60,000 Vietnamese businesses run on Haravan. From first-time home sellers to established retail chains like Bitis — and if you’re deciding whether to build your store here, this review covers everything: what the platform does, what it costs in VND, and exactly who it’s built for.
What Is Haravan and Who Is It For?
Haravan is a Vietnamese-built ecommerce platform that combines website selling, marketplace integration, social commerce, and physical retail management into one system. According to Haravan’s official website, over 60,000 Vietnamese businesses use the platform — from small home-based stores to retail chains like Bitis and Juno. It was founded in Ho Chi Minh City in March 2014 and is designed specifically for the Vietnamese market.
The fundamental difference between Haravan and international platforms like Shopify is localization from day one.
Haravan comes pre-integrated with the payment gateways Vietnamese buyers actually use: MoMo, ZaloPay, VNPay, bank transfer, and COD. It connects out of the box with the major Vietnamese shipping carriers — GHN (Giao Hàng Nhanh), GHTK (Giao Hàng Tiết Kiệm), Viettel Post, and J&T Express. And it links directly with Shopee VN, Lazada VN, and TikTok Shop.
When you start a Vietnamese ecommerce store on Shopify, you spend the first few weeks configuring third-party apps for local payments and shipping. On Haravan, those are already there. That difference matters more than most first-time sellers expect.
This review is focused on what Vietnamese sellers starting out need to know. If you’re choosing your first platform, or switching from a marketplace like Shopee to your own store, you’re in the right place.
Does Haravan Give You a Good Website Builder?
Yes. Haravan’s website builder includes access to 400+ templates, per the official Haravan platform, all mobile-responsive and optimized for Vietnamese SEO. You can customize colors, fonts, and layout without coding. Templates range from simple single-product stores to multi-category shops with blog and promotion features.
The templates on Haravan look modern and work well on mobile — important because the majority of Vietnamese ecommerce traffic comes from phones, not desktops.
You can build and publish your first product page without any technical knowledge. The admin panel is in Vietnamese and designed for non-technical users.
Where Haravan gets more complex is deep customization. The platform uses its own templating system (similar to Shopify’s Liquid). If you want significant design changes — custom checkout flow, unique product display logic, highly branded layouts — you’ll need a developer who knows Haravan’s system specifically. Unlike WordPress, you can’t install arbitrary plugins or modify core code yourself.
For most beginners, this is actually fine. You don’t need a fully custom site to start selling. Pick a clean template, add your products, and launch. You can always customize more as your business grows.
How Does Haravan Handle Multichannel Selling?
Haravan’s multichannel system connects your store to Shopee VN, Lazada VN, TikTok Shop, Facebook Shop, Instagram, and Zalo OA — all managed from one dashboard. According to Haravan’s platform documentation, you can sync products, inventory, and orders across all channels without logging into each separately. This is where the platform is strongest compared to competitors.
This is the feature that separates Haravan from simple website builders.
Here’s what multichannel looks like in practice: a customer orders from your Shopee listing. That order appears in your Haravan dashboard alongside your website orders. Your inventory updates automatically. You process the order once from one place.
Haravan also handles social commerce selling:
- Facebook and Messenger selling — customers comment a keyword on a Facebook post, and Haravan’s system automatically creates an order and sends a cart link to their Messenger
- Zalo OA integration — manage customer conversations and orders through Zalo (Vietnam’s most popular messaging app) from the Haravan dashboard
- TikTok Shop — list products and sync orders from TikTok Shop directly
For Vietnamese sellers who use Facebook and Shopee heavily alongside their own website, this multichannel management is a significant time-saver. Managing inventory across three or four separate systems manually is one of the fastest ways to oversell, undersell, and lose customers.
Does Haravan Support Vietnamese Payment Methods and Shipping?
Yes — Haravan comes pre-configured with Vietnam’s most-used payment methods: MoMo, ZaloPay, VNPay QR, bank transfer (chuyển khoản), COD (cash on delivery), and credit/debit cards. For shipping, it integrates directly with GHN, GHTK, Viettel Post, J&T Express, and other Vietnamese carriers, per Haravan’s platform documentation. No additional setup or third-party apps required.
