Vietnam's retail market tops $269 billion in 2025 amid e-commerce boom

Vietnam's retail market tops $269 billion in 2025 amid e-commerce boom

Vietnam's retail market recorded a five-year high in revenue, reaching $269 billion in 2025, according to the Vietnam Domestic Market Report 2025 released by the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

In 2025, the total revenue from goods and services has surged by 9-10 per cent on-year, the fastest pace in five years, excluding the irregular fluctuations seen during the pandemic years.

Modern retail infrastructure continues to expand significantly, with 1,293 supermarkets and 276 shopping malls nationwide. This is coupled with a network of 8,274 traditional markets. The development of distribution channels has transformed the urban economy and spurred the shift in customer behaviour from traditional to modern trade.

The report also highlights the e-commerce boom, with a scale of $32 billion in 2025. E-commerce accounts for nearly 12 per cent of the total revenue from goods and services nationwide. With a growth rate of 20 per cent against 2024, Vietnam’s e-commerce market ranks second in Southeast Asia, bolstered by businesses’ heavy investments in digital technologies such as inventory management, cashless payments, online platforms, and livestreaming.

Overall, Vietnam’s retail market has entered a period of profound transformation in 2025, where modern retail infrastructure and e-commerce complement each other. Challenges in quality control, trade fraud, data security, and a gap in digital access persist.

However, if Vietnam has synchronous policies and proper infrastructure investment, these factors will be an important driving force to raise the competitiveness of Vietnamese enterprises and promote the sustainable development of the domestic market.

Vietnam’s retail market has become more appealing to foreign retail corporations. The report forecasts a promising prospect for the retail market from 2026-2030. With a large population, young demographics, and rising incomes, Vietnam is poised to be one of the largest retail markets in the region. E-commerce is projected to reach $50 billion in 2030, underscoring Vietnam’s role as one of the fastest-growing e-commerce markets in Southeast Asia.

The prime minister has issued a strategy for the development of Vietnam's retail market. The strategy’s objectives include developing a civilised, modern, and sustainable retail market in alignment with the orientation for domestic trade development and conforming to the development trends of e-commerce, the digital economy, the green economy, and the sharing economy. The strategy aims to enhance domestic purchasing power while stimulating demand for Vietnamese products in international markets.

One of the development orientations is to encourage enterprises of all economic sectors to participate in the development of the retail market in appropriate forms and scales, and to form a core domestic distribution force through initial incentives in mechanisms, financial policies, and land policies.

Another development orientation is to establish large corporations in the distribution sector, primarily domestic enterprises, including those with foreign investment. Among them, private enterprises shall be identified as the core driving force, making an important contribution to the development of the market.

The strategy focuses on strongly developing modern commercial business models such as e-commerce and electronic trading platforms based on digitalisation. It also seeks to diversify retail methods, with particular emphasis on omnichannel retail, mobile commerce, television commerce, and retail through social network applications, thereby meeting future consumer shopping demands and trends.

VIR