VinFast sold a car like a phone - e-commerce and livestreams - and took 27,649 pre-orders.

VinFast, a young Vietnamese EV maker, had to prove it could move cars in a market where EV adoption and showroom trust were both low.

The VF3 was a tiny, boxy, affordable SUV, and VinFast priced it like a consumer product - a small deposit, about $9,248 with a battery subscription, and monthly payments from roughly 2 million VND (about $78) over eight years.

For the first time it treated the car as an e-commerce item: listed on Shopee and VinID, with orders taken during livestreams run by fifteen influencers, so buying felt like ordering a gadget rather than completing a car purchase.

Within 66 hours it took 27,649 pre-orders, an industry record, with over half of all orders placed online.

Sell the car through e-commerce like a consumer gadget

Pricing it as an impulse purchase removed the big-ticket friction of a car purchase.

E-commerce and livestreams put it where a young, mobile-first buyer already shops.

The tiny, distinctive design was instantly recognisable, so it needed no showroom explanation.

Match the distribution to the price point: if the product is cheap and instantly understandable, sell it where people already click instead of where they reluctantly walk into a showroom.

The VF3 launch became the case behind VinFast's record six wins - including Vietnam's first Effie gold and the Marketing Disruptor award - at the 2025 APAC Effie Awards, and a template for selling EVs through retail-style channels rather than showrooms only.