Opening a New Growth Headroom for the Digital Economy

In the landscape of digital transformation, e-commerce is emerging as a powerful new conduit stimulating consumption, manufacturing, and market connectivity. In Phu Tho, everything from OCOP (One Commune One Product) items and regional specialties of the Ancestral Land to the business operations of enterprises, cooperatives, and household businesses is progressively shifting onto digital environments. Beyond merely expanding commodity distribution channels, e-commerce generates a fresh growth headroom for the local digital economy, actively contributing to driving growth model transformations toward a modern and sustainable path.

Enterprises across the province actively promote and execute trade promotion on digital platforms to drive product consumption.

In recent years, riding the wave of comprehensive digital transformation, Phu Tho Province has intensively focused on accelerating e-commerce as a vital blueprint to expand markets, sharpen corporate competitiveness, and ignite new growth engines for the local economy.

Historically, e-commerce operations were predominantly confined to major urban centers. Today, however, digital business environments have saturated deep into various cooperatives, agricultural households, and traditional craft villages province-wide. Renowned signature specialties—such as Doan Hung pomelos, Long Coc teas, Thanh Son sour meats, Hung Lo rice noodles, and My Lung “Ga Gay” sticky rice—have step-by-step established their digital footprints on major e-commerce platforms including Shopee, Lazada, Tiki, Sendo, and TikTok Shop.

According to data compiled by the industry and trade sector, Phu Tho Province’s dedicated e-commerce trading portal currently hosts over 458 digital storefronts displaying approximately 1,430 listed products and services. The digital exchange not only serves as an efficient channel for marketing and commodity consumption but is progressively compiling a commercial database to fuel the local digital economy.

Recently, the province has supported 43 enterprises and cooperatives in deploying e-commerce solutions, encompassing online business software kits, digital brand identity toolkits, and smart retail systems. Concurrently, 135,000 anti-counterfeit electronic stamps were granted to 18 firms and cooperatives to upgrade traceability capacities, safeguarding the corporate branding of local OCOP and agricultural products.

Mr. Nguyen Huu Tuan, Director of the E-Commerce and Digital Technology Development Center (eComDX), noted that onboarding agricultural commodities onto digital platforms is an inevitable trend in contemporary economic growth. Digital technology functions not merely as a conventional sales utility but helps dissolve geographic disparities separating raw material zones from consumers nationwide, marking a vital transition in the rural digital economy.

Rather than simply “listing goods on exchanges,” various units have proactively driven livestream selling, cashless payments, social media marketing, and bespoke website development to upgrade their competitive edge.

Lita Foods Joint Stock Company (located in Thanh Son Commune), led by CEO Nguyen Thi Thu Hoa, stands as an exemplary testament to local OCOP specialties achieving breakthrough growth via digitalization and online retail channel exploitation. Instead of relying solely on a brick-and-mortar network of over 8,000 physical points of sale (restaurants, distributors, and grocery stores), Lita Foods constructed official flagship stores (Mall) on major platforms like Shopee, Lazada, and particularly TikTok Shop. This strategy delivered impressive revenue streams, slashed the physical distance from factory floor to dinner table, and diversified corporate cash flows. Online channels (Social Media, E-commerce, Livestreaming, and KOCs) have evolved into the core springboard enabling Lita Foods to capture over 50% of the national sour meat market share.

Similarly, the Da Hen Tea Production and Processing Cooperative specializes in green tea manufacturing. Mr. Nguyen Van Thanh, Director of the Cooperative, shared: "Cognizant of e-commerce’s role in sharpening competitiveness and accessing consumers rapidly and efficiently, we actively market our products on social networks. Our TikTok channel provides comprehensive product data and facilitates direct online ordering. Participating in e-commerce and trade promotions has empowered our cooperative to craft a consumer-friendly image while gathering market preferences to tailor our development blueprints."

