What is Tiki

 

Vietnamese e-Commerce is on the rise. The third-largest e-Commerce market in Southeast Asia has a value of $32 billion and is projected to reach $63 billion by 2030. Currently, around 12% of all retail revenue stems from e-Commerce. Vietnamese consumers spend around $45 million a day shopping online, with home and living, women’s fashion, and beauty being the most popular product categories.

 

In a landscape like this, it’s no wonder that online marketplaces thrive. The four most popular platforms in the country are Shopee, TikTok Shop, Lazada, and Tiki. In 2025, these platforms generated $16.28 billion in sales revenue, up by 34.8% from the previous year.

 

While the first three are well-known in other parts of the world, Vietnam-based Tiki may be slightly less famous in the West. If you hadn’t heard of it before, now is your chance to get acquainted with the Amazon of Vietnam!

 

 

Introduction to Tiki

Founded in 2010, Tiki shares the humble beginnings of Amazon. The company started as a platform focusing on the sale of foreign-language books. Tiki’s founder, Tran Ngoc Thai Son, operated the service from his own living room and delivered most orders himself.

 

With the help of investors, the marketplace gradually expanded its services, and today it’s estimated to have a value of over $1 billion, marking it as Vietnam’s second unicorn company.

 

Tiki is an all-around marketplace, offering products in categories like fashion, beauty, home and living, electronics, groceries, cars and motorbikes, and obviously, the products that started it all: books.

 

 

Screenshot of the homepage of tiki.vn

 

 

Tiki in numbers

Tiki’s online platform has around 2 million daily visitors. The company reports an annual revenue of $1.4 billion and has collected $451.5 million in funding from investors like JD.com and UBS. The company is based in Ho Chi Minh City and has around 1,100 employees.

 

Although it’s considered to be the fourth most popular online marketplace in Vietnam, Tiki’s market share is only around 1% while Shopee boasts 56%, TikTok Shop 41%, and Lazada and Tiki share the remaining 3%.

 

Analysts believe that the cause of this struggle is Tiki’s inability to compete with Shopee’s and TikTok Shop’s viral content-based marketing strategies.

 

 

Related topics

What is Shopee

 

What you need to know about Lazada

 

TikTok Shop enters Europe

 

Popular online marketplaces from around the globe - Asia

 

 

How Tiki works

As mentioned before, Tiki started as an online bookseller of mostly English-language books back in 2010. The platform slowly expanded its services and now operates as a general B2C marketplace offering a large array of products in all major categories.

 

Besides selling and shipping products, Tiki provides several other services. For example, TikiNOW promises to deliver the purchased products to customers within 2-3 hours. On the seller’s side, the necessary logistics for such fast deliveries are covered by Tiki’s TikiNOW Smart Logistics.

 

Sellers can also make use of TikiLIVE, the platform’s live streaming service, to reach customers via the increasingly popular selling method.

 

Discover the live streaming options of other major platforms!

 

Other services include Ticketbox, Tiki’s platform for selling tickets to events, and Tiki Retailer, Trading and Exchange, an intermediary dealing with third-party sellers.

 

Similar to Amazon, Tiki operates a hybrid model. This means that Tiki both acts as a retailer and allows third-party vendors to access its platform and sell products there.

 

Sellers wishing to sell on Tiki need to create an account on Tiki’s Seller Center. They first have to provide basic information, such as business name, email address, and phone number, and then choose their product categories. As consumers are also allowed to sell on the platform, registrants then have to choose between an individual or a business account.

 

 

Screenshot of https://hocvien.tiki.vn/faq/introduction-to-seller-center/ displaying the user interface of Tiki’s Seller Center

 

 

All registrants need to upload a government-issued ID to verify their identity. In the case of individuals, a regular ID card or passport is required, while businesses have to provide their business registration certificate and their authorized representative’s ID card. As for brands, a trademark ownership certificate or an authorization by the brand owner is required.

 

Tiki verifies the information provided, and if all is well, registrants will receive an electronic contract within 2 business days. Once that is signed, registrants can begin uploading individual product listings to their shop. Tiki reviews these as well, and if nothing is amiss, the listing goes live.

 

Find out how other platforms verify their third-party sellers!

 

 

Brand registry on Tiki

Brands can also register on Seller Center to operate their official branded store. To do so, you must upgrade your regular seller account to an official brand account and provide your trademark registration certificate or a brand authorization.

 

Running an official store provides you with certain perks, including the option to personalize your shop according to your brand image.

 

 

Online brand protection risks on Tiki

Although Tiki does have an anti-infringement policy, it’s the seller’s responsibility not to sell IP-infringing products. Consequently, sellers who wish to violate this policy and infringe on your IP rights are free to do so until someone notifies Tiki. By the way, this is usually the industry standard; very few platforms monitor proactively for IP infringements.

 

As Tiki works with third-party sellers, there’s a significant risk of unauthorized vendors creating grey markets and/or selling counterfeit and lookalike products.

 

 

Related topics

The difference between grey and black markets

 

Grey markets on online marketplaces

 

Grey markets across industries

 

 

Luckily, there are quite a few things you can do to protect your business against IP infringements on Tiki.

 

First of all, registering your trademark in Vietnam provides you with greater legal protection against IP infringements in the country. 

 

Then, enhance your oversight and tighten your control over your distribution network. As this is often very difficult to do, especially in the case of an extensive network of sellers in faraway locations, globaleyez offers to take care of it for you. Our partner compliance service uncovers whether your business partners adhere to your agreed terms and notifies you of any irregular behavior.

 

Furthermore, our online monitoring services are essential to detect any infringing content, including marketplace product listings, ads, imagery, social media posts, and domains. Should you require more information about the origins of a certain product or the identity of its seller, we offer to run a test purchase for you.

 

In most cases (especially regarding the sale of physical products), a combination of online and offline measures is needed to ensure maximum IP protection efficiency.

 

Discover globaleyez’s and KURZ SCRIBOS’ Online-to-offline (O2O) approach!

 

Finally, we offer to enforce your rights and organize the removal of any infringing content from the internet.

 

 

Conclusion

Tiki is one of Vietnam’s most popular online marketplaces. Despite its efforts, the platform is unfortunately not free of IP-infringing product listings, including counterfeits, grey market products, and lookalikes.

 

Contact us and find out how we can protect your IP rights on Tiki, or any other platform!