interface (Jiang and Benbasat, 2004)
Conceivably, consumers’ purchase intentions are driven by the extent to which their positive feelings about e-commerce sites are induced by trustworthy signals that are costly to manipulate (Walther and Parks, 2002)
Park and Kim (2003; 17) stated that consumers' trust to a provider or supplier results with becoming committed to the company Trust issue is exceeding with a few successful transactions, after individuals start feel safe and believe that this supplier answers their needs and wants On the other hand, provided information is another issue in terms of online shopping for Park and Kim (2003;17) Since online shopping is an activity which related to a comput-er-system, individuals cannot touch or feel prod-ucts Therefore, their decisions based on the infor-mation that provided by online retailer Information issue not only important in terms of availability situation, it is also important in convenience and personalization concept Web site design, access to information, access time to information also influ-ence on behaviors of consumers
There is a positive relationship between consumers’ familiarity with an e-commerce site and their trust in this site (Kim et al., 2008) As during the final product decision stage, price remains as the most common consideration when consumers are deciding where to buy (Figure 2.8),
particularly in certain categories such as ics Having a website that consumers like and/or trust is also important, especially in Asia, where consumers said buying from a preferred website was more important than price (KPMG, 2017) According to many authors, an effective website design is critical to the success of electronic com-merce, and the functionality, usability, ease-of-nav-igation and interfaces of the websites themselves are vital building blocks for sustainable success (Constantinides, 2004; Yen et al., 2007; Lim et al.,
electron-2009, Colla and Lapoule, 2011)
Best Delivery Options/ Price
Price and Delivery options are one of the most
important factors to drive consumers online (KPMG, 2017)
Young generation are no longer satisfied to place orders via mobile phones, they also hope to receive goods more quickly Instant gratification has become a feature of this generation of users Some research show that 63 percent of post-80s and 90s are very interested in same-day delivery, even half of them are willing to pay premiums for
it Therefore, enterprises can provide instant
servic-es such as same-day delivery, online purchase and offline pickup, etc., to keep pace with the consump-tion habits of the young generation and improve user experience Finally, in terms of aftersales service, enterprises can simplify procedures and optimize service experience through a series of aftersales services provided directly on APP including goods exchanging and purchase feed-backs (Deloitte, 2017)
Last mile delivery is one of the paint paints of online shopping in China (Fung Business Intelli-gence, 2017)
Rich Assortment
Merchandising includes product-related
charac-teristics such as assortment, variety, and product
information (Jarvenpaa and Todd, 1997) Rich
product assortment can increase the probability that
consumer-needs will be met and satisfied The
online shopping environment enables consumers to
reduce their decision-making efforts by providing
vast selection, information screening, reliability,
and product comparison (Alba et al, 1997) The
research conducted by Q&Me shown that Product
variety is one of the reasons to shop online for
identi-nam From this framework, policy makers, researchers and enterprises can cooperate to devel-
op a better environment for eCommerce market to grow Implication of the quantitative and qualita-
tive theory and practice emanating from the
find-ings were discussed in depth and implications involving policy were speculated upon based on a review of the literature This research has contribut-
ed to the body of knowledge by providing a ical framework for proving the relationship between winning online consumers in Vietnam and its possible attributes
theoret-The study also raised questions requiring further research that is theoretical and practical interest
Improving and boosting eCommerce in Vietnam will continue challenge the enterprises, governors, managers and researchers Therefore, this is a topic that will continue to have and require continuous research
Findings
Statistics and results from the analysis reveal many things about the five factors that have influ-enced on winning the online consumers in Vietnam
- Product categories that customers frequently purchase online are household/appliances, elec-tronics, clothing, cosmetics, toys and books
- Vietnamese people have had the tendency purchasing online
- Many people agree that price is important for them to decide buying online and they will prefer online shopping only if online prices are lower than offline prices
- However, price is not enough to convert people from offline to online Many people also agree that they must trust an e-retailer before making a purchase and the ease and user-friendliness of the website will win consumers from one website over another
- Most of the survey participants also agree that one of the conveniences of online shopping is home delivery which is important for consumers Along with this, order tracking visibility, delivery speed and shipping fee are important for consumers and impact consumer experience
- Many people believe that large selection of products is also important for consumers to decide purchasing online However, it does not mean that
online shopping offers better variety than
tradition-al stores
- The fact that online consumers rely on pictures, images, description of the website/platform to purchase products People also believe that detailed description and information availability to every product is important when shopping online
- Vietnamese consumers love shopping online and they believe that that online shopping trend is given and will be taking over a big part of tradition-
al shopping The biggest concerns are security and trust over the websites
Product price and website preference are the most factors over winning online consumers in Vietnamese in which trust over e-tailers, website appearance, website user-friendliness, the ability for customers to interact with platforms, terms and conditions of the platforms over online purchase transactions are all critical to win online consumers from one platform over another, from traditional shopping over online shopping
There are three specific objectives in this research Two of them have been addressed after this analysis
- Objective number one: find out consumers perceptions over e-Commerce, Online Shopping and their belief on the future of e-Commerce indus-try in Vietnam The research results have shown
and evolving The rapid growth of the internet and mobile usage has been helping e-Commerce to be established as a new shopping channel rapidly
Though Vietnamese online consumers have some concerns over online shopping, the answer to the question whether online consumers believe in e-Com- merce growth and future in Vietnam is “Yes” They continue purchasing online The average revenue per user continues increasing from US dollar 55 in 2016 to
US dollar 70.18 currently
- Objective number two: find out five attributes of winning online consumers in Vietnam have been iden- tified including: best price, website preference, best delivery options/price, rich assortment and product and service Of which, “website preference” is the
most critical, even over “Best price” while “Rich assortment” can give negative impact Having trusted website will always be important Competitive pricing
is expected to rise in the importance during the tion what website to purchase Price and promotions most likely influence consumers’ decision on what product or brand to buy online Advances in technolo-
selec-gy, data technoloselec-gy, logistics, payment methods, consumer demand for convenience and trust are much higher than before Price is important for online consumers However, price does not guarantee sales
Shopping experience, keeping pace with consumers’
preferences today and tomorrow are important with all enterprises, especially e-Commerce enterprises
to attract and win online consumers Beyond quick and good customer service, the right content strate-
gy is also critical The research results have shown e-Commerce Startups, new entrance, and even growing e-Commerce platforms that to win, they need to transform and build a customer-centric and virtually borderless operating model The facts are online consumers easily move back and forth between online and offline, from one website to another website to check prices before deciding the online purchase, having the efficient supply chain, the lean and agile last mile operations will be important for e-Commerce enterprises Younger generation are increasingly comfortable with buying products online without seeing them first
However, they also have much higher demand for quick delivery, low shipping fee or even free ship-ping Companies will need to innovate in order to have shorter delivery time, lowest last mile cost in order to satisfy demanding consumer expectations
if they would like to win online consumers The research results have met the research objectives, helping companies to understand that providing positive and unique shopping experience is one of the most critical motivators to win
- The final objective will be addressed in the recommendation
Research limitations
The research was done based on general
condi-tions and do not specify to a particular e-business and may not necessarily be applicable to a particu-lar e-business Therefore, the future research can be done by product group
Practical implications
Attributes identified by this study could help E-commerce Start-ups, International E-commerce entering Vietnamese online market to better form their online e-marketing strategies in terms of geography areas, customer preference to attract Vietnamese consumers online first, then choose their website over others
Recommendations
Human resource development for e-Commerce
Vietnam is thirsty for e-Commerce talents
According to Vietnamworks.com (ranked in the 171thplace among the most visited websites in Vietnam15), the labour demand of the internet/
online media category has dramatically increased
in recent years The vacancies related to merce including internet/ online media staffs hold 9% of the total advertised vacancies on this web-site Up to September 2015, Vietnam had more than 513,000 enterprises with more than 12.8 million labours According to Vecita’s 2015 survey, approximately 45% of enterprises had websites on which information was periodically updated The number of enterprises having websites was around 200,000 If each enterprise is estimated to have one e-Commerce specialized staff that may be a techni-cal, online sale, marketing, staff, delivery or human resource management staff; or manager…, the total e-commerce specialized staffs could reach at least 200,000 (Vecita, 2017) Availability of well-trained resource will be critical to boosting the growth of Vietnam e-Commerce as well as facilitating employment goals Hence adequate steps should be taken by government to ensure availability of quali-