Meanwhile, Maika Food Co., Ltd. in Dao Xa Commune has proactively built distribution channels across Facebook, TikTok, and e-commerce websites to market its 4-star OCOP certified matcha tea and freeze-dried fruits. CEO Nguyen Thi Huong stated: "In a landscape of intensifying competition, e-commerce is not merely a conventional sales outlet but an efficient brand marketing engine. Thanks to trade promotion campaigns and e-commerce applications, Maika Food’s products have expanded their reach to out-of-province buyers."

In tandem with digital infrastructure expansion, e-commerce literacy programs have been aggressively driven. The province has hosted 18 training conferences on digital transformation skills and e-commerce applications for over 4,000 turns of cadres, youth union members, farmers, women, enterprises, and business households. Notably, at the 2026 Hung Vuong Fair, the industry and trade sector collaborated to organize 4 livestreaming sessions on TikTok, marketing products for 12 entities with 56 OCOP and regional specialties. The livestreams attracted over 70,000 views, retailing nearly 1,500 products and generating a total revenue of more than 159 million VND.

E-commerce is step-by-step executing a visible turnaround across rural regions, enabling citizens to access consumers directly, bypass intermediary nodes, command greater autonomy in production, and scale up business dimensions. The paramount target is not merely lifting the raw number of digital storefronts or listed products, but upgrading digital business efficiency, molding a local force of digital enterprises and digital merchants.

Notwithstanding these positive outcomes, Phu Tho’s e-commerce landscape still faces several structural hurdles. These include modest corporate scales, limited digital governance capacities, unsynchronized logistics frameworks, and the modest online competitiveness of products. Various manufacturing entities still lack the skills for digital branding, digital marketing, or professional online storefront operations. Not a few OCOP products, despite possessing premium quality, feature designs, packaging, and wrapping standards that do not fully align with e-commerce market parameters.

Mr. Tran Quoc Binh, a digital economy expert for the Northern Midland and Mountainous region, analyzed that a major present constraint is that local enterprises continue to treat e-commerce as a supplementary sales outlet rather than an integral component of their long-term growth strategy. He noted: "To transform e-commerce into a genuine driver for the digital economy, the locality must shift from an “online selling” mindset toward constructing a synchronized digital business ecosystem encompassing customer data analytics, logistics, digital marketing, and supply chain management."

Under the E-Commerce Development Blueprint for the 2026–2030 period, Phu Tho Province targets constructing a modern, sustainable e-commerce environment tightly knit with its local digital economy strategy. The core focus rests upon advancing digital infrastructure, smart logistics, cashless payments, and expanding the online consumer ecosystem.

Phu Tho aims to upgrade its ranking in the Vietnam E-Business Index (EBI), cementing e-commerce as a critical distribution channel in digital economy growth. The province continuously perfects its digital environment coupled with comprehensive digital transformation, developing modern e-commerce structures, electronic payments, and a synchronized legal framework that takes citizens and enterprises as the center, and data as the foundation. Concurrently, it steers e-commerce growth toward green, circular, and sustainable frameworks, generating community value while minimizing environmental footprints.

Mr. Dao Dang Hoa, Deputy Director of the Department of Industry and Trade, stated that the province will continuously prioritize supporting SMEs, cooperatives, and farming households to join e-commerce exchanges, while aggressively driving digital literacy, livestream selling, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) integration in product marketing. The ultimate target is to mold a powerful rural digital economy workforce.

One of the high-potential horizons currently being driven is cross-border e-commerce targeting tea, medicinal herbs, processed foods, and artisanal handicrafts. Once logistics infrastructure and digital platforms are perfected, Phu Tho’s signature specialties will possess an ideal window of opportunity to access international markets via global e-commerce giants.

Conclusively, e-commerce is progressively acting as a strategic leverage converting Phu Tho’s growth model from intensive width to intensive depth—shifting from resource-dependent development to growth anchored by technology, data, and innovation. As the digital economy commands an increasingly vital share in local GRDP growth, e-commerce not only expands commodity consumption markets but injects a powerful new impetus into enterprises, rural economies, and the entire provincial economy in the upcoming developmental era.

Ngoc Tuan