Story: Quynh Thuong
Photos: Shutterstock
Online merchants are technically customers of e-commerce platforms, but they are increasingly trapped in distribution systems they cannot control.
If there were a ranking of the most hotly debated economic issues on social media in 2026, rising e-commerce platform fees would almost certainly be on the list.
On May 28, 2026, the National Competition Commission announced that it had met with sellers on Shopee and TikTok Shop regarding platform fees. Shopee subsequently proposed delaying the rollout of a new fee policy related to maintaining product visibility. The Commission also asked platforms to explain the basis for their fees, the level of transparency, and the possible impact on competition. Fee increases had moved beyond seller complaints to become a policy issue.
As digital businesses develop, a familiar economic pattern emerges. In the early stage, platforms must attract both buyers and sellers. They subsidize prices, waive or reduce fees, support shipping, issue vouchers, and spend heavily to build shopping habits. This is often described as a “burn-to-last” phase, where companies spend aggressively to gain market share.
Once consumers become accustomed to searching for products, comparing prices, and placing orders on a platform, bargaining power can begin to shift. Subsidies decline, while platforms must generate more revenue not only to offset costs but also to support increasingly large operations. At that point, they can charge fees and monetize the ecosystem more effectively.
Not every platform follows the same path, but ride-hailing has already made a similar transition, and e-commerce is now seeing it. In economic terms, this is a shift from prioritizing market-share growth to monetizing an established ecosystem.
What is striking is that even as fees rise and sellers complain or experiment with ways to “leave the platform,” most still don’t dare to exit completely.
Why do they stay?
First, e-commerce has grown so quickly that it has become a major retail distribution channel. Sellers can no longer rely solely on physical stores or return to them. In distribution, sellers have to be where the money flows.
According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Vietnam’s e-commerce market reached around USD31 billion in 2025, up 25.5% from the previous year. TikTok Shop reported that its gross merchandise value (GMV) rose 66% from 2024. Data from YouNet ECI also showed that GMV across four major e-commerce platforms, Shopee, TikTok Shop, Lazada, and Tiki, reached VND264.8 trillion in the first half of 2026, up 19% year on year.
According to Metric’s 2025 E-commerce Report, the retail market is highly concentrated: Shopee accounted for 56.04% and TikTok Shop for 41.31% of total transaction value across the four major platforms. Together, the two platforms accounted for about 97.35% of the surveyed market.
This is a classic example of network effects. Sellers need to be where buyers are concentrated, and the more sellers gather on a platform, the more reasons buyers have to stay: products become easier to find, choices broaden, and prices become more competitive.
Sellers can, of course, move their products to their own websites, Facebook, or another platform. But when they switch digital sales channels, they cannot easily take their full customer base, reviews, sales history, or access to buyers with them. These switching costs can therefore cause an immediate, significant decline in revenue.
That is why a shop owner may be unhappy with platform fees yet keep selling there: leaving can cost more than staying. In many cases, the potential loss from leaving the platform may exceed the fees they complain about.
Who ultimately bears the higher fees?
On screen, a shirt is listed at VND240,000. After discounts, the seller’s revenue falls to VND137,600. By the time the settlement statement appears, the amount actually received is just VND95,109 – less than 40% of the listed price.
The nearly VND145,000 difference isn’t entirely platform fees. It also includes seller-funded discounts, transaction-related charges, and taxes deducted from the order. From the amount received, the seller must still subtract the cost of goods, packaging, staff, advertising, and other operating expenses.
One shirt and one order can therefore contain multiple layers of cost. The listed price is what the buyer sees, the settlement amount is what reaches the seller, and profit can only be determined after all other expenses are accounted for. Selling online is not as easy or profitable as many assume; business efficiency depends on how much a merchant can retain from each order.
To preserve existing margins, many sellers respond to higher platform fees by raising retail prices, arguing that “margins on the platform are already very thin,” even though this may reduce demand. In that sense, higher platform fees may ultimately be passed on to buyers more than to sellers.
At present, platforms do not publicly disclose their actual costs for technology, logistics, payment processing, fraud prevention, customer support, marketing and other operations. Without such information, fee increases alone are not sufficient grounds to conclude that platforms are abusing market power.
What is clear, however, is that behind the debate over higher fees, merchants are gradually shifting from being customers purchasing a service from e-commerce platforms to becoming dependent on distribution systems they have little ability to control.