e-com-ty resource for e-Commerce Colleges, Universities and Vocational School should be encouraged to formulate a Training Programme, Materials, Meth-ods, source of qualify lecturers for e-Commerce
Enhance Consumer Trust Toward merce
E-Com-One of the key factors to grow e-Commerce share in Vietnam is to improve consumers’ trust-worthiness toward e-Commerce This require the effort from both enterprises and government
E-tailers can pay attention to building their tion, invest more on online or offline advertise-ments, pay attention to the reviews generated by consumers, which spread fast in the online environ-ment E-tailers also need to invest into information quality and security protections for consumers
reputa-Information quality here refers to ensure the racy, completeness, and updates of the product information on their websites (the products display style, virtual design of the website, and photograph processing…) E-tailers can select trusted and repu-table payment tools, invest into data protection which can help improve the security protection for consumers
accu-Enhance online shopping experience through data technological innovations
More and more innovative technologies should
be applied in order to enhance customer ence, e.g integrate virtual information into the real world to generate more comprehensive experience through integration of virtual information and reali-
experi-ty According to Deloitte’s 2015 Global Mobile Consumer Survey, China Edition, almost all awakened mobile consumers across the world check their phones at least once in three hours, while in emerging markets 93 percent awakened consumers check their phones in one hour or less, and people in the Asia Pacific region are most addictive to smartphone Socialized online shopping is a critical trend drive users’ final purchase if enterprises can integrate functions such as socializing, payment and shopping Con-sumers can know product information more quickly through various devices (e.g
cell-phones, tablets, PCs) and Internet platforms (e.g search engines) Consumers continue to spend more time on obtaining product informa-
tion in the multi-channel environment, and large numbers of customers spend 90 percent time to browse products for a comprehensive research before purchasing Big data can be explored in order to facilitate the last-mile service to achieve rapid delivery With the popularity of digital channels and mobile terminals, retail enterprises must deepen the layout of multiple touch points and channels, to realize interactive, personalized and socialized marketing which need a lot of innovations from data technology
Innovative Business Model to Improve Efficiency
Consumers shop online to save money poor logistics infrastructure and last mile networks, poor reverse logistics, Cash on Delivery, lack of an effective online payment mechanism, ineffective administration and legislation leads to higher costs
In addition, omni-channel construction, tion amongst leading enterprises are potential solu-tions toward last mile bottlenecks, facilitate the optimization and upgrade of the whole supply chain From the enterprise perspective, investments into own delivery and payment capabilities can be considered in order to meet the growing demand as well as improve the efficiency, raising customer experience into e-Commerce From policy maker perspective, legislation for e-Commerce should be put in place so that enterprises are more confident into investing and pushing the industry growth
coopera-Logistics infrastructure such as freighters between
Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi, road conditions, port condition…need improvement to bring down total logistics cost
Cross border e-Commerce
Retail sales of import e-commerce still
account-ed for a relatively small proportion in the online retail market in Vietnam There is a huge potential for the development of import e-commerce retail business given the trends This need the support from government in terms of policies, tax tariff,
customer formality process, legislation such as permits, licences, logistics infrastructure From enterprise perspective, cross border supply chain management and operation model need to be trans-formed and make it more efficiency
Investment boosts the development of tive business
innova-e-Commerce industry is finance intensive A great financial pressure to local enterprises in order
to compete with international players Financing raising, M&A have become an essential stage for the transformation of traditional retailing enterpris-
es and as well as local e-tailers This will need a strong support from government from both policy
as well as support
REFERENCES
1 al., G e (2015) Consumer Behavior towards online shopping of Smart Phones in Male- gaon City.
2 al., Ž e (2015) E-Commerce Factors Influencing Consumers' Online Shopping Decision.
3 Anh, L M (2017) E-Commerce-Market Potential in Vietnam Smartosc.
4 Anil Bilgihan et al (2015) Towards a unified customer experience in online shopping environments: Antecedents and outcomes.
5 (2016) China E-Retail Market Report
2016 Deloitte.
6 Chung‐Hoon Park et al (2003) Identifying key factors affecting consumer purchase behavior
in an online shopping context.
7 Constantinides, E (2004) Influencing the online consumer’s behavior: the Web experience.
8 Dardy, A (2017) Vietnam E-Commerce, Need For Speed
9 Dohert, N F ( 2010) Internet retailing: the past, the present and the future.
10 Eleonora et al (2014) The impact of e-Commerce on final deliveries: alternative parcel delivery services in France and Germany.
11 Enrico e al (2012) E-commerce: exploring the critical success factors.
12 Fei Liu et al (2017) The art of appeal in electronic commerce: Understanding the impact of product and website quality on online purchases.
13 (2017) Global E-Commerce Report 2017
E-Commerce Foundation.
14 Jano et al (2017) Destination website quality, users’ attitudes and the willingness to participate in online co-creation experiences.
15 Jin-Feng Wu et al (2015) Multichannel integration quality, online perceived value and online purchase intention: A perspective of land-based retailers.
16 KPMG (2017) The Truth About Online Consumers KPMG.
17 (2017) Last mile delivery: A pain point of online shopping Fung Business Intelligence.
18 Lin Xiao et al (2016) Building loyalty in e-commerce: Towards a multidimensional trust-based framework for the case of China.
on drugs has nearly doubled from 2000 to 2007, accounting for about 40% of total medical costs society
Statistics of the Vietnam Social Insurance recently showed medicine costs are a high proportion (60-70%) of total health care costs health insurance
Drug market in Vietnam is very diverse and rich
in both quantity and quality In 2009, out of 22,615 drug registration numbers which were valid, there were 10,692 and 11,923 domestic pharmaceutical drugs imported from abroad Domestic production value increased from U.S $ 111.4 million in 1996
to U.S $ 919 million in 2010 Drug products produced in the country was increasingly high proportion of the total value of drug consumption,
up from 26% in 1996 to over 48% in 2010
Drugs are increasingly produced in the country
to meet the treatment needs, in 1996, drug tion in the country only has about 3,400 drug names with less than 200 active, but now there are about
produc-500 active substances of 1,produc-500 active ingredients in the drug is registered domestic proportion
The supply of medicines to hospitals must be through bidding based on the current regulations
However, practice has shown that there are some shortcomings issues in the drug supply for patients
in general and patients with health insurance in particular Traditional tender mechanism is not effective, it is necessary to adjust and strengthen the implementation of the tendering process at hospitals and get drug prices more reasonable
The application of electronic tender for the purchase and sale of drugs in public hospitals is inevitable and important to improve the quality and effectiveness of procurement as well as improve the shortcomings that traditional procurement face
Due to weaknesses of chemical, 90% of the materials for production of western drugs are imported The main types of imported pharmaceuti-cal materials are antibiotics and vitamins, which account for more than 80% of the import value
China and India are two biggest exporters of pharmaceutical materials into Vietnam, accounting for 25% and 21% respectively in 2008 As Viet-namese companies at present are mainly producing common drugs, they are using many types of cheap pharmaceutical materials imported from the two countries
The pharmaceutical industry gets access to consumers through treatment distribution system and commercial distribution network
Treatment distribution network The treatment network includes hospitals and other treatment units of different levels The total number of medi-cal examination and treatment units in Vietnam in
2007 was 13,438 Almost all pharmaceutical panies wish to promote this distribution channel because of its large consumption quantity
com-The biggest consumption channel of medicine in Vietnam for treatment products is public hospitals
Pharmaceutical products are provided to hospital through tender Additionally, selling through hospi-tals occupies a high amount of working capital of pharmaceutical companies because hospitals normally settle payment at the end of the year
Commercial distribution network The cial network includes branches, agents, distributors and drugstores At present, domestic pharmaceuti-cal companies are trying their best to promote the commercial distribution channel in order to reduce the dependence on the treatment distribution network which is facing intense competition This distribution network mainly consists of domestic distributors meanwhile there are only three foreign distributors in the market, including Zeullig Pharma, Diethelm and Megaproduct
commer-In this research, the researcher focuses on the supply of pharmaceutical products to public hospi-tals through pharmaceutical tender With an aim to promote the application of e-tender in pharmaceuti-cal sector, the researcher has conducts the research
in the context of the North Western
The supply of pharmaceutical products in public hospitals in the North Western reflects many gener-
al characteristics of Vietnam pharmaceutical supply regulations such as medicine is supplied through tender At each province, the Department of Health will develop the tender plan annually or for every 6 months (medicines are bought according to the list
of essential medicines) The budget for this tender
comes from (1) national budget, (2) health ance, and (3) hospital revenue Pharmaceutical suppliers are those who have capabilities, experi-ences and conditions to take part in the tender The tender is valid in 1 year
insur-However, this tender carries in itself many lems including:
prob-Information of tender is public only on “Tender Magazine”, a quite unpopular magazine that not many people follow which make many tenders unaware of the tenders
Tender documents are sold only at tender er’s office which is sometimes a geographic chal-lenge to many bidders
own-Some staff members of the tender owner are sometimes even do not want to sell too many tender documents to avoid evaluating to many bidders’
documents
Time for preparing and submitting tender ments is too short while most of the provinces in the North Western are quite far from central areas This makes many bidders unable to participate in tender
docu-The tender evaluation scale reflects some unfair criteria
The traditional tender costs time, effort and money a lot
of the value of the work When considered against
a success ratio of, say, one in five, Hughes reported that the cost of each winning bid can be as much as 6% of the value of the work In addition, the cost of tendering was considered to be very expensive by 93% of respondents to an eTendering survey carried out by CITA in 2006
Barriers to application of e-tenderMartin (2003) found during his UK survey that project collaboration technologies had a number of advantages, some of which were discussed in the above paragraphs, and disadvantages As discussed earlier, the advantages of such a system includes items, such as, increased transparency, speed of information transfer and increased accessibility On the negative side, Martin found that individuals
revealed there was a cost, in both time and money,
to print scale drawings Additionally, it was lished that some members did not have adequate IT and there was a lack of a filing index
estab-More relevant to eTendering is the paper by Eadie et al., (2007) Their literature review and survey suggest that there were eleven marked barri-ers to the eTendering process being undertaken in Northern Ireland These barriers were: the legal position of e-procurement, company culture, upper management support, IT infrastructure, IT systems too costly, lack of technical expertise, lack of e-pro-curement knowledge / skilled personnel, lack of business relationship with suppliers providing e-procurement, security of transactions, interopera-bility concerns, no business benefit realised
Transparency problemsAlso, “trust” is an overused word when discuss-ing procurement According to Kashiwagi, “Trust and rules of encouragement are not enough Trans-parency is what is needed When there is only trust, risk goes up” When there is transparency everyone knows what is going on and can address issues in a timely manner, reducing risk and liability Then
“trust” is not necessary anymore The job of the contractor is to “educate the client” and “the client must learn to let go of the controls” This, he says, requires a “paradigm shift” in the process
Of course such a shift does not happen night And when listening to the issues confronting Peter Lundhus with the Fehmarnbelt Link project, the question becomes how do you overcome the obstacles that hinder communication and coopera-tive, pro-active contractor contributions? For the Fehmarnbelt Link, a State Treaty between Den-mark and Germany was signed in 2006 with the intention to build starting in 2008 with completion scheduled for 2020 The first issue confronting the Fehmarnbelt group was determining whether a bridge or tunnel would be the most reasonable connection between northern Germany and south-ern Denmark
over-Procurement of Medicine in Public Hospitals in Viet Nam
In medicine management, the State issued lations to ensure public medicines are procured efficiently and patients are provided with good and cheap medicines The inter-ministerial Circular No 10/2007/TTLT-BYT-BTC dated 10/8/2007 of the Ministry of Health – Ministry of Finance provided
regu-guidelines on 3 forms of procurement
including:-Concentrated procurement (form 1) With this
form, the Ministry of Health will organize the
concentrated procurement of medicines of frequent
demand and big quantity for all local public health
units The list of procured medicines will be
consolidated based on the demand of local public
health care centers The procurement of medicines
will be conducted directly between public health
care units and selected medicine providers
Representative procurement (form 2): Under
this form, Departments of Health shall assign one
or some health care units to organize the
represent-ative procurement (usually the provincial hospital
and one district hospital Traditional medicines will
be procured by the provincial traditional hospital
Other public health care units will use the
procure-ment results for their buying of medicines
Apply-ing this form, medicine prices will be fixed
consist-ently throughout the province but the portfolio of
medicines of other hospitals will depend on the list
of procured medicines Selected medicine
provid-ers will provide medicines for hospitals directly or
through an authorized providers
Independently procurement (Form 3): With this
form, public hospitals will conduct the
procure-ment of medicines by themselves The list of
procured medicines will be developed based on the
need of each hospital Selected prices of medicines
may not be consistent among hospitals This form
is usually applied in central hospitals
Research Methodology
The target population was 250 medicine traders
in Vietnam provided by Ministry of Health of
Viet-nam The target response ratio was determined
based on the distribution of the respondents based
on their geographic allocation The sample list was
compiled by a randomized selection of the
respond-ents in each province to meet the expected response
ratio In cases in which a response could not be
reasonably be obtained from a company in the
sample list, a substitute was included being the next
firm on the list
The scope of interviews was based on variables
of the research framework, covering transparency,
competitiveness, equality, procurement fees and
international participants Therefore the
respond-ents needed to understand and have the authority to
provide the necessary data; therefore, the
respond-ents should be directors of these companies
The variables for study included demographic variables, respondent profile The study had inde-
pendent variables (transparency, competitiveness, equality, procurement fees and international partic-
ipants) and a dependent variable (pharmaceutical e-tender).The quantitative study was applied to 250
valid companies The Cronbach’s Alpha ( ) was used to test the reliability of the research variables
The results of the Cronbach’s Alpha ( ) are all over 0.9 for all variables as below:
Reliability Statistics
Trang 10.+2$+&9j&1*1*+ ơ1*ơTạp chí.LQKQJKLÇP7KâFWLỈQ
ty of products offered on e-commerce sites via the latter’s web interface (Jiang and Benbasat, 2004)
Conceivably, consumers’ purchase intentions are driven by the extent to which their positive feelings about e-commerce sites are induced by trustworthy signals that are costly to manipulate (Walther and Parks, 2002)
Park and Kim (2003; 17) stated that consumers' trust to a provider or supplier results with becoming committed to the company Trust issue is exceeding with a few successful transactions, after individuals start feel safe and believe that this supplier answers their needs and wants On the other hand, provided information is another issue in terms of online shopping for Park and Kim (2003;17) Since online shopping is an activity which related to a comput-er-system, individuals cannot touch or feel prod-ucts Therefore, their decisions based on the infor-mation that provided by online retailer Information issue not only important in terms of availability situation, it is also important in convenience and personalization concept Web site design, access to information, access time to information also influ-ence on behaviors of consumers
There is a positive relationship between consumers’ familiarity with an e-commerce site and their trust in this site (Kim et al., 2008) As during the final product decision stage, price remains as the most common consideration when consumers are deciding where to buy (Figure 2.8),
particularly in certain categories such as ics Having a website that consumers like and/or trust is also important, especially in Asia, where consumers said buying from a preferred website was more important than price (KPMG, 2017) According to many authors, an effective website design is critical to the success of electronic com-merce, and the functionality, usability, ease-of-nav-igation and interfaces of the websites themselves are vital building blocks for sustainable success (Constantinides, 2004; Yen et al., 2007; Lim et al.,
electron-2009, Colla and Lapoule, 2011)
Best Delivery Options/ Price
Price and Delivery options are one of the most
important factors to drive consumers online (KPMG, 2017)
Young generation are no longer satisfied to place orders via mobile phones, they also hope to receive goods more quickly Instant gratification has become a feature of this generation of users Some research show that 63 percent of post-80s and 90s are very interested in same-day delivery, even half of them are willing to pay premiums for
it Therefore, enterprises can provide instant
servic-es such as same-day delivery, online purchase and offline pickup, etc., to keep pace with the consump-tion habits of the young generation and improve user experience Finally, in terms of aftersales service, enterprises can simplify procedures and optimize service experience through a series of aftersales services provided directly on APP including goods exchanging and purchase feed-backs (Deloitte, 2017)
Last mile delivery is one of the paint paints of online shopping in China (Fung Business Intelli-gence, 2017)
Rich Assortment
Merchandising includes product-related
charac-teristics such as assortment, variety, and product
information (Jarvenpaa and Todd, 1997) Rich
product assortment can increase the probability that
consumer-needs will be met and satisfied The
online shopping environment enables consumers to
reduce their decision-making efforts by providing
vast selection, information screening, reliability,
and product comparison (Alba et al, 1997) The
research conducted by Q&Me shown that Product
variety is one of the reasons to shop online for
identi-nam From this framework, policy makers, researchers and enterprises can cooperate to devel-
op a better environment for eCommerce market to grow Implication of the quantitative and qualita-
tive theory and practice emanating from the
find-ings were discussed in depth and implications involving policy were speculated upon based on a
review of the literature This research has
contribut-ed to the body of knowlcontribut-edge by providing a ical framework for proving the relationship
theoret-between winning online consumers in Vietnam and its possible attributes
The study also raised questions requiring further research that is theoretical and practical interest
Improving and boosting eCommerce in Vietnam will continue challenge the enterprises, governors,
managers and researchers Therefore, this is a topic that will continue to have and require continuous
research
Findings
