Screen shot of Sunhouse on Amazon

Following a focused, technology-driven approach launched last year, Sunhouse’s sales on Amazon surged from a modest 300,000-500,000 USD to nearly 2 million USD.

Nguyen Xuan Minh, head of e-commerce at Sunhouse, said cross-border e-commerce offers the firm an escape from domestic market constraints and a pathway to dramatic growth.

"For us, cross-border e-commerce is an opportunity to achieve a golden growth and break out of our domestic shell. To show how big the opportunity is, let me take Sunhouse's target for the coming years. Currently, we’ve reached revenues of 2 million USD, and we expect to increase that number to 100 million USD by 2030 through cross-border trade," Minh explained.

But this massive opportunity comes with challenges. The greatest hurdle for Vietnamese businesses venturing overseas is a fundamental lack of understanding of foreign consumers – their needs and their tastes – said Minh, who took Sunhouse’s need for a fundamental shift in mindset as an example.

"Overcoming this cultural and market knowledge gap is the first critical step, and it’s here that technology plays its primary role. The technology may be provided by the platform on which we’re doing business, like Amazon. They have very comprehensive tools for conducting research to identify product gaps and customer needs based on which to launch winning products.”

Nguyen Xuan Minh, Head of E-commerce at Sunhouse, says the company now targets smaller niches with moderate competition to grow sustainably. (Photo credit: Sunhouse)

Sunhouse sees technology as the essential tool for bridging the knowledge gap. But business acumen drives technology adoption, not the other way around, said Minh, a gen-Z businessman. "Actually, for me, technology is just an assistive tool. The most important thing still has to come from the business mindset. For us, it comes from the customer's needs, and then technology will help us understand that."

The group strategically uses technology in two critical areas – market research and product strategy – by leveraging Amazon's native tools like Opportunity Explorer; advanced AI like ChatGPT, OpenAI, and Deepseek to analyze customer search trends and identify product gaps; and data analytics and predictive modeling using AI for sales trend forecasting, production volume estimation, and cost calculation.

Minh explained that this process helps them determine if a product will be a "winning product" before major investment, thereby "eliminating risks and investing more strongly in the right directions or products that will be accepted by the market."

Cross-border success on platforms like Amazon is tightly linked to optimizing logistics, particularly in managing Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) storage fees, according to Minh. "At Amazon, the storage cost can increase. For example, after 3-6 months, it can triple. This is a very normal thing. So, when operating on an e-commerce platform like Amazon, the biggest issue is warehousing."

Sunhouse’s solution is a technologically-driven, highly optimized inventory management system. They use AI to calculate precise stock points, maximum/minimum inventory levels, and reorder points to ensure a continuous, fast-moving flow of goods. Technology helps the group "calculate more accurately and sketch out more scenarios," allowing them to choose the optimal strategy to minimize waste and avoid unnecessary fees.

"For me, there isn't just one or two small tips that are enough. It must start from the customer mindset. No matter what you do, you must know what the customer needs, what difficulties they’re facing, and then offer a solution to meet those problems," Minh noted.

Sunhouse’s success on the Amazon platform is seen as an important case study for Vietnamese SMEs looking to make their mark globally. But the domestic business community needs greater support from both the government and platform providers.

Minh expressed his hope that the policies of the State, and of e-commerce platforms like Amazon, can provide the business community with tools, information resources, or library portals to tell them what customers in a country need, what laws and regulations exist, and what things they must keep in mind when doing business in or exporting to that country.

Sunhouse's experience shows that success in global cross-border e-commerce is less about discovering a secret trick than about using advanced technology—from Amazon's native research tools to predictive AI—to understand and serve the needs of international customers. A strategic, customer-first approach is transforming this domestic giant into a global competitor.