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CEO Pham Viet An shared at Japanese Vietnamese food application seminar NVCC |
Buy seasoning sauce, shrimp paste through app
With over 25,000 downloads since April 2022, Sesofoods is currently a popular ordering app in Japan that offers Vietnamese people a variety of food sources. NHK TV also reported on the startup about new business trends.
On the Sesofoods app, Vietnamese can find a variety of foods with strong hometown flavors. From meat and seafood to coconut water, sauces, shrimp paste, shrimp satay and other ingredients… In addition, Sesofoods offers a variety of vegetables and vegetarian options.
Behind the success of this app is Pham Viet An from Hung Nguyen District (Nghe An). After graduating from the Department of Geography at Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities, majoring in tourism, he decided to “wrap a towel” to study abroad.
After living in Japan, 9X noticed the growing number of Vietnamese communities, especially the increasing proportion of international students and trainees living in scattered places, making it difficult for provincial areas to obtain and purchase Vietnamese products.
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NHK TV reports on Fan Yue’s new business trend nvcc |
“You often have to take the train to major stations or cycle miles on weekends to buy essentials. With limited food sources, it’s time-consuming and laborious. Few know how to buy online, but most still buy through their personal Facebook channels There are cases of being cheated and losing money,” Vietnam said.
In March 2020, the Japanese government declared a state of emergency due to the Covid-19 outbreak, resulting in restrictions on all business activities. This has led to a surge in demand for online shopping. Pham Viet An and his colleagues established SE-SO Joint Stock Company in Itabashi, Tokyo, Japan, where SE-SO is the combination of the first two letters of the word Service Solution.
After 3 months of implementation, they launched an online shopping site and received positive signals. In addition to focusing on social platform promotion, the founder also cooperates with community media channels, event sponsors, etc. to reach different customers. Since then, the number of subscribers using the app has increased every day. In addition to online business, Sesofoods has also deployed the Sesofoods Store offline store system.
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Sesofoods Store in Kawaguchi City, Saitama Prefecture (Japan) NVCC |
Driving technology to survive in the Japanese market
Sesofoods not only offers genuine Vietnamese products, but also accepts delivery to all provinces in Japan. For the convenience of users, the team has also created convenient payment functions through the app, such as: convenience store payment, credit card, e-wallet… In addition, customers can easily update and track the delivery status through the app.
Pham Viet An said that in order to compete, he raised the technical factor. The founder of Sesofoods shared: “From the very beginning, we aspired to be a startup in the field of food technology. So the fundamental factor is that the system has been put in from the early days. From ordering, payment, order processing, inventory management, marketing, technology elements, making operations easier and maximizing costs.”
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After placing the order through the app, Sesofoods staff will deliver the goods directly to the customer NVCC |
However, at the beginning of the operation, the Vietnam team encountered many difficulties due to its young experience. He shared: “There is a shortage of products due to lack of inventory management experience. Some fresh products have no experience in storage and handling, so the damage is very large. To overcome these problems, we focus on improving order management, expanding supplier network and quality control. .”
In addition to preserving food, securing the availability of some pure Vietnamese products abroad also presents Sesofoods with a lot of hurdles. Vietnamese in each region have unique food, so their needs are very diverse. This requires the team to constantly update and capture customer tastes.
The boss of Sesofoods revealed the upcoming plans, saying the business is expected to reach and serve 500,000 Vietnamese in Japan, hoping to become Japan’s leading foreign-run food tech startup. In addition, through the import link, Sesofoods hopes to bring Vietnamese food to Japanese supermarket chains to reach local customers.