Statistics and results from the analysis reveal many things about the five factors that have influ-
enced on winning the online consumers in Vietnam
- Product categories that customers frequently purchase online are household/appliances, elec-
tronics, clothing, cosmetics, toys and books
- Vietnamese people have had the tendency purchasing online
- Many people agree that price is important for them to decide buying online and they will prefer online shopping only if online prices are lower than
offline prices
- However, price is not enough to convert people from offline to online Many people also agree that they must trust an e-retailer before making a
purchase and the ease and user-friendliness of the website will win consumers from one website over
another
- Most of the survey participants also agree that one of the conveniences of online shopping is home delivery which is important for consumers Along
with this, order tracking visibility, delivery speed and shipping fee are important for consumers and
impact consumer experience
- Many people believe that large selection of products is also important for consumers to decide
purchasing online However, it does not mean that
online shopping offers better variety than
product is important when shopping online
- Vietnamese consumers love shopping online and they believe that that online shopping trend is given and will be taking over a big part of tradition-
al shopping The biggest concerns are security and trust over the websites
Product price and website preference are the most factors over winning online consumers in Vietnamese in which trust over e-tailers, website appearance, website user-friendliness, the ability for customers to interact with platforms, terms and
conditions of the platforms over online purchase transactions are all critical to win online consumers
from one platform over another, from traditional shopping over online shopping
There are three specific objectives in this research Two of them have been addressed after
this analysis
- Objective number one: find out consumers perceptions over e-Commerce, Online Shopping and their belief on the future of e-Commerce indus-
try in Vietnam The research results have shown
and evolving The rapid growth of the internet and mobile usage has been helping e-Commerce to be established as a new shopping channel rapidly
Though Vietnamese online consumers have some concerns over online shopping, the answer to the question whether online consumers believe in e-Com-
merce growth and future in Vietnam is “Yes” They continue purchasing online The average revenue per
user continues increasing from US dollar 55 in 2016 to
most critical, even over “Best price” while “Rich assortment” can give negative impact Having trusted website will always be important Competitive pricing
is expected to rise in the importance during the tion what website to purchase Price and promotions most likely influence consumers’ decision on what product or brand to buy online Advances in technolo-
selec-gy, data technoloselec-gy, logistics, payment methods, consumer demand for convenience and trust are much higher than before Price is important for online consumers However, price does not guarantee sales
Shopping experience, keeping pace with consumers’
preferences today and tomorrow are important with all enterprises, especially e-Commerce enterprises
to attract and win online consumers Beyond quick and good customer service, the right content strate-
gy is also critical The research results have shown e-Commerce Startups, new entrance, and even growing e-Commerce platforms that to win, they need to transform and build a customer-centric and virtually borderless operating model The facts are online consumers easily move back and forth between online and offline, from one website to another website to check prices before deciding the online purchase, having the efficient supply chain, the lean and agile last mile operations will be important for e-Commerce enterprises Younger generation are increasingly comfortable with buying products online without seeing them first
However, they also have much higher demand for quick delivery, low shipping fee or even free ship-ping Companies will need to innovate in order to have shorter delivery time, lowest last mile cost in order to satisfy demanding consumer expectations
if they would like to win online consumers The research results have met the research objectives, helping companies to understand that providing positive and unique shopping experience is one of the most critical motivators to win
- The final objective will be addressed in the recommendation
Research limitations
The research was done based on general
condi-tions and do not specify to a particular e-business and may not necessarily be applicable to a particu-lar e-business Therefore, the future research can be done by product group
Practical implications
Attributes identified by this study could help E-commerce Start-ups, International E-commerce entering Vietnamese online market to better form their online e-marketing strategies in terms of geography areas, customer preference to attract Vietnamese consumers online first, then choose their website over others
Recommendations
Human resource development for e-Commerce
Vietnam is thirsty for e-Commerce talents
According to Vietnamworks.com (ranked in the 171thplace among the most visited websites in Vietnam15), the labour demand of the internet/
online media category has dramatically increased
in recent years The vacancies related to merce including internet/ online media staffs hold 9% of the total advertised vacancies on this web-site Up to September 2015, Vietnam had more than 513,000 enterprises with more than 12.8 million labours According to Vecita’s 2015 survey, approximately 45% of enterprises had websites on which information was periodically updated The number of enterprises having websites was around 200,000 If each enterprise is estimated to have one e-Commerce specialized staff that may be a techni-cal, online sale, marketing, staff, delivery or human resource management staff; or manager…, the total e-commerce specialized staffs could reach at least 200,000 (Vecita, 2017) Availability of well-trained resource will be critical to boosting the growth of Vietnam e-Commerce as well as facilitating employment goals Hence adequate steps should be taken by government to ensure availability of quali-
e-com-ty resource for e-Commerce Colleges, Universities and Vocational School should be encouraged to formulate a Training Programme, Materials, Meth-ods, source of qualify lecturers for e-Commerce
Enhance Consumer Trust Toward merce
E-Com-One of the key factors to grow e-Commerce share in Vietnam is to improve consumers’ trust-worthiness toward e-Commerce This require the effort from both enterprises and government
E-tailers can pay attention to building their tion, invest more on online or offline advertise-ments, pay attention to the reviews generated by consumers, which spread fast in the online environ-ment E-tailers also need to invest into information quality and security protections for consumers
reputa-Information quality here refers to ensure the racy, completeness, and updates of the product information on their websites (the products display style, virtual design of the website, and photograph processing…) E-tailers can select trusted and repu-table payment tools, invest into data protection which can help improve the security protection for consumers
accu-Enhance online shopping experience through data technological innovations
More and more innovative technologies should
be applied in order to enhance customer ence, e.g integrate virtual information into the real world to generate more comprehensive experience through integration of virtual information and reali-
experi-ty According to Deloitte’s 2015 Global Mobile Consumer Survey, China Edition, almost all awakened mobile consumers across the world check their phones at least once in three hours, while in emerging markets 93 percent awakened consumers check their phones in one hour or less, and people in the Asia Pacific region are most addictive to smartphone Socialized online shopping is a critical trend drive users’ final purchase if enterprises can integrate functions such as socializing, payment and shopping Con-sumers can know product information more quickly through various devices (e.g
cell-phones, tablets, PCs) and Internet platforms (e.g search engines) Consumers continue to spend more time on obtaining product informa-
tion in the multi-channel environment, and large numbers of customers spend 90 percent time to browse products for a comprehensive research before purchasing Big data can be explored in order to facilitate the last-mile service to achieve rapid delivery With the popularity of digital channels and mobile terminals, retail enterprises must deepen the layout of multiple touch points and channels, to realize interactive, personalized and socialized marketing which need a lot of innovations from data technology
Innovative Business Model to Improve Efficiency
Consumers shop online to save money poor logistics infrastructure and last mile networks, poor reverse logistics, Cash on Delivery, lack of an effective online payment mechanism, ineffective administration and legislation leads to higher costs
In addition, omni-channel construction, tion amongst leading enterprises are potential solu-tions toward last mile bottlenecks, facilitate the optimization and upgrade of the whole supply chain From the enterprise perspective, investments into own delivery and payment capabilities can be considered in order to meet the growing demand as well as improve the efficiency, raising customer experience into e-Commerce From policy maker perspective, legislation for e-Commerce should be put in place so that enterprises are more confident into investing and pushing the industry growth
coopera-Logistics infrastructure such as freighters between
Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi, road conditions, port condition…need improvement to bring down total logistics cost
Cross border e-Commerce
Retail sales of import e-commerce still
account-ed for a relatively small proportion in the online retail market in Vietnam There is a huge potential for the development of import e-commerce retail business given the trends This need the support from government in terms of policies, tax tariff,
customer formality process, legislation such as permits, licences, logistics infrastructure From enterprise perspective, cross border supply chain management and operation model need to be trans-formed and make it more efficiency
Investment boosts the development of tive business
innova-e-Commerce industry is finance intensive A great financial pressure to local enterprises in order
to compete with international players Financing raising, M&A have become an essential stage for the transformation of traditional retailing enterpris-
es and as well as local e-tailers This will need a strong support from government from both policy
as well as support
REFERENCES
1 al., G e (2015) Consumer Behavior towards online shopping of Smart Phones in Male- gaon City.
