Contents
- What is ecommerce marketing and why is it different
- The metrics you must understand
- The roadmap to building a store that generates orders
- Attracting customers: channels and the role of each
- Keeping existing customers: where the real profit is
- A real-world example in the Vietnamese market
- Common mistakes
- How to start today
- Frequently asked questions
- References
Ecommerce marketing is the full set of work that takes your product from being unknown to getting clicked and bought — on e-commerce marketplaces like Shopee, Lazada, TikTok Shop, or on your own website. The biggest difference from traditional marketing is that everything is measurable: you know exactly how many people viewed the store, how many added to cart, and how many dropped off midway. That is both a gift and a pressure, because you no longer have any reason to say, “it probably works.”
This page is a high-level map for online sellers in Vietnam. You will go from how marketplaces decide whose products get shown, to the sequence for building a store that generates orders, how to calculate whether you are actually making a profit or a loss, and the mistakes that cause many new shops to shut down within the first six months.
What is ecommerce marketing and why is it different
When you sell on a marketplace, you are playing in someone else’s field by their rules. The marketplace does not care which shop sells the most; it cares that buyers find what they need and come back. That is why product ranking algorithms almost always follow the same logic: the products that get more clicks, more purchases after clicks, fewer canceled orders, fewer bad reviews, and faster delivery get pushed higher. Every optimization trick revolves around improving those signals.
That leads to a consequence many new sellers do not realize: operations are marketing. Slow packing, late shipping, and delayed replies do not just annoy customers — they directly drag down product rankings, forcing you to spend more on ads to get the same number of orders. On the other hand, a well-run shop will automatically be favored by the marketplace without doing anything extra.
Selling on your own website is the opposite: you have full control, but no built-in buyers. No one naturally visits a new shop’s website. So the practical strategy for most Vietnamese shops is to start on marketplaces to generate cash flow and learn the market, while building a direct channel in parallel to reduce dependence over time.
The metrics you must understand
If you sell online without understanding the numbers below, it is very easy to end up with rising revenue but less money in your pocket. This is the minimum set of metrics.
- Conversion rate: out of 100 people who view the product, how many buy. This reflects the health of the product page — images, price, description, reviews. A low rate means you are paying to bring people into a leaky funnel.
- Average order value (AOV): on average, how much a customer spends per order. Raising this metric is often easier than finding new customers — through bundles, threshold gifts, or upsells. Details in What is AOV? Average order value.
- Cancellation and return rate: the most overlooked metric, yet one that directly affects rankings and real profit. See How to optimize order cancellation rate.
- Cost per order acquired: total ad spend divided by the number of orders from ads. Put this next to your gross profit per order, and you will immediately know whether you are running a business or subsidizing the marketplace.
- True gross profit after all fees: selling price minus cost of goods, minus marketplace fees, payment fees, shipping costs you cover, packaging costs, and the promotions you fund. Many shops only subtract cost of goods and think they are making 30% profit.
- Landing page: if you sell off-platform, this is where conversion is decided. See What is a landing page? A high-converting landing page.
The roadmap to building a store that generates orders
The sequence below applies to a completely new shop. The guiding principle is to make one product work first, then scale from there — not to upload 200 products and wait to see which one sells.
- Step 1 — Choose a flagship product. A product with clear demand, enough margin to absorb marketplace fees and promotions, and not too easy to compare on price. Cheap mass-market products may sound easy to sell, but they become a price war that small shops always lose.
- Step 2 — Build the product page properly. Images are the number one factor, more important than price in many categories. You do not need a studio — see How to photograph products with a phone. The title and description need to contain the exact keywords buyers type, with guidance in How to post products with SEO for Shopee.
- Step 3 — Get the first reviews. A product with no reviews is almost impossible to sell, no matter how good the price is. This is the stage where you accept thin margins: lower prices, small freebies, and careful service in exchange for the first 20–30 five-star reviews.
- Step 4 — Turn on ads with control. Only run ads for products that already have reviews and a stable conversion rate. Start with a small budget on a few closest-match keywords — see How to run Shopee Ads for beginners.
- Step 5 — Decorate the store and build bundles. Once traffic is steady, the easiest way to increase revenue is to sell more to the same customers. See How to decorate a Shopee store to attract customers and consider a free shipping strategy based on order value thresholds.
- Step 6 — Expand to more channels. Once one marketplace is running steadily, replicate it on a second marketplace and open your own content channel. This is the time to open TikTok Shop or Lazada, and refer to selling on TikTok Shop for beginners and selling tips for Lazada.
Attracting customers: channels and the role of each
The traffic sources for an online shop usually come from four directions, and they do not replace one another — they complement one another.
Marketplace search is the highest-quality traffic source because people are actively looking to buy. That is why getting titles and keywords right matters so much — do this well, and you get steady orders without spending on ads. Marketplace ads are a way to buy more visibility, and they work best when used to push products that already have good reviews.
Social media content creates demand — viewers were not planning to buy, but they see something interesting and purchase. Short-form video and livestreaming are the two strongest formats right now; see Shopee livestream tips that generate orders and Tips for building a TikTok Shop channel. If you already have a personal TikTok account with followers, link TikTok Shop with your personal TikTok account to take advantage of it.
Direct channels include Facebook Marketplace, groups, and messages to past customers. This is traffic with no marketplace fee, so the margins are the best — see How to sell on Facebook Marketplace. For shops with an existing customer base, selling again to past customers is almost always cheaper than finding new ones.
