Vietnam consumers spend $2.97bn shopping online in 2014: report   A photograph of a computer screen showing the website eBay is shown in this illustration picture. Reuters Vietnamese people spent $2.97 billion shopping online last year, or 2.12 percent of the country’s total retail revenue, an agency under the Ministry of Industry and Trade said in a report released in mid-February. Thirty-nine percent of Vietnam’s population had access to the Internet in 2014, with 58 percent of the Internet users shopping online, the Vietnam E-commerce and Information Technology Agency (VECITA) said on February 14 on its website. The Vietnamese population hit 90 million in November 2013, according to the General Office of Population and Family Planning. Sixty percent of the products purchased via the Internet were electronics and hi-tech devices, according to the VECITA report. However, 64 percent of the Vietnamese online shoppers still chose to pay in cash, whereas payment made via banks only accounted for 14 percent. Most of the online shoppers, or 81 percent of those surveyed, were still concerned about the fact that the products they purchased could be way different from those advertised on the Internet. Fifty-one percent said their concern lied in the weak delivery services, while 46 percent complained online shopping is not much cheaper than direct purchase. In the meantime, 42 percent of the shoppers were concerned their private information could be stolen, and 29 percent whined about the unprofessional design of local e-commerce websites. The VECITA also sought to work out why Vietnamese consumers are hesitant to shop online, and found out that 78 percent of the respondents were discouraged by the difficulty in examining product quality before each purchase. Fifty-seven percent did not have faith in online traders, whereas 42 percent did not have credit cards for online payment. Nevertheless, 97 percent of the online shoppers polled said they would continue using this trade method in the future, much higher than the 88 percent recorded in the 2013 survey. The VECITA also revealed in the same report that 81 percent of Vietnamese Internet users go online to update information, while 33 percent surf the net to play online games. TUOI TRE NEWS