According to statistics of the Ministry of Trade at trustvn.gov.vn, Vietnam has 87 websites providing the C2C trading model. 1001shoppings.com, chodientu.vn, aha.com.vn, vietco.com, sieuthihangchatluong.com are the most effective online markets according to a Trade Ministry appraisal (as of December 31, 2006).

However, Deputy Director of the E-commerce Agency of the Trade Ministry, Tran Huu Linh, said that over half of the websites on the above-mentioned list were inactive.

“Vietnam’s C2C operations are at a very beginning,” Mr Linh said.

Mai Anh, Director of the Information Centre of the Ministry of Science and Technology, said that in Vietnam there was a true model of C2C. “C2C is transactions between persons. In Vietnam I don’t see any system providing true person to person transactions,” he said.

According to Mr Mai Anh, small-ad columns on online newspapers or some pages of online auction floors are considered C2C but they are not true C2C because they lack online payment services.

Director of the electronic market (chodientu.vn) Nguyen Hoa Binh also agreed with Mr Mai Anh.

“Most Internet users use online small ads to exchange and purchase goods but this form is unprofessional and incomplete C2C. In terms of business, this is not a good model because it doesn’t create trust, prestige and most importantly, it is difficult to collect money,” said Mr Binh.

In this context, the introduction of eBay in Vietnam has made a start for official online business in Vietnam, and is believed will have positive influence on the development of e-commerce in Vietnam, particularly C2C.

Experts have said that to exist, local online trading floors will have to work with eBay or join hands with each other. However, they said that eBay wouldn’t conquer the market soon because of the differences in trading habits.  eBay can rule the European and American markets but in Asia, its success is not so assured. The clearest evidence is eBay operations in Japan, the Republic of Korea and China, where eBay can’t hold major market shares. “Foreign firms enter the Vietnamese market with a route map but they should remember that Vietnamese are using everything free of charge. It is a big issue to change their habits,” said the Director of chodientu.vn.

The E-commerce Agency, as the state management agency in this field, said that it would issue timely policies for the operations of online transaction floors. “C2C is not the top priority. To develop the online economy, it is necessary to pay attention to models that bring about large value, such as B2B (business to business) or B2C (business to customer), Mr Tran Huu Linh said. “But in the next three years, e-commerce in Vietnam will generally develop many times more than the current level. The development of payment infrastructure, distribution service, delivery services will have large impacts, promoting the change of C2C model,” he said.