Keeping existing customers: where the real profit is
Almost every new shop pours all its resources into attracting new customers, then wonders why revenue rises but profit does not. The simple reason: a customer’s first order often only breaks even after ad spend, marketplace fees, and shipping are deducted. The real profit is in the second and third orders, when you do not have to pay to get them to find you again.
That leads to a different way of looking at budget: instead of asking, “how do I get more customers?” ask, “out of the customers who bought last month, how many came back?” If that number is below ten percent, increasing ad spend will only make you lose money faster.
- Keep customer information in one place. If data is scattered across marketplace messages, Zalo, and notebooks, it is effectively nonexistent. That is why a customer management tool is worth investing in early — see What is CRM? Customer relationship management.
- Have a reason to reach out again. Not weekly promotional messages, but the right timing: the product is about to run out, a matching accessory, or simply checking whether everything is working well. The cheapest channel is still email — start with a free email marketing tool.
- Handle negative feedback before it becomes a bad review. A dissatisfied customer who is handled well often comes back more than a customer who never had a problem. Proactively asking through a customer feedback collection tool is much cheaper than fixing a chain of one-star reviews.
The monthly metrics to track are repeat customer rate and the average value a customer brings over six months. These two numbers determine how much you are allowed to spend on each new customer — and they are why two shops in the same industry, with the same selling price, can spend ad budgets that differ by three times while both remain profitable.
A real-world example in the Vietnamese market
Take a kitchenware shop with 30 million VND in inventory capital and two people running it. They choose a flagship product: a knife set with a cost price of 120,000 VND, sold at 249,000 VND. On paper that sounds like more than 100,000 VND profit per order, but after about 10% marketplace fees, payment fees, packaging, and the half of shipping covered by free shipping, the real profit is only around 60,000 VND.
That 60,000 VND is the ceiling for ad cost per order. If ads cost 70,000 VND to generate one order, they are losing money even though the revenue dashboard looks great. This is the calculation many new shops overlook, and the most common reason why they are “selling really well” but have no money left at the end of the month.
Their approach: for the first two months, no ads — only image and title optimization, and soft pricing to collect 30 reviews. Once organic conversion reached a stable level, they turned on ads with a budget of 200,000 VND per day, targeting only a few closest-match keywords. At the same time, they built knife-and-cutting-board bundles to raise average order value from 249,000 VND to about 360,000 VND — real profit per order nearly doubled, and only then did the ad cost ceiling become wide enough to scale.
The lesson is not an ad trick, but the order of operations: fix margin and conversion first, then spend. Doing it the other way around is the fastest way to burn through capital.
Common mistakes
- Uploading hundreds of products from the start. You do not have enough time to manage them, and none of the products will have enough reviews to sell. One product that works is more valuable than 200 products sitting idle.
- Running ads for products with no reviews. Ad spend brings people to a page they will leave immediately. Fix the page first, run ads later.
- Discounting by reflex. Every time sales are slow, cutting prices teaches customers to wait for the next discount and permanently erodes margins. Prioritize increasing order value instead of lowering price.
- Underestimating bad reviews. One unresolved 1-star review can drag down an otherwise strong product. The right response is in How to handle bad reviews on Shopee.
- Overusing discount codes without calculation. Discount codes are a good tool if tied to order value thresholds, but bad if used too broadly. See How to create Shopee discount codes.
- Depending entirely on one marketplace. Marketplace fee changes or store suspensions are real. Always keep a direct communication channel with past customers.
How to start today
Three things you can do today. First, open a spreadsheet and calculate the true gross profit of your flagship product — subtract every fee, without missing the free shipping portion. The final number is your ad cost ceiling. Second, open your product page and the pages of the three best-selling competitors in your category, and compare the first image and title; if you are clearly losing, fix it before doing anything else. Third, read the last 10 reviews of your competitors to see what customers are actually upset about — that is your list of free opportunities.
If you do not have a store yet, start with How to sell on Shopee for beginners to build the foundation, then come back to this page when you need to expand.
Frequently asked questions
Should I sell on a marketplace or build my own website?
For a new shop, you should almost always start on a marketplace because that is where buyers are already searching. A standalone website is worth building once you have a brand, a returning customer base, and want to escape marketplace fees and price wars. Building a website too early often leads to a beautiful page that no one visits.
How much capital do I need to start?
There is no universal number, but the safe rule is that inventory should take up only about half of the money you have. The rest should be reserved for ads, packaging, and most importantly, surviving the first two or three months when revenue is still unstable. Putting all your capital into inventory is a mistake that causes many shops to die from running out of cash, not from poor sales.
How can I compete when competitors sell cheaper?
Do not compete on price if you do not have an advantage in sourcing — that is a game for players with deep pockets. Compete on the things customers actually notice: clearer images, more honest descriptions, faster shipping, faster replies, and more careful packaging. Many customers are willing to pay a little extra to buy from someone they trust.
Is livestreaming still effective?
Yes, but it is no longer as easy as it was in the early days. Livestreaming works best when you do it consistently on a fixed schedule so customers know when to tune in, and when you already have a following so each session does not start from zero. Random livestreams once a month almost never produce results.
References
- Shopee Uni — official resources for Shopee sellers.
- Lazada University — guidance for operating a Lazada store.
- TikTok Shop Academy — official resources for TikTok Shop sellers.
