Key words:         Customer value, value-adding factors, e-commerce, apparel industry, Vietnamese market, customers’ perception.  Background:      Along with the development of many applications from Internet, Electronic Commerce (e-commerce) has changed the business scene in the global economy by emerging as a new, efficient channel of doing business. The apparel industry has also been approaching this way of doing business as an attempt to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of operations at various extents. In the Vietnamese market, Ninomaxx being well-known as leading fashion brand for young and proactive people is in the process of launching its very first online shop. However, the lack of information and the vagueness in regard to customers preference and shopping habit in the context of e-commerce leads to many difficulties for fashion companies like Ninomaxx. These lacking can all be traced back to one universal cause that is the insufficiency in understanding customers’ perceived value. Accordingly, it raises the authors’ interests to conduct a research of customers’ perception concerning customer value in Vietnamese apparel industry within the e-commerce context. Purpose:             The purpose of this thesis is to identify elements of e-commerce that customers perceive as value-adding factors in the context of Vietnamese apparel industry. Accordingly, thesis will examine how value can be created and enhanced for customers in the case of Ninomaxx and Vietnamese apparel firms in general. Method:              In this thesis, authors chose to collect and analyze data mainly through a quantitative approach. Prospective customers of