Project Lana Launches a New Challenger in Vietnam’s Online Lingerie Market

Project Lana, is the team that spund off of Web Tre Tho, Vietnam’s largest women’s forum, and now it has a new venture: an online store selling lingerie. It’s called Foreva and it launched quietly last Thursday.

The launch of Foreva will be troubling news for Noyyo, which at the time I wrote the article, was the first and only one of the only online lingerie shops in Vietnam. And even more troubling for Noyyo will be the price range of Foreva’s selection. Most of the lingerie on the front page ranges from 36,000 VND ($1.80) to 505,000 VND ($24.23). Noyyo’s selection ranges from 192,000 VND ($9.21) to over a million VND ($47.97). That’s mainly because Noyyo carries quality brand names like Wonderbra whereas Foreva carries Vietnamese brands like Relax. This is in keeping with Foreva’s interest in offering its customer base a wider arrange of pricing. After Lunar New Year holidays, Foreva plans to add more brands including: Triumph, Wacoal, and Vera.

Another difference you’ll see between Noyyo and Foreva is that the latter only has Vietnamese models in its photos, possibly underlining a difference in the funding and relationship with the local community. Project Lana, being close to that community, has felt that customers connect more with Asian models and can get a better idea of how the lingerie fits on Asian models. Foreva has the advantage of riding the wave of the Web Tre Tho online community, which already exceeds over one million users, and the team is completely Vietnamese. Noyyo has had to strike out on its own and one of its founders is European.

Clearly, lingerie is a hot market in Vietnam with two five e-commerce companies going head to head. I’d say Foreva’s got a significant advantage, with the community and going for the lower-end market, but Noyyo’s also got international brands in a higher end market that won’t be as impacted by the Vietnamese economy. We’ll see who makes it out the other end of 2013.

Aside from the popular forum and the new e-commerce store, the Project Lana team also runs Lam Dieu, a specialist e-commerce fashion site for women, and Be Yeu, a vertical online store for mothers and mothers-to-be. Since I last talked to Project Lana, the team has also released a pretty iPhone app for Web Tre Tho.

According to the Foreva team, there are also competitors on the market besides Noyyo including: Heyhoney.vn, Dolotsexy.net, and Olalasexy.com. Thus, the online lingerie market is particularly crowded.

EDIT: Added more details from Foreva.