Shopee vs Lazada vs TikTok Shop in Vietnam: which to open first, and when to add the next

A regional team comparing Shopee, Lazada and TikTok Shop usually starts from a market-share table. The table is worth knowing, and it is below. But it answers "where does Vietnam shop", and the question a brand entering the market has to answer is narrower: which of the three can we operate well first, and what would make us add the next one.

The answer depends less on the size of each platform than on three things about the brand: the price of what it sells, whether it can put new local video in front of shoppers every week, and whether buyers in its category go looking for the product or come across it.

This piece compares the three on those terms. How advertising works inside each platform, and what the fee table leaves out, are covered in separate pieces in this cluster.

The comparison in one table

Two trackers publish platform figures regularly, for different periods and with different methods. They agree on the direction; they should not be mixed in one sentence. The table keeps each figure with its source.

At roughly 26,000 dong to the dollar, the average item on TikTok Shop sells for a little over five dollars, on Shopee a little under six, and on Lazada close to nine. Those are averages across every category, pulled down by very cheap goods, so they say little about any one product. What they do say is where the typical basket sits, and that matters for the first decision.

Shopee: the default, and what being the default costs

Shopee is where most Vietnamese shoppers go when they already know what they want and want to compare prices. For a brand, that makes it the platform that behaves most like search: the buyer arrives with a need, and the listing that looks best on price after vouchers, reviews and units sold tends to win.

Three consequences follow for a first launch:

• The listing is the product. A new listing with no reviews and no sales history converts poorly whatever the advertising budget. The first weeks are spent building a record, and that cost belongs in the launch plan, not in a disappointing first month.
• Price is compared on the same screen. If a parallel importer or a hand-carry seller lists the same product cheaper, the shopper sees both. Shopee rewards brands that have settled their price floor and their authorised sellers before launch.
• Campaign days set the calendar. Monthly double-date sales and the year-end season move volume, and the platform expects participating sellers to fund part of the discount.

Shopee is the lower-risk first platform for most categories, because its demands are ones a brand already understands: a good product page, a competitive price and patience while reviews build up.

TikTok Shop: the fastest-growing, and the one that runs on content

TikTok Shop sells to people who were not looking for the product. A shopper watches a video or a livestream, sees the product used, and buys without leaving the app. The platform grew from about a third of the large-platform market to more than two fifths in a year in Q&Me's estimate, and it is where much of the growth in Vietnamese online spending is happening.

The demand it places on a brand is different in kind. On Shopee, a listing keeps working when nobody touches it. On TikTok Shop, sales follow content, and content decays in days. A brand that opens a store and publishes a handful of videos will see a short burst and then very little.

What the platform needs, week after week:

• new short videos showing the product in local use, in Vietnamese;
• a livestream rhythm, either the brand's own or hosted by creators;
• a pool of creators selling on commission, with samples and briefs;
• someone who reads what worked last week and changes this week's content.

The lower average spend per item also matters. Impulse buying from a video favours products that are cheap enough to buy on a whim and easy to show in thirty seconds. A product that needs explanation, comparison or a higher price can still sell on TikTok Shop, but it usually needs livestreams and creators who are trusted in the category, which costs more.

Lazada: small overall, not always small in your category

Lazada's share of the large-platform market has shrunk to low single digits, and YouNet ECI data cited by SHS show its transaction value falling by about 23% in the first half of 2026. For most brands that settles the question: Lazada is not the first platform.

Two things keep it from being irrelevant. Its average spend per item is the highest of the three, most likely because more of what sells there is higher-priced branded goods, often through its official-store section. And some foreign brands arrive with a regional agreement that already covers Lazada across Southeast Asia, which can make a Vietnamese store cheap to open.

The honest position is that Lazada is a second or third platform for most brands, and a first one only when the category is high-priced and the regional terms make it nearly free to run.

Four questions that decide which platform opens first

These are the questions worth answering on one page before choosing. None of them is "which platform is biggest".

The second question is the one most often answered optimistically. A brand that plans for TikTok Shop without a named person, a production budget and a creator programme for the full first year is really planning for Shopee, with a short TikTok experiment attached.