2 al., Ž e (2015) E-Commerce Factors Influencing Consumers' Online Shopping Decision.
3 Anh, L M (2017) E-Commerce-Market Potential in Vietnam Smartosc.
4 Anil Bilgihan et al (2015) Towards a unified customer experience in online shopping environments: Antecedents and outcomes.
5 (2016) China E-Retail Market Report
2016 Deloitte.
6 Chung‐Hoon Park et al (2003) Identifying key factors affecting consumer purchase behavior
in an online shopping context.
7 Constantinides, E (2004) Influencing the online consumer’s behavior: the Web experience.
8 Dardy, A (2017) Vietnam E-Commerce, Need For Speed
9 Dohert, N F ( 2010) Internet retailing: the past, the present and the future.
10 Eleonora et al (2014) The impact of e-Commerce on final deliveries: alternative parcel delivery services in France and Germany.
11 Enrico e al (2012) E-commerce: exploring the critical success factors.
12 Fei Liu et al (2017) The art of appeal in electronic commerce: Understanding the impact of product and website quality on online purchases.
13 (2017) Global E-Commerce Report 2017
E-Commerce Foundation.
14 Jano et al (2017) Destination website quality, users’ attitudes and the willingness to participate in online co-creation experiences.
15 Jin-Feng Wu et al (2015) Multichannel integration quality, online perceived value and online purchase intention: A perspective of land-based retailers.
16 KPMG (2017) The Truth About Online Consumers KPMG.
17 (2017) Last mile delivery: A pain point of online shopping Fung Business Intelligence.
18 Lin Xiao et al (2016) Building loyalty in e-commerce: Towards a multidimensional trust-based framework for the case of China.
on drugs has nearly doubled from 2000 to 2007, accounting for about 40% of total medical costs society
Statistics of the Vietnam Social Insurance recently showed medicine costs are a high proportion (60-70%) of total health care costs health insurance
Drug market in Vietnam is very diverse and rich
in both quantity and quality In 2009, out of 22,615 drug registration numbers which were valid, there were 10,692 and 11,923 domestic pharmaceutical drugs imported from abroad Domestic production value increased from U.S $ 111.4 million in 1996
to U.S $ 919 million in 2010 Drug products produced in the country was increasingly high proportion of the total value of drug consumption,
up from 26% in 1996 to over 48% in 2010
Drugs are increasingly produced in the country
to meet the treatment needs, in 1996, drug tion in the country only has about 3,400 drug names with less than 200 active, but now there are about
produc-500 active substances of 1,produc-500 active ingredients in the drug is registered domestic proportion
The supply of medicines to hospitals must be through bidding based on the current regulations
However, practice has shown that there are some shortcomings issues in the drug supply for patients
in general and patients with health insurance in particular Traditional tender mechanism is not effective, it is necessary to adjust and strengthen the implementation of the tendering process at hospitals and get drug prices more reasonable
The application of electronic tender for the purchase and sale of drugs in public hospitals is inevitable and important to improve the quality and effectiveness of procurement as well as improve the shortcomings that traditional procurement face
Due to weaknesses of chemical, 90% of the materials for production of western drugs are imported The main types of imported pharmaceuti-cal materials are antibiotics and vitamins, which account for more than 80% of the import value
China and India are two biggest exporters of pharmaceutical materials into Vietnam, accounting for 25% and 21% respectively in 2008 As Viet-namese companies at present are mainly producing common drugs, they are using many types of cheap pharmaceutical materials imported from the two countries
The pharmaceutical industry gets access to consumers through treatment distribution system and commercial distribution network
Treatment distribution network The treatment network includes hospitals and other treatment units of different levels The total number of medi-cal examination and treatment units in Vietnam in
2007 was 13,438 Almost all pharmaceutical panies wish to promote this distribution channel because of its large consumption quantity
com-The biggest consumption channel of medicine in Vietnam for treatment products is public hospitals
Pharmaceutical products are provided to hospital through tender Additionally, selling through hospi-tals occupies a high amount of working capital of pharmaceutical companies because hospitals normally settle payment at the end of the year
Commercial distribution network The cial network includes branches, agents, distributors and drugstores At present, domestic pharmaceuti-cal companies are trying their best to promote the commercial distribution channel in order to reduce the dependence on the treatment distribution network which is facing intense competition This distribution network mainly consists of domestic distributors meanwhile there are only three foreign distributors in the market, including Zeullig Pharma, Diethelm and Megaproduct
commer-In this research, the researcher focuses on the supply of pharmaceutical products to public hospi-tals through pharmaceutical tender With an aim to promote the application of e-tender in pharmaceuti-cal sector, the researcher has conducts the research
in the context of the North Western
The supply of pharmaceutical products in public hospitals in the North Western reflects many gener-
al characteristics of Vietnam pharmaceutical supply regulations such as medicine is supplied through tender At each province, the Department of Health will develop the tender plan annually or for every 6 months (medicines are bought according to the list
of essential medicines) The budget for this tender
comes from (1) national budget, (2) health ance, and (3) hospital revenue Pharmaceutical suppliers are those who have capabilities, experi-ences and conditions to take part in the tender The tender is valid in 1 year
insur-However, this tender carries in itself many lems including:
prob-Information of tender is public only on “Tender Magazine”, a quite unpopular magazine that not many people follow which make many tenders unaware of the tenders
Tender documents are sold only at tender er’s office which is sometimes a geographic chal-lenge to many bidders
own-Some staff members of the tender owner are sometimes even do not want to sell too many tender documents to avoid evaluating to many bidders’
documents
Time for preparing and submitting tender ments is too short while most of the provinces in the North Western are quite far from central areas This makes many bidders unable to participate in tender
docu-The tender evaluation scale reflects some unfair criteria
The traditional tender costs time, effort and money a lot
of the value of the work When considered against
a success ratio of, say, one in five, Hughes reported that the cost of each winning bid can be as much as 6% of the value of the work In addition, the cost of tendering was considered to be very expensive by 93% of respondents to an eTendering survey carried out by CITA in 2006
Barriers to application of e-tenderMartin (2003) found during his UK survey that project collaboration technologies had a number of advantages, some of which were discussed in the above paragraphs, and disadvantages As discussed earlier, the advantages of such a system includes items, such as, increased transparency, speed of information transfer and increased accessibility On the negative side, Martin found that individuals
revealed there was a cost, in both time and money,
to print scale drawings Additionally, it was lished that some members did not have adequate IT and there was a lack of a filing index
estab-More relevant to eTendering is the paper by Eadie et al., (2007) Their literature review and survey suggest that there were eleven marked barri-ers to the eTendering process being undertaken in Northern Ireland These barriers were: the legal position of e-procurement, company culture, upper management support, IT infrastructure, IT systems too costly, lack of technical expertise, lack of e-pro-curement knowledge / skilled personnel, lack of business relationship with suppliers providing e-procurement, security of transactions, interopera-bility concerns, no business benefit realised
Transparency problemsAlso, “trust” is an overused word when discuss-ing procurement According to Kashiwagi, “Trust and rules of encouragement are not enough Trans-parency is what is needed When there is only trust, risk goes up” When there is transparency everyone knows what is going on and can address issues in a timely manner, reducing risk and liability Then
“trust” is not necessary anymore The job of the contractor is to “educate the client” and “the client must learn to let go of the controls” This, he says, requires a “paradigm shift” in the process
Of course such a shift does not happen night And when listening to the issues confronting Peter Lundhus with the Fehmarnbelt Link project, the question becomes how do you overcome the obstacles that hinder communication and coopera-tive, pro-active contractor contributions? For the Fehmarnbelt Link, a State Treaty between Den-mark and Germany was signed in 2006 with the intention to build starting in 2008 with completion scheduled for 2020 The first issue confronting the Fehmarnbelt group was determining whether a bridge or tunnel would be the most reasonable connection between northern Germany and south-ern Denmark
over-Procurement of Medicine in Public Hospitals in Viet Nam
In medicine management, the State issued lations to ensure public medicines are procured efficiently and patients are provided with good and cheap medicines The inter-ministerial Circular No 10/2007/TTLT-BYT-BTC dated 10/8/2007 of the Ministry of Health – Ministry of Finance provided
