Business declines and potential risks
Going through the current routes of Ho Chi Minh City, one notices that the shops are almost closed apart from those selling essentials, or offering takeaway service. The number of customers visiting the point of sale is also limited to ensure a safe distance to buy services.
This situation has directly affected the lives of small and medium merchants in Vietnam. With street sellers trading at traditional markets business is not much better. According to a small trader at Binh Dien market, the largest market in Ho Chi Minh City, the number of goods consumed decreased by about 50%, many stalls closed, and some people "lost billions of dong" because of the Covid-19 epidemic.
The business situation is difficult, in addition, the habit of using cash at the point of sale also has many potential risks, affecting health and safety during the epidemic season. According to the Telegraph (UK), the World Health Organization (WHO) has issued a warning message about the risk of virus transmission from cash, advising people of all countries to switch to cashless payment methods. However, changing the habit of using cash still faces many obstacles when the tools and support platforms are not yet widely available or sellers and buyers are still not familiar with digital payment.
Digital transformation promotes cashless payments and reduces safety risks
When people realize that using the old way to conduct business means losing everything, they start looking for ways to adapt and be more proactive in their business activities. In that context, technology companies such as SmartPay, a platform connecting the network of more than 600,000 small and medium-sized merchants in Vietnam, have made great efforts to help sellers get out of the slump and maintain business.
Since 2020, SmartPay has built and gradually perfected the "Smart shopping and selling" feature, helping merchants proactively approach potential customers around the point of sale. At the same time, shoppers can choose their favorite products with good prices near them.
All operations are simplified - publishing product information and creating promotion campaigns only take a few steps and registration is completely free. From here, sellers can easily create promotions to attract customers to buy online and pick up their orders at the shop. The seller can also order the AhaMove delivery service on the SmartPay app to deliver it directly to the customer.
Currently, more than 600,000 units accepting SmartPay payments are all using QR-codes. The network of SmartPay merchants has almost covered more than 60 provinces and cities in Vietnam, whereby, individual users can easily make contactless payments when shopping at points of sale that accept SmartPay payments.
Moreover, SmartPay has joined hands with big players in the financial and banking sectors to expand the community of users to pay by scanning QR codes. Recently, SmartPay cooperated with Vietcombank to help more than 100,000 retailers access millions of customers who are using VCB DigiBank. Previously, SmartPay cooperated with VPBank to organize promotional activities to bring customers to shop and pay at 600,000 points of sale and SmartPay partner stores nationwide.
SmartPay also creates an additional income channel for sellers to take advantage of their idle time and earn extra "commissions" from collecting bills, paying loans, and referring users.
Sharing about SmartPay's support activities for merchants, as well as users during the current "social distancing", Mr. Marek Forysiak, President of Smart Network Co., Ltd. The owner of the SmartPay application said: “SmartPay wishes that through its activities, it will contribute to supporting SmartPay merchants and individual users to overcome this difficult time. In the near future, we will continue to have more activities to support 1.2 million small and medium-sized sellers in Vietnam, helping to strengthen the connection between individual customers and sellers nationwide according to the goal and supporting strategy "Digitalizing small and medium-sized sellers in Vietnam".
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