E-commerce promotes consumption of agricultural products

More than a month since its launch, the supply-demand connection website run by Working Group 970 under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (htx.cooplink.com.vn) has more than 1,400 registered units who regularly access the platform to successfully consume large volumes of goods for the southern provinces and cities.

A large amount of southern agricultural products consumed through e-commerce platforms.
A large amount of southern agricultural products consumed through e-commerce platforms.

Dang Van Thuat, chairman of the Board of Directors of Tam Hiep Agricultural Cooperative in Binh Dai District, Ben Tre Province, has been busy with calls asking for information about fruit products such as longan, coconut and others. “This is an unprecedented phenomenon”, he said.

Thuat said that after registering information on the supply-demand connection website of Working Group 970, many traders have learned about the cooperative and contacted him tobuy fruit, clearing the bottleneck in consumption as southern provinces and cities are under social distancing according to Directive 16.

Further good news is that the cooperative connected with enterprises in Ho Chi Minh City to sell two tonnes of longan on the e-commerce platform Sendo.vn.

“This is also the first time we have bought and sold agricultural products on an online platform like this. If all goes well, the cooperative wishes to disseminate e-commerce knowledge to its members to expand product consumption channels in the near future,” Thuat added.

Nguyen Dac Viet Dung, chairman of the Board of Directors of Red Lotus Technology Joint Stock Company, said that Sendo.vn has been and remains ready to help businesses, cooperatives, business households, and farmers to gradually turn to digitalisation to achieve stability and initiative in consuming their products.

At the same time, the platform pledges to provide1:1 support for new enterprises, cooperatives, and business households joining Sendo.vn for the first time to advise the opening of online stores and selling products on the platform. Besides, Sendo will also provide sellers with free shipping, advertising as well as methods to maintain long-term business on Sendo.

Tran Minh Hai, director of the Centre for Cooperative Development under the College of Management for Agriculture and Rural Development 2 (CMARD2) – a member of Working Group 970 – said the application of e-commerce in connecting agricultural supply and demand has brought about many practical results including fast and accurate reporting data, predictable trends of commodity supply and demand, adequate information on products for both buyers and sellers, and convenient transactions.

Thereby, it has helped shorten the time to deliver goods from other provinces to Ho Chi Minh City in the early days of implementing Directive 16. Statistical results show that this online platform has successfully sold 300-400 tonnes of agricultural products every day through sending a list of suppliers to purchasers such as supermarkets, stores, and wholesale markets via email and Zalo

It is worth mentioning that when participating in e-commerce platforms, many enterprises have been very surprised by the data on the supply of quality agricultural products in different regions.

Thus, they have planned to connect with local suppliers to build high quality raw materials areas for export in the near future, including an eel production area in Hau Giang Province, a concentrated jackfruit production area of ​​5,700 ha in Chau Thanh District (Hau Giang Province), a fruit growing area of ​​more than 1,100 ha of jackfruit and guava in Thap Muoi District (Dong Thap Province), a crayfish farming area in U Minh Thuong District (Kien Giang Province), and others.

The COVID-19 pandemic broke out in Bac Giang Province in early May 2021, coinciding with the harvest of hundreds of thousands tonnes of lychee. Thanks to e-commerce platforms such as Voso.vn and Postmart.vn, 215,852 tonnes of lychee were consumed. In which, 58.6% of the volume was consumed in the domestic market while 41.4% of the fruit was exported with an average selling price of VND19,800 per kg and total revenue ofVND6.8 trillion.

In particular, at the end of June 2021, more than three tonnes of Bac Giang lychee meeting GlobalGAP standards were exported and cleared through the e-commerce platform Voso.vn at Frankfurt Airport, Germany. This is the first time Vietnamese agricultural products have been exported to the European market under the “cross-border e-commerce” model.

These results demonstrate the effectiveness of e-commerce applications in the consumption of agricultural products, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.