regu-guidelines on 3 forms of procurement
including:-Concentrated procurement (form 1) With this
form, the Ministry of Health will organize the
concentrated procurement of medicines of frequent
demand and big quantity for all local public health
units The list of procured medicines will be
consolidated based on the demand of local public
health care centers The procurement of medicines
will be conducted directly between public health
care units and selected medicine providers
Representative procurement (form 2): Under
this form, Departments of Health shall assign one
or some health care units to organize the
represent-ative procurement (usually the provincial hospital
and one district hospital Traditional medicines will
be procured by the provincial traditional hospital
Other public health care units will use the
procure-ment results for their buying of medicines
Apply-ing this form, medicine prices will be fixed
consist-ently throughout the province but the portfolio of
medicines of other hospitals will depend on the list
of procured medicines Selected medicine
provid-ers will provide medicines for hospitals directly or
through an authorized providers
Independently procurement (Form 3): With this
form, public hospitals will conduct the
procure-ment of medicines by themselves The list of
procured medicines will be developed based on the
need of each hospital Selected prices of medicines
may not be consistent among hospitals This form
is usually applied in central hospitals
Research Methodology
The target population was 250 medicine traders
in Vietnam provided by Ministry of Health of
Viet-nam The target response ratio was determined
based on the distribution of the respondents based
on their geographic allocation The sample list was
compiled by a randomized selection of the
respond-ents in each province to meet the expected response
ratio In cases in which a response could not be
reasonably be obtained from a company in the
sample list, a substitute was included being the next
firm on the list
The scope of interviews was based on variables
of the research framework, covering transparency,
competitiveness, equality, procurement fees and
international participants Therefore the
respond-ents needed to understand and have the authority to
provide the necessary data; therefore, the
respond-ents should be directors of these companies
The variables for study included demographic variables, respondent profile The study had inde-
pendent variables (transparency, competitiveness, equality, procurement fees and international partic-
ipants) and a dependent variable (pharmaceutical e-tender).The quantitative study was applied to 250
valid companies The Cronbach’s Alpha ( ) was used to test the reliability of the research variables
The results of the Cronbach’s Alpha ( ) are all over 0.9 for all variables as below:
Reliability Statistics
Trang 11ty of products offered on e-commerce sites via the latter’s web interface (Jiang and Benbasat, 2004)
Conceivably, consumers’ purchase intentions are driven by the extent to which their positive feelings about e-commerce sites are induced by trustworthy signals that are costly to manipulate (Walther and Parks, 2002)
Park and Kim (2003; 17) stated that consumers' trust to a provider or supplier results with becoming committed to the company Trust issue is exceeding with a few successful transactions, after individuals start feel safe and believe that this supplier answers their needs and wants On the other hand, provided information is another issue in terms of online shopping for Park and Kim (2003;17) Since online shopping is an activity which related to a comput-er-system, individuals cannot touch or feel prod-ucts Therefore, their decisions based on the infor-mation that provided by online retailer Information issue not only important in terms of availability situation, it is also important in convenience and personalization concept Web site design, access to information, access time to information also influ-ence on behaviors of consumers
There is a positive relationship between consumers’ familiarity with an e-commerce site and their trust in this site (Kim et al., 2008) As during the final product decision stage, price remains as the most common consideration when consumers are deciding where to buy (Figure 2.8),
particularly in certain categories such as ics Having a website that consumers like and/or trust is also important, especially in Asia, where consumers said buying from a preferred website was more important than price (KPMG, 2017) According to many authors, an effective website design is critical to the success of electronic com-merce, and the functionality, usability, ease-of-nav-igation and interfaces of the websites themselves are vital building blocks for sustainable success (Constantinides, 2004; Yen et al., 2007; Lim et al.,
electron-2009, Colla and Lapoule, 2011)
Best Delivery Options/ Price
Price and Delivery options are one of the most
important factors to drive consumers online (KPMG, 2017)
Young generation are no longer satisfied to place orders via mobile phones, they also hope to receive goods more quickly Instant gratification has become a feature of this generation of users Some research show that 63 percent of post-80s and 90s are very interested in same-day delivery, even half of them are willing to pay premiums for
it Therefore, enterprises can provide instant
servic-es such as same-day delivery, online purchase and offline pickup, etc., to keep pace with the consump-tion habits of the young generation and improve user experience Finally, in terms of aftersales service, enterprises can simplify procedures and optimize service experience through a series of aftersales services provided directly on APP including goods exchanging and purchase feed-backs (Deloitte, 2017)
Last mile delivery is one of the paint paints of online shopping in China (Fung Business Intelli-gence, 2017)
Rich Assortment
Merchandising includes product-related
charac-teristics such as assortment, variety, and product
information (Jarvenpaa and Todd, 1997) Rich
product assortment can increase the probability that
consumer-needs will be met and satisfied The
online shopping environment enables consumers to
reduce their decision-making efforts by providing
vast selection, information screening, reliability,
and product comparison (Alba et al, 1997) The
research conducted by Q&Me shown that Product
variety is one of the reasons to shop online for
identi-nam From this framework, policy makers, researchers and enterprises can cooperate to devel-
op a better environment for eCommerce market to grow Implication of the quantitative and qualita-
tive theory and practice emanating from the
find-ings were discussed in depth and implications involving policy were speculated upon based on a
review of the literature This research has
contribut-ed to the body of knowlcontribut-edge by providing a ical framework for proving the relationship
theoret-between winning online consumers in Vietnam and its possible attributes
The study also raised questions requiring further research that is theoretical and practical interest
Improving and boosting eCommerce in Vietnam will continue challenge the enterprises, governors,
managers and researchers Therefore, this is a topic that will continue to have and require continuous
research
Findings
Statistics and results from the analysis reveal many things about the five factors that have influ-
enced on winning the online consumers in Vietnam
- Product categories that customers frequently purchase online are household/appliances, elec-
tronics, clothing, cosmetics, toys and books
- Vietnamese people have had the tendency purchasing online
- Many people agree that price is important for them to decide buying online and they will prefer online shopping only if online prices are lower than
offline prices
- However, price is not enough to convert people from offline to online Many people also agree that they must trust an e-retailer before making a
purchase and the ease and user-friendliness of the website will win consumers from one website over
another
- Most of the survey participants also agree that one of the conveniences of online shopping is home delivery which is important for consumers Along
with this, order tracking visibility, delivery speed and shipping fee are important for consumers and
impact consumer experience
- Many people believe that large selection of products is also important for consumers to decide
purchasing online However, it does not mean that
online shopping offers better variety than
product is important when shopping online
- Vietnamese consumers love shopping online and they believe that that online shopping trend is given and will be taking over a big part of tradition-
al shopping The biggest concerns are security and trust over the websites
Product price and website preference are the most factors over winning online consumers in Vietnamese in which trust over e-tailers, website appearance, website user-friendliness, the ability for customers to interact with platforms, terms and
conditions of the platforms over online purchase transactions are all critical to win online consumers
from one platform over another, from traditional shopping over online shopping
There are three specific objectives in this research Two of them have been addressed after
this analysis
- Objective number one: find out consumers perceptions over e-Commerce, Online Shopping and their belief on the future of e-Commerce indus-
try in Vietnam The research results have shown
and evolving The rapid growth of the internet and mobile usage has been helping e-Commerce to be established as a new shopping channel rapidly
Though Vietnamese online consumers have some concerns over online shopping, the answer to the question whether online consumers believe in e-Com-
