Viet Nam ranked fourth among 48 countries for the most books sold on the Internet as compared to other products, according to the results of a recent survey by the Nielsen Company.
Nielsen conducted the online survey with 26,312 people from 48 countries. South Korea topped the list with 58 per cent, Germany grabbed 55 per cent and Austria and Viet Nam tied with 54 per cent each.
However, the figures do not necessarily tell the truth in Viet Nam.
According to Nguyen Viet Hien, director of the IT department at HCM City’s Books Distribution Company, the amount of books the company sold online accounted for only one-fiftieth of their entire sales.
"There are many reasons for this, but the main obstacles remain methods of payment and delivery," he said.
Up to now, banks in Viet Nam had not co-ordinated to issue a common bank card. And the fact that customers in other provinces have paid for delivery fees and waited a long time before receiving the books has hindered most online trading through the company’s website.
"The results from the Nielsen Company are just from one angle of the issue," he said, "It’s OK if someone wants to be optimistic."
Nguyen Viet Hung, who used to be in charge of a notable book website, www.moingay1cuonsach .com.vn, had recently sold the website’s rights to another owner, even though the website had originally gone along with a book-introduction programme on channel VTV1.
Hung said there were too many difficulties with customer payments.
"I used to receive hundreds of book orders a day," said Hung, "but not all were real purchases, because even though there are many book lovers, not many are ready to transfer their money to buy them. Some book lovers in the central province of Dac Lac and the northern mountainous province of Tuyen Quang have even written letters asking for free books.
Nguyen Thanh Van An, director of Vinabook.com, the biggest online book supplier in Viet Nam, expressed his surprise at the above mentioned survey results.
"The survey may have focused only on white-collar staff, which does not reflect the reality of online book trading in Viet Nam," he said.
Nguyen Van Song, an editor of the HCM City-based Thanh Nien Publishing House, shared the same idea.
"If we look at domestic book trading last year we can notice there were only few book titles printed up to a few thousands of copies," he added, "And there was no title that was printed with hundreds of thousands of copies.
"Though the Internet is a vital device for urban office staff, most audiences still enjoy going to book shops.
"They come to the book shops not only to buy the books they need but also to window-shop for others. You can recognise the habit in book centres in downtown Ha Noi like on Dinh Le and Trang Tien streets during weekends.
Hien, from HCM City Books Distributing Company, explained that there were more and more book websites appearing on the net and that they were used mainly for advertising books, names of book shops or publishing houses or even sometimes for investigating the market. Book trading companies sometimes wanted to know where audiences were gathering so they could open new book shops there.
"Online trading is still waiting for the proper time, when all the current obstacles are cleared," he said.
From his own experience, Hung, from www.moingay1cuonsach .com.vn, suggested that audiences should just check the front page of book web sites.
"If the front pages are constantly updated, the trading flows smoothly, otherwise, no," he said. —VNS
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