Selling on Vietnamese marketplaces: what the commission table hides

A regional team evaluating Vietnam usually starts with the commission rate. It is published, it is comparable across platforms, and it fits neatly into a model.

It is also the layer least likely to be the reason the channel does or does not make money.

Seven deductions, one order

Six of the seven are absent from the report most teams look at.

None of them is a surprise in isolation. Every seller knows the platform takes a commission and that affiliates are paid. The surprise is in the total, and in how the mix shifts month to month depending on which promotional programme is running.

Who funded the discount is the question

This is the layer that causes the most misreading, because to the shopper every voucher looks the same.

To the seller they are not. A platform-funded voucher does not touch your margin. A seller-funded one does. A shipping subsidy may be split. Two orders with identical final prices can return materially different amounts depending on who paid for the discount — and the settlement report separates those columns while the sales dashboard does not.

Why in-platform ROAS reads high

Advertising inside a marketplace reaches people already in a buying state. Conversion rates are higher and reported ROAS looks stronger than off-platform advertising. That part is real.

It also competes directly on price with every other seller in the same category, on the same platform, in the same hour. Winning that competition is frequently paid for with deeper discounting. So high in-platform ROAS and thin in-platform margin tend to travel together, and looking at one metric does not reveal the other.

What to model before committing budget

Not a data project. One table, built once and refreshed monthly:

• Export the settlement report, not the sales report.
• Join in-platform advertising cost for the same period.
• Add affiliate and creator commissions — acquisition cost that sits in another report.
• Split by product line, never as a store average. The average conceals the line that is losing money.
• Apply the delivery acceptance rate by acquisition source.

The output answers the only question that matters for allocation: if we put one more dollar into this line, how much of it comes back and stays.

Concentration is a number, not a feeling

When most revenue comes through one platform, every change to fees, ranking or promotional policy lands directly on your results, and you have no say in any of them.

That is not an argument for leaving. Marketplaces are where the buying happens in most consumer categories, and abandoning real revenue to avoid a hypothetical risk is a poor trade.

It is an argument for putting two figures in the monthly report next to revenue: what share of profit depends on a single platform, and whether any customer relationship exists outside it. Neither figure demands a decision. They make sure that when a decision is needed, you know where you are standing.

Where this work stops

MWY reconstructs profit after advertising and acquisition cost — the amount actually received per the settlement report, less advertising spend, less affiliate and creator commissions.

MWY does not reconstruct true profit, which requires cost of goods and inventory and sits outside independent marketing oversight. On marketplaces the scope covers advertising, promotions, live selling, affiliate and store conversion. It does not cover cost of goods, inventory, fulfilment or returns handling.