merce growth and future in Vietnam is “Yes” They continue purchasing online The average revenue per
user continues increasing from US dollar 55 in 2016 to
most critical, even over “Best price” while “Rich assortment” can give negative impact Having trusted
website will always be important Competitive pricing
is expected to rise in the importance during the tion what website to purchase Price and promotions
selec-most likely influence consumers’ decision on what product or brand to buy online Advances in technolo-
gy, data technology, logistics, payment methods, consumer demand for convenience and trust are much higher than before Price is important for online
consumers However, price does not guarantee sales
Shopping experience, keeping pace with consumers’
preferences today and tomorrow are important with all enterprises, especially e-Commerce enterprises
to attract and win online consumers Beyond quick and good customer service, the right content strate-
gy is also critical The research results have shown e-Commerce Startups, new entrance, and even
growing e-Commerce platforms that to win, they need to transform and build a customer-centric and
virtually borderless operating model The facts are online consumers easily move back and forth
between online and offline, from one website to another website to check prices before deciding the
online purchase, having the efficient supply chain, the lean and agile last mile operations will be
important for e-Commerce enterprises Younger generation are increasingly comfortable with
buying products online without seeing them first
However, they also have much higher demand for quick delivery, low shipping fee or even free ship-
ping Companies will need to innovate in order to have shorter delivery time, lowest last mile cost in order to satisfy demanding consumer expectations
if they would like to win online consumers The research results have met the research objectives, helping companies to understand that providing
positive and unique shopping experience is one of the most critical motivators to win
- The final objective will be addressed in the recommendation
Research limitations
The research was done based on general
condi-tions and do not specify to a particular e-business and may not necessarily be applicable to a particu-
lar e-business Therefore, the future research can be done by product group
Practical implications
Attributes identified by this study could help E-commerce Start-ups, International E-commerce entering Vietnamese online market to better form their online e-marketing strategies in terms of
geography areas, customer preference to attract Vietnamese consumers online first, then choose
their website over others
Recommendations
Human resource development for e-Commerce
Vietnam is thirsty for e-Commerce talents
According to Vietnamworks.com (ranked in the 171thplace among the most visited websites in Vietnam15), the labour demand of the internet/
online media category has dramatically increased
in recent years The vacancies related to merce including internet/ online media staffs hold
e-com-9% of the total advertised vacancies on this site Up to September 2015, Vietnam had more than
web-513,000 enterprises with more than 12.8 million labours According to Vecita’s 2015 survey,
approximately 45% of enterprises had websites on which information was periodically updated The number of enterprises having websites was around 200,000 If each enterprise is estimated to have one e-Commerce specialized staff that may be a techni-
cal, online sale, marketing, staff, delivery or human resource management staff; or manager…, the total e-commerce specialized staffs could reach at least 200,000 (Vecita, 2017) Availability of well-trained resource will be critical to boosting the growth of Vietnam e-Commerce as well as facilitating
employment goals Hence adequate steps should be taken by government to ensure availability of quali-
ty resource for e-Commerce Colleges, Universities and Vocational School should be encouraged to
formulate a Training Programme, Materials, ods, source of qualify lecturers for e-Commerce
Meth-Enhance Consumer Trust Toward merce
E-Com-One of the key factors to grow e-Commerce share in Vietnam is to improve consumers’ trust-worthiness toward e-Commerce This require the effort from both enterprises and government
E-tailers can pay attention to building their tion, invest more on online or offline advertise-ments, pay attention to the reviews generated by consumers, which spread fast in the online environ-ment E-tailers also need to invest into information quality and security protections for consumers
reputa-Information quality here refers to ensure the racy, completeness, and updates of the product information on their websites (the products display style, virtual design of the website, and photograph processing…) E-tailers can select trusted and repu-table payment tools, invest into data protection which can help improve the security protection for consumers
accu-Enhance online shopping experience through data technological innovations
More and more innovative technologies should
be applied in order to enhance customer ence, e.g integrate virtual information into the real world to generate more comprehensive experience through integration of virtual information and reali-
experi-ty According to Deloitte’s 2015 Global Mobile Consumer Survey, China Edition, almost all awakened mobile consumers across the world check their phones at least once in three hours, while in emerging markets 93 percent awakened consumers check their phones in one hour or less, and people in the Asia Pacific region are most addictive to smartphone Socialized online shopping is a critical trend drive users’ final purchase if enterprises can integrate functions such as socializing, payment and shopping Con-sumers can know product information more quickly through various devices (e.g
cell-phones, tablets, PCs) and Internet platforms (e.g search engines) Consumers continue to spend more time on obtaining product informa-
tion in the multi-channel environment, and large numbers of customers spend 90 percent time to browse products for a comprehensive research before purchasing Big data can be explored in order to facilitate the last-mile service to achieve rapid delivery With the popularity of digital channels and mobile terminals, retail enterprises must deepen the layout of multiple touch points and channels, to realize interactive, personalized and socialized marketing which need a lot of innovations from data technology
Innovative Business Model to Improve Efficiency
Consumers shop online to save money poor logistics infrastructure and last mile networks, poor reverse logistics, Cash on Delivery, lack of an effective online payment mechanism, ineffective administration and legislation leads to higher costs
In addition, omni-channel construction, tion amongst leading enterprises are potential solu-tions toward last mile bottlenecks, facilitate the optimization and upgrade of the whole supply chain From the enterprise perspective, investments into own delivery and payment capabilities can be considered in order to meet the growing demand as well as improve the efficiency, raising customer experience into e-Commerce From policy maker perspective, legislation for e-Commerce should be put in place so that enterprises are more confident into investing and pushing the industry growth
coopera-Logistics infrastructure such as freighters between
Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi, road conditions, port condition…need improvement to bring down total logistics cost
Cross border e-Commerce
Retail sales of import e-commerce still
account-ed for a relatively small proportion in the online retail market in Vietnam There is a huge potential for the development of import e-commerce retail business given the trends This need the support from government in terms of policies, tax tariff,
customer formality process, legislation such as permits, licences, logistics infrastructure From enterprise perspective, cross border supply chain management and operation model need to be trans-formed and make it more efficiency
Investment boosts the development of tive business
innova-e-Commerce industry is finance intensive A great financial pressure to local enterprises in order
to compete with international players Financing raising, M&A have become an essential stage for the transformation of traditional retailing enterpris-
es and as well as local e-tailers This will need a strong support from government from both policy
as well as support
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on drugs has nearly doubled from 2000 to 2007, accounting for about 40% of total medical costs society
Statistics of the Vietnam Social Insurance recently showed medicine costs are a high proportion (60-70%) of total health care costs health insurance
Drug market in Vietnam is very diverse and rich
in both quantity and quality In 2009, out of 22,615 drug registration numbers which were valid, there were 10,692 and 11,923 domestic pharmaceutical drugs imported from abroad Domestic production value increased from U.S $ 111.4 million in 1996
to U.S $ 919 million in 2010 Drug products produced in the country was increasingly high proportion of the total value of drug consumption,
up from 26% in 1996 to over 48% in 2010
Drugs are increasingly produced in the country
to meet the treatment needs, in 1996, drug tion in the country only has about 3,400 drug names with less than 200 active, but now there are about
produc-500 active substances of 1,produc-500 active ingredients in the drug is registered domestic proportion
The supply of medicines to hospitals must be through bidding based on the current regulations
However, practice has shown that there are some shortcomings issues in the drug supply for patients