This is a critical advantage in the Vietnamese market.
COD (cash on delivery) still drives a large share of Vietnamese ecommerce orders — many buyers don’t trust prepayment with unfamiliar sellers. Haravan supports COD natively, and you can set rules around it (which areas accept COD, maximum order value, etc.).
MoMo and ZaloPay wallets are increasingly popular, especially with younger buyers. Having these payment options already set up when you launch means fewer abandoned carts from customers who don’t see their preferred payment method.
On the shipping side, Haravan’s integration with GHN (Giao Hàng Nhanh) and GHTK (Giao Hàng Tiết Kiệm) means you can:
- Print shipping labels directly from the order dashboard
- Get real-time delivery tracking synced back into Haravan
- Manage returns and exchanges through the same interface
- Set shipping fees automatically by province or weight
For a new seller processing a few orders a day, this saves you the manual work of copying order details into each carrier’s separate portal. For a seller processing hundreds of orders, it’s the difference between manageable and chaos.
What Are Haravan’s Plans and Pricing in VND?
Haravan offers tiered subscription plans billed annually, starting from approximately ₫200,000 per month at the entry level, per published pricing information available at the time of this review. Annual billing is more cost-effective than monthly billing. Prices change periodically — visit haravan.com directly to confirm current rates before committing.
Here’s an overview of Haravan’s plan structure based on our research:
| Plan | Approximate Monthly Cost (annual billing) | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| Kinh doanh cơ bản (Basic) | from ₫200,000/month | New stores, single-channel sellers testing the platform |
| Kinh doanh hiệu quả (Standard) | from ₫600,000/month | Growing stores with multichannel selling needs |
| Chuyên nghiệp (Professional) | Contact Haravan for pricing | Established businesses, retail chains, enterprise |
Important notes about Haravan’s pricing:
- Pricing above is based on research at the time of writing. Visit haravan.com to confirm current plan prices before signing up.
- Plans are typically billed annually. Monthly billing is available at a higher effective rate.
- Some features (advanced chatbot automation, specific loyalty programs, selected marketplace integrations) may carry additional fees beyond the base plan.
- Domain registration is separate — a
.com.vndomain typically costs in the range of ₫200,000–₫500,000/year through Vietnamese registrars, based on standard market rates. - Haravan does not charge transaction fees on top of the subscription cost, per its published plan terms.
How does this compare to Shopify?
Shopify’s entry-level plan is priced in USD — see Shopify’s pricing page for current rates, as they change periodically. Additionally, Shopify charges transaction fees if you use a non-Shopify payment gateway. For Vietnamese sellers, Haravan’s local pricing in VND, Vietnamese-language support, and pre-built local integrations typically make it more cost-effective at the entry and mid-tier levels.
What Are Haravan’s Pros and Cons?
Haravan’s biggest advantages are its Vietnamese-first integrations — local payments, shipping, and marketplaces all work out of the box. Its main limitations are no code ownership (SaaS model), restricted customization compared to open-source platforms, and costs that increase as you add features. Overall, the pros outweigh the cons for most Vietnamese market sellers.
Pros
Built specifically for the Vietnamese market. Vietnamese payment gateways, local carriers, and Vietnamese-language marketplace integrations come standard. No configuration, no extra fees, no third-party apps required to sell the way Vietnamese buyers prefer to pay and receive orders.
Multichannel from day one. Shopee, Lazada, TikTok Shop, Facebook, and Zalo are all connected in one dashboard. If you already sell on marketplaces and want your own store, Haravan is one of the few platforms that makes this genuinely seamless.
No IT knowledge required. Haravan handles hosting, security updates, and platform maintenance. You focus on selling, not server management. The Vietnamese-language support team is responsive to local merchant issues.
Scales with your business. The platform has grown well beyond its origins as a website builder — it now covers social commerce automation, livestream selling, POS for physical stores, loyalty programs, and omnichannel management. You can start simple and add complexity as your business grows.
