O2 - Putting consumers at the center of attention with consumer technology.

 

Modern Vietnam requires constant upgrading for its consumer experience with all things. Being online becomes an integral part of people across the world and is ever so strong in Vietnam. Different industries in Vietnam are racing to bring its consumers online.

 

An era of convenience and connectivity

With the world entering the phase where consumer needs continue to demand further convenience and better personalization, consumer technology (“consumer tech”) is the solution to help consumers with their multiple problems and enhance their experience with all daily living activities.

Consumer tech as a broad concept can be regarded in many forms from sizes as big as a TV or as small to fit inside your pockets like a smartphone. Furthermore, it can also exist in a non-physical form as software, or artificial intelligence technology.

 

Consumer tech in Vietnam

With the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic, consumers in Vietnam are coming to a new phase of development. Exclusive offline access to goods and services no longer dominates but an integrated experience combining both offline and online together has become the new demand for consumers.

 

WIN store at New City Thu Thiem apartment

Recent research shows that Vietnamese people are spending up to 6.38 hours per day browsing on the Internet and more than half are making product purchases online. According to the 2022 Vietnam Ecom Whitepaper, the estimated number of consumers purchasing goods online would rise to 60 million USD. In addition, the online purchasing value per user is forecasted to increase up to 285 USD. However, the commodities consumed in the highest quantities are non-essential, namely clothing, household items, cosmetics, and consumer electronics. While offline shopping is still mostly reserved for essential goods, food, and beverages.

 

Other than online shopping, fintech is also considered a booming sector making financial services much more accessible to millions of people. From a study conducted by Meta and Bain & Company, it is reported that almost 60% of digital consumers have used fintech solutions such as money transferring applications, online banking, e-wallets, and digital banking. These solutions aid the ecosystem of online shopping, making the process even more seamless.

 

With the continuous advancement of consumer tech through e-commerce, we will continue to see many emerging trends. Retail chains are required to improve their competitive edge by increasing the application of digital transformation tools and data analytics to optimize the customer experience before moving to improve omnichannel experiences. A valuable move for these retail and consumer players in the market would be the online-to-offline (O2O) model which combines both online ordering and offline shopping.

 

Online-to-offline – The focal point for Masan Group

Regardless of the great potential, only a small number of large-scale retail & consumer corporations own the means and strategies to develop. The CrownX(TCX) – a retail-consumer platform from Masan Group boasts revenue of over US$2.5 billion in the past year and showcases the potential to be at the forefront of online-to-offline technology in Vietnam in the 2022 Annual Report.

 

Masan Group's core mission is to enhance the physical and emotional life of Vietnamese people and its philosophy is to put the consumers at the center. The group constantly strives to provide the most essential products to every Vietnamese household, starting with the manufacture of fish sauce products to the reconstruction of the consumer-retail platform to encompass every need of 100 million consumers of Vietnam.

 

Along with the mini-mall opening, Masan has also put in place the WIN Membership program, a piece of consumer tech that would allow a higher level of consumer understanding for the corporation while providing consumers with personalized services through eKYC technology leveraging the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning. This platform, when done right, would result in increased profit ratios from sales and marketing activities and at the same time create a profitable marketing platform.

 

Coming into 2023 Masan aims to push the digitalization of consumers through the launch of the WIN AI application installed in the store's “Smart POS” system. The system allows cashiers to become more than just payment contact, they will be able to enhance the customer's shopping experience through data-driven advice from the WIN AI system.

 

Furthermore, as a top Vietnamese corporation in retail industry, Masan Group also targets to become the gateway to mass retail banking to surpass 1 million unbanked customers through the WIN Membership platform. At the same time, catering to our WIN Members' financial needs and issuing digitally 500,000 credit cards using the consumer technology combination of WIN AI with Trusting Social’s credit scoring platform.

 

Lastly, Masan differentiates itself in the B2B2C with Win+. Allowing merchant partners access to exclusive products at a lower price and their customers the chance to purchase the best products on membership deals through the mini franchises model.

 

With the up-and-coming consumer technology and a consumer-centric way of working, Masan shows great potential to become the leader in Vietnam’s retail & consumer industry in providing tailored, holistic products and services to satisfy customers’ demands.