in general and patients with health insurance in particular Traditional tender mechanism is not effective, it is necessary to adjust and strengthen the implementation of the tendering process at hospitals and get drug prices more reasonable
The application of electronic tender for the purchase and sale of drugs in public hospitals is inevitable and important to improve the quality and effectiveness of procurement as well as improve the shortcomings that traditional procurement face
Due to weaknesses of chemical, 90% of the materials for production of western drugs are imported The main types of imported pharmaceuti-cal materials are antibiotics and vitamins, which account for more than 80% of the import value
China and India are two biggest exporters of pharmaceutical materials into Vietnam, accounting for 25% and 21% respectively in 2008 As Viet-namese companies at present are mainly producing common drugs, they are using many types of cheap pharmaceutical materials imported from the two countries
The pharmaceutical industry gets access to consumers through treatment distribution system and commercial distribution network
Treatment distribution network The treatment network includes hospitals and other treatment units of different levels The total number of medi-cal examination and treatment units in Vietnam in
2007 was 13,438 Almost all pharmaceutical panies wish to promote this distribution channel because of its large consumption quantity
com-The biggest consumption channel of medicine in Vietnam for treatment products is public hospitals
Pharmaceutical products are provided to hospital through tender Additionally, selling through hospi-tals occupies a high amount of working capital of pharmaceutical companies because hospitals normally settle payment at the end of the year
Commercial distribution network The cial network includes branches, agents, distributors and drugstores At present, domestic pharmaceuti-cal companies are trying their best to promote the commercial distribution channel in order to reduce the dependence on the treatment distribution network which is facing intense competition This distribution network mainly consists of domestic distributors meanwhile there are only three foreign distributors in the market, including Zeullig Pharma, Diethelm and Megaproduct
commer-In this research, the researcher focuses on the supply of pharmaceutical products to public hospi-tals through pharmaceutical tender With an aim to promote the application of e-tender in pharmaceuti-cal sector, the researcher has conducts the research
in the context of the North Western
The supply of pharmaceutical products in public hospitals in the North Western reflects many gener-
al characteristics of Vietnam pharmaceutical supply regulations such as medicine is supplied through tender At each province, the Department of Health will develop the tender plan annually or for every 6 months (medicines are bought according to the list
of essential medicines) The budget for this tender
comes from (1) national budget, (2) health ance, and (3) hospital revenue Pharmaceutical suppliers are those who have capabilities, experi-ences and conditions to take part in the tender The tender is valid in 1 year
insur-However, this tender carries in itself many lems including:
prob-Information of tender is public only on “Tender Magazine”, a quite unpopular magazine that not many people follow which make many tenders unaware of the tenders
Tender documents are sold only at tender er’s office which is sometimes a geographic chal-lenge to many bidders
own-Some staff members of the tender owner are sometimes even do not want to sell too many tender documents to avoid evaluating to many bidders’
documents
Time for preparing and submitting tender ments is too short while most of the provinces in the North Western are quite far from central areas This makes many bidders unable to participate in tender
docu-The tender evaluation scale reflects some unfair criteria
The traditional tender costs time, effort and money a lot
of the value of the work When considered against
a success ratio of, say, one in five, Hughes reported that the cost of each winning bid can be as much as 6% of the value of the work In addition, the cost of tendering was considered to be very expensive by 93% of respondents to an eTendering survey carried out by CITA in 2006
Barriers to application of e-tenderMartin (2003) found during his UK survey that project collaboration technologies had a number of advantages, some of which were discussed in the above paragraphs, and disadvantages As discussed earlier, the advantages of such a system includes items, such as, increased transparency, speed of information transfer and increased accessibility On the negative side, Martin found that individuals
revealed there was a cost, in both time and money,
to print scale drawings Additionally, it was lished that some members did not have adequate IT and there was a lack of a filing index
estab-More relevant to eTendering is the paper by Eadie et al., (2007) Their literature review and survey suggest that there were eleven marked barri-ers to the eTendering process being undertaken in Northern Ireland These barriers were: the legal position of e-procurement, company culture, upper management support, IT infrastructure, IT systems too costly, lack of technical expertise, lack of e-pro-curement knowledge / skilled personnel, lack of business relationship with suppliers providing e-procurement, security of transactions, interopera-bility concerns, no business benefit realised
Transparency problemsAlso, “trust” is an overused word when discuss-ing procurement According to Kashiwagi, “Trust and rules of encouragement are not enough Trans-parency is what is needed When there is only trust, risk goes up” When there is transparency everyone knows what is going on and can address issues in a timely manner, reducing risk and liability Then
“trust” is not necessary anymore The job of the contractor is to “educate the client” and “the client must learn to let go of the controls” This, he says, requires a “paradigm shift” in the process
Of course such a shift does not happen night And when listening to the issues confronting Peter Lundhus with the Fehmarnbelt Link project, the question becomes how do you overcome the obstacles that hinder communication and coopera-tive, pro-active contractor contributions? For the Fehmarnbelt Link, a State Treaty between Den-mark and Germany was signed in 2006 with the intention to build starting in 2008 with completion scheduled for 2020 The first issue confronting the Fehmarnbelt group was determining whether a bridge or tunnel would be the most reasonable connection between northern Germany and south-ern Denmark
over-Procurement of Medicine in Public Hospitals in Viet Nam
In medicine management, the State issued lations to ensure public medicines are procured efficiently and patients are provided with good and cheap medicines The inter-ministerial Circular No 10/2007/TTLT-BYT-BTC dated 10/8/2007 of the Ministry of Health – Ministry of Finance provided
regu-guidelines on 3 forms of procurement
including:-Concentrated procurement (form 1) With this
form, the Ministry of Health will organize the
concentrated procurement of medicines of frequent
demand and big quantity for all local public health
units The list of procured medicines will be
consolidated based on the demand of local public
health care centers The procurement of medicines
will be conducted directly between public health
care units and selected medicine providers
Representative procurement (form 2): Under
this form, Departments of Health shall assign one
or some health care units to organize the
represent-ative procurement (usually the provincial hospital
and one district hospital Traditional medicines will
be procured by the provincial traditional hospital
Other public health care units will use the
procure-ment results for their buying of medicines
Apply-ing this form, medicine prices will be fixed
consist-ently throughout the province but the portfolio of
medicines of other hospitals will depend on the list
of procured medicines Selected medicine
provid-ers will provide medicines for hospitals directly or
through an authorized providers
Independently procurement (Form 3): With this
form, public hospitals will conduct the
procure-ment of medicines by themselves The list of
procured medicines will be developed based on the
need of each hospital Selected prices of medicines
may not be consistent among hospitals This form
is usually applied in central hospitals
Research Methodology
The target population was 250 medicine traders
in Vietnam provided by Ministry of Health of
Viet-nam The target response ratio was determined
based on the distribution of the respondents based
on their geographic allocation The sample list was
compiled by a randomized selection of the
respond-ents in each province to meet the expected response
ratio In cases in which a response could not be
reasonably be obtained from a company in the
sample list, a substitute was included being the next
firm on the list
The scope of interviews was based on variables
of the research framework, covering transparency,
competitiveness, equality, procurement fees and
international participants Therefore the
respond-ents needed to understand and have the authority to
provide the necessary data; therefore, the
respond-ents should be directors of these companies
The variables for study included demographic variables, respondent profile The study had inde-
pendent variables (transparency, competitiveness, equality, procurement fees and international partic-
ipants) and a dependent variable (pharmaceutical e-tender).The quantitative study was applied to 250
valid companies The Cronbach’s Alpha ( ) was used to test the reliability of the research variables
The results of the Cronbach’s Alpha ( ) are all over 0.9 for all variables as below:
Reliability Statistics