Strong local brand credibility. Having your own Haravan store carries a level of legitimacy in Vietnam that marketplace-only sellers often lack. It signals to customers that you are a real business.
Cons
Annual subscription, no code ownership. You are renting the platform, not owning it. If you stop paying, you lose access to your store. You cannot take the website code and move it to another host without rebuilding. This is a common SaaS trade-off (Shopify works the same way), but it is worth understanding before you commit.
Limited code-level customization. You cannot modify Haravan’s core codebase. Deep customizations need a Haravan-certified developer. For sellers who want full control over their technology, open-source platforms like WooCommerce offer more flexibility at the cost of more technical complexity.
SEO limitations noted by practitioners. Some Vietnamese SEO practitioners report that Haravan’s underlying structure limits certain technical SEO optimizations compared to open-source alternatives. For sellers whose growth strategy depends heavily on organic search traffic, this is worth researching before committing.
Cost adds up beyond the base plan. The entry-level plan covers the basics. Advanced features — chatbot automation, loyalty programs, specific apps from Haravan’s marketplace — carry additional monthly costs. Budget for these if you expect to need them.
Is Haravan the Right Platform for Vietnamese Sellers?
For most Vietnamese sellers — especially those selling on Shopee or Lazada alongside their own website, using Facebook or Zalo for marketing, or targeting COD-paying Vietnamese buyers — Haravan is the strongest local fit. It is not the right choice for sellers who need code ownership, a global platform, or deep retail POS functionality.
Haravan is the right choice if:
- You’re building your first store in Vietnam and want a platform built from the ground up for Vietnamese sellers, payments, and logistics — not adapted from a global product
- You already sell on Shopee or Lazada and want to add your own website while keeping inventory, orders, and products synced across channels
- You use Facebook or Zalo to sell and want to automate order capture through social channels without managing separate tools
- You run a physical store and want to expand online with inventory sync between your shop and your website
- You want Vietnamese-language support from a team that understands the local market
Haravan is not the right choice if:
- You need to own your source code or plan to host your store on your own infrastructure (consider WooCommerce)
- Your primary business is a multi-location physical retail chain where you need a fully-featured POS as the core system — dedicated platforms handle this better
- You are selling primarily to international customers who pay in USD or other currencies and expect internationally familiar checkout experiences (Shopify may serve this better)
For the typical Vietnamese seller — starting out, selling on Shopee plus their own site, using Facebook and Zalo for marketing — Haravan is arguably the strongest fit in the Vietnamese market today.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Haravan free to use?
Haravan does not offer a permanently free plan. New users get a trial period to test the platform before committing to a paid plan. Visit haravan.com for current trial terms and plan pricing in VND, as these change periodically.
Can I use Haravan to sell on Shopee and Lazada at the same time?
Yes. Haravan connects directly with Shopee VN, Lazada VN, TikTok Shop, and other Vietnamese marketplaces. You sync products, inventory, and orders between your Haravan store and all marketplace listings from one dashboard — no logging into separate portals for each channel.
Does Haravan work for physical retail stores?
Yes, Haravan includes POS (point-of-sale) features — in-store sales processing, inventory sync between your physical and online store, and staff management tools. If you operate multiple physical locations with high transaction volume, evaluate whether Haravan’s POS capabilities meet your needs before committing, as dedicated POS systems offer more advanced retail features.
What Vietnamese payment methods does Haravan support?
Haravan comes pre-configured with MoMo, ZaloPay, VNPay QR, bank transfer (chuyển khoản), COD (cash on delivery), and credit/debit card processing. These are available on paid plans without requiring any additional apps or configuration.
How does Haravan compare to Shopify for Vietnamese sellers?
For sellers focused on the Vietnamese market, Haravan’s local integrations give it a meaningful advantage. Vietnamese payment gateways, shipping carriers, and marketplace connections work out of the box on Haravan — on Shopify, you typically need to configure or pay for these through third-party apps. If you sell heavily to international customers or prioritize a global platform ecosystem, Shopify may be the better fit. For Vietnamese-market-focused selling, Haravan’s localization saves real time and money at setup.