The fourth question is not about platform choice at all, but it has to be settled first. Whoever holds the store holds the reviews, the sales history and the advertising record, so the answer shapes every later decision, including what happens if a distributor relationship ends.

A worked example: what each platform must earn to justify its running cost

The figures below are illustrative, built for this example rather than taken from any brand. They show a calculation worth doing before choosing, not a benchmark.

A personal-care brand sells a product at 250,000 dong. After platform fees, payment fees, the brand's share of vouchers and delivery subsidies, it keeps about 150,000 dong per order before product cost. Product cost is 70,000 dong, so each order contributes about 80,000 dong on Shopee.

On TikTok Shop, creator commission of 15% of the selling price comes off as well, about 37,500 dong, so each order contributes about 42,500 dong.

The fixed monthly cost of running each platform properly is where the difference sits:

On these numbers, TikTok Shop has to sell more than three times as many orders as Shopee just to pay for itself. That is not an argument against TikTok Shop. If the product demonstrates well, it may reach that volume faster than Shopee reaches its own. It is an argument for writing the number down before launch, so the first quarter is judged against it instead of against a ROAS figure from inside the ads tool.

Replace every figure with your own: the brand supplies the margin and the product cost, and the operator supplies the running cost. The shape of the calculation is what carries over.

When to add the second platform

A second platform should be added because the first one is stable, not because it is struggling. Four signals that the first is ready:

• the price after all discounts has held within a set range for two months;
• the main products have a review base that no longer embarrasses them next to competitors;
• the team running the first platform is not the team that will be pulled onto the second;
• eight to twelve weeks of orders can be read without launch effects or campaign-day spikes.

Adding the second platform changes three things in the head-office report. Price parity has to be checked across platforms, because the price a shopper pays on each is set by that platform's vouchers as much as by the brand. Campaign calendars have to be planned together, because a campaign day on one platform pulls demand from the other. And reporting has to show each platform's contribution after all deductions, side by side, instead of each platform's own dashboard. How Vietnamese shoppers move between venues before buying is covered in the consumer market cluster, and it explains why the two platforms will partly sell to the same people.

The sequence most foreign brands end up with

Put together, the choices usually land in one of three patterns:

• Shopee first, TikTok Shop second. The common path for brands without a local content team at launch. Shopee builds the record; TikTok Shop is added once a content owner, budget and creator programme exist.
• TikTok Shop and Shopee together, TikTok Shop leading. For low-priced products that sell on demonstration, when the brand or its partner already has creators and a production rhythm. Shopee catches the shoppers who see the video and then search.
• Lazada early. For high-priced branded goods, or where a regional agreement makes the Vietnamese store close to free. Even then, one of the two leaders usually follows within a year.

Where the marketplaces fit in the wider entry plan, and what to settle before any store opens, is part of the market entry cluster.

Where the figures in this article come from

• Q&Me, Vietnam E-commerce Market Report 2026, as reported by The Investor on 3 June 2026: May 2025 to April 2026, the four largest platforms, combined gross merchandise value of about $13.6 billion; Shopee 53% (61% a year earlier), TikTok Shop 44% (33%), Lazada 3%.
• YouNet ECI data cited in SHS's e-commerce sector report for September 2026, as reported by Znews: first half of 2026, the four largest platforms, transaction value of more than 264,800 billion dong; Shopee more than 55%; Shopee and TikTok Shop close to 98% together; Lazada down about 23% year on year; average transaction value per item and per shop as shown in the first table.

Transaction value and gross merchandise value count orders placed, before cancellations, returns and seller-funded discounts. They describe where buying happens, not where sellers make money. The dollar conversion uses an approximate rate and is rounded. The running-cost table is illustrative and uses invented numbers.

Where this work stops

MWY does not open or operate stores, run advertising, manage creators, or take commission from any platform, agency, distributor or creator.

Choosing which platforms to open, in what order, at what price floor and with what first-year targets is part of Go-to-Market Strategy. Once the stores are live, rebuilding each platform's contribution from its settlement, advertising and affiliate reports, and holding the monthly head-office report to that figure, is Vietnam Marketing Advisory & Oversight.