Sendo shut down twice — FPT's 14-year e-commerce bet collapsed in two stages

Sen Do Technology Joint Stock Company (Sendo.vn) was founded in 2012 as a subsidiary of FPT Corporation, one of Vietnam's largest technology conglomerates. It operated Sendo, a multi-category e-commerce platform that was once among Vietnam's top three online marketplaces, competing with Shopee, Lazada and Tiki. In 2014, Sendo acquired rival 123 Mua from VNG for VND 10 billion. By 2020, merger talks with Tiki were reported but went nowhere.

Sendo's market share among Vietnam's top five e-commerce platforms fell below 1% by 2024, according to Metric.vn. The onslaught from Shopee, Lazada, TikTok Shop and Tiki — all backed by much deeper pockets — had turned Sendo into an also-ran. FPT was a software and IT services company, not an e-commerce specialist, and could not match the investment levels of dedicated platforms. In April 2025, Sen Do shut down the general Sendo marketplace and pivoted entirely to Sendo Farm, an online grocery platform using a group-buying model with pickup points.

Sendo Farm launched in late 2021 and had grown to over 1 million customers by 2024. The model was inspired by Chinese group-buying giants Meituan Select and Pinduoduo: customers ordered through the app and picked up at Farm Hub points during fixed time windows. But Vietnamese consumers preferred traditional markets, convenience stores, and on-demand delivery like GrabMart and ShopeeFood. The pickup-point model was inconvenient and food quality suffered from poor storage. After just over a year, on July 10, 2026, Sendo Farm also shut down. FPT had completely exited e-commerce.

Shut down the general marketplace in 2025, pivoted to group-buying groceries, then closed that in 2026 — two exits, 14 years, FPT fully out of e-commerce.

FPT was a software company, not an e-commerce specialist — it lacked the strategic focus and investment appetite to compete against dedicated, well-funded platforms in a winner-take-most market

By the time Sendo pivoted to group-buying groceries, the market was already crowded with faster, more convenient alternatives including GrabMart, ShopeeFood, Bach Hoa Xanh and WinMart

The group-buying model that worked in China (dense apartments, weak fresh-food supply chains) did not transfer to Vietnam's street-level retail culture of traditional markets

Two strategic pivots in 14 months — from general e-commerce to groceries to nothing — showed the company never found a sustainable competitive advantage

Being a subsidiary of a successful company in one industry does not guarantee success in a different one. If the parent will not invest like a specialist, the subsidiary cannot compete as one.

Sendo Farm's closure marked FPT Corporation's complete exit from e-commerce after 14 years. The company had been one of Vietnam's earliest e-commerce platforms but was gradually squeezed out by better-funded international competitors. The grocery delivery market it tried to enter was already dominated by GrabMart, ShopeeFood, Bach Hoa Xanh (MWG) and WinMart (Vingroup), each with faster logistics and larger customer bases.