Mr. Tran Ngoc Thai Son, Founder and CEO of Tiki, said this is just a first step in expanding Tiki’s supply chain this year, which contributes to raising the company’s operational competency and helps it maintain its position as the fastest-growing e-commerce unit in Vietnam.

Tiki’s losses in recent years have been primarily due to investment in its infrastructure and fulfillment center system. Expanding the system is now its key focus, as it benefits not only vendors but also Tiki’s customers in terms of faster delivery, lower cost, and guaranteed product quality, etc., from Vietnam’s logistics industry being improved and developed.

Starting with a 100 sq m warehouse, Tiki now has over 30,000 sq m in its fulfillment center system, which is expected to reach 100,000 sq m in the next six to eight months.

“We will become the leading supply chain service provider not only in the e-commerce industry but also in Vietnam’s logistics industry,” said Mr. Son. “In order for us to achieve this, we need to expand relations with our strategic partners providing warehousing infrastructure, and Unidepot is one of our key partners.”

Supply chain is a billion-dollar industry in Vietnam, and while it is recording surprisingly rapid growth it still lacks effectiveness.

Thanks to its technology, the development of Tiki’s fulfillment center system will see intermediate steps removed and the goods processing time cut down by half. A typical instance is that the total time for order processing with TikiNOW takes just 15 minutes, including all steps, from receiving orders and picking up to packaging and packing promotional goods, if any.

According to a survey by Tiki at the end of 2018, one of the leading factors encouraging customers to shop online is convenience. In particular, the short order processing time and fast delivery are the major drivers. Therefore, expanding the fulfillment center system allows Tiki to significantly raise its delivery speed, from which the shopping experience will be more complete.

According to Mr. Rahul Awasthi, Vice President of Warehouse Management at Tiki, one of its unique selling propositions is the TikiNOW 2h delivery service – the first in Southeast Asia. Its nationwide average delivery time is 1.2 days, much faster than the 4-5 day average in the market as a whole. To accomplish this, expanding the fulfillment center system has become Tiki’s top priority this year.

Mr. Doan Quang Minh, CEO of Unidepot, said it took less than a month for Tiki and Unidepot to wrap up negotiations and sign the contract, despite it being a major project. Sharing a mutual vision of enhancing Vietnam’s logistics sector, the two sides establishing this partnership is a significant milestone for both.

Tiki earlier announced it would set up the “Tiki Foundation” to support and nurture Vietnamese talent in all fields, including arts, sports, technology, and science, etc. This is part of its corporate social responsibility efforts, in addition to its firm commitment to offer Vietnamese customers best-in-class services and products.