Aemi was founded by Hieu and Kim.
One person selling products to their followers on social media platforms can be a social commerce seller. Many don't have a web storefront and rely on private messages to take orders and payments. In many Southeast Asian markets, social commerce sellers are making up an increasingly large portion of e- commerce. According to a recent Bain report, social commerce accounted for 65% of Vietnam's $22 billion online retail economy last year.
Many social commerce sellers can't buy in bulk from brands. Kim Vu, Aemi co-founder and CEO, said that they may not be able to trace the provenance of their products.
Aemi was created to solve supply chain issues for social commerce sellers. Aemi is able to buy directly from brands because it works with hundreds of social commerce sellers.
Currently focused on beauty and wellbeing, the startup's ultimate goal is to expand into more areas and create a suite of software that will help sellers manage inventory, ordering and payment.
The startup received $2 million in funding from Alpha JWC and January Capital. Product engineers are being hired to build software for Aemi's micro-merchants.
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Micro-influencers with follower counts of 10,000 to 30,000 are typically the social commerce sellers Aemi works with. One of the reasons she wanted to start Aemi was because she was a social commerce enthusiast.
I love buying on social commerce, Facebook stores, and the like because I trust the person, so I trust that they have done a good job of breaking down the products and reviews from a content perspective. She found that many sellers could not assure the products were genuine because they didn't have the selling volume to develop a close relationship with brands.
There is a huge demand from a consumer standpoint, but also from a supply perspective.
Prior to founding Aemi, she spent six years as a management consultant for Bain. Working with global brands to grow their distribution in emerging markets was included. She found that they approached branding and distribution in a traditional way, missing the growth of social commerce.
A lot of effort is being put into high visibility, like physical stores, but people have a growing affinity for buying social commerce, buying items online and getting it delivered to their house.
Many social commerce sellers have unreliable supply chains and don't have the software and marketing support they need to build their businesses.
Helping sellers create memorable content is one of the things Aemi offers. Many have created niches for themselves to recommend certain types of products, but don't have the social networking clout to gain brand partnerships. Aemi provides professional product photos, product descriptions and information to sellers. drag-and-drop storefronts will help sellers manage sales and inventory across multiple social media platforms.
The majority of volume on social commerce in Vietnam is made up of the people that we cater towards.
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