Localising a Global Content System for Vietnam Ecommerce
Led Unilever Vietnam’s onboarding of the global eContent Suite, transforming ecommerce product content operations across 30+ brands, 300+ SKUs, and 20,000+ assets. By localising global content standards for Vietnam’s marketplace realities, the project made Vietnam the first SEA market to successfully launch the system and achieve >80% content accuracy and optimisation at go-live.
Project Overview
At Unilever Vietnam, I was hired into the ecommerce team to lead the Vietnam onboarding of eContent Suite, a global internal ecosystem designed to optimise product content for ecommerce and online channels.
The ecosystem connected multiple systems, including SAP product data interfaces, Kwery for written content optimisation, TAB for visual asset management, and output systems that generated ecommerce-ready content for platforms such as Shopee, Lazada, and Tiki.
As the Vietnam project lead, I represented the local market in collaboration with Unilever global teams, system owners, local cross-functional teams, creative agencies, and ecommerce platform/customer teams. I managed a 6-month rollout across 40+ stakeholders, including IT, Marketing, D&A, R&D, SAP, ecommerce, HR, global project teams, and leadership teams.
My responsibilities covered project timeline management, requirements gathering, stakeholder alignment, localisation, testing, rollout planning, training, adoption tracking, issue escalation, resource management, and post-launch content KPI monitoring.
Challenges
1
Global System, Local Marketplace Reality
The eContent Suite was designed around mature Western ecommerce models and platforms like Amazon, while Vietnam’s marketplaces, such as Shopee, Lazada, and Tiki, had different content structures, platform rules, and shopper journeys.
2
Balancing Global Standards with Local Shopper Behaviour
Global content guidelines needed to be preserved for brand consistency, but Vietnamese shoppers relied more heavily on visual cues, short-form content, search keywords, price mechanics, bundles, campaigns, and trust signals.
3
Cross-Functional Alignment Across Many Stakeholders
The rollout involved 40+ stakeholders across local teams, global system owners, agencies, ecommerce platforms, and leadership, requiring constant alignment across different priorities, timelines, and levels of technical understanding.
4
Driving Adoption Beyond Technical Launch
Success depended not only on implementing the system, but also on changing how teams worked: training users, building confidence, managing workload pressure, preventing burnout, and tracking content KPIs after launch.
Key actions
1
Translated Global Standards into Local Execution Rules
Adapted global written and visual content guidelines into practical requirements for Vietnam’s ecommerce platforms, ensuring content stayed consistent with Unilever standards while fitting Shopee, Lazada, and Tiki formats.
2
Built a Middle-Ground Operating Model
Aligned SAP product information, content workflows, agency inputs, and marketplace output requirements so the system could work within both global architecture and local business realities.
3
Created Preventive Solutions Before Issues Escalated
Identified risks early across system setup, content quality, workflow ownership, resource capacity, and stakeholder adoption, then built preventive actions to reduce delays and rollout friction.
4
Drove Adoption Through Training and Stakeholder Alignment
Led training and alignment sessions for internal teams, agencies, and customer/platform teams, helping users understand the new ecosystem, change their ways of working, and sustain adoption after launch.
About
Result: First SEA Market to Launch, with Global-Recognised Adoption
Vietnam became the first Southeast Asia market to successfully launch Unilever’s eContent Suite, while other SEA markets took longer or did not fully complete implementation.
The rollout covered:
- 30+ Unilever brands
- 300+ unique SKUs
- 1,000+ platform-specific product items
- 20,000+ written and visual assets
- 100% of Unilever Vietnam’s online portfolio
- 3 major ecommerce platforms: Shopee, Lazada, and Tiki
At launch, Vietnam achieved >80% SKL content accuracy and optimisation, becoming the first market to reach the benchmark. The market also ranked in the top 5 globally for ecosystem engagement score for several months after launch.
Following the success, I was invited to present Vietnam’s localisation and rollout approach in a global sharing session for 100+ markets, positioning Vietnam as a reference case for ecommerce content system adoption.
Behavioural Commerce Lens: Content Is Not Just Information, It Is Shopper Decision Architecture
This project showed me that ecommerce content is not simply about uploading product descriptions and images. It shapes how shoppers search, compare, trust, and decide.
A global content system can create consistency and scale, but local shopper behaviour determines whether that content actually works. In Vietnam, effective ecommerce content needed to respond to how people browse marketplaces: scanning thumbnails quickly, comparing benefits visually, relying on search keywords, checking pack formats, and looking for proof points before purchase.
The real value came from translating global content standards into local decision-making cues. That meant balancing brand consistency with platform-native behaviour: making content searchable, scannable, visually clear, and commercially useful.
Learning & Insight: The Best Global Rollouts Are Not Copied, They Are Translated
My biggest learning was that successful transformation is not about forcing a global system into a local market. It is about translating the system so that it keeps its strategic intent while working in the reality of local teams, platforms, and consumers.
I also learned that project leadership is as much about people as process. A 6-month transformation involving senior stakeholders, multiple departments, global teams, external agencies, and platform partners required resilience, anticipation, and constant alignment. The hardest work was not only solving technical or workflow issues, but keeping people engaged, reducing friction, preventing burnout, and helping teams believe the new way of working was worth adopting.
This project became a foundation for how I approach ecommerce transformation: combine global discipline with local intelligence, build systems around real shopper behaviour, and treat adoption as a human challenge, not just an implementation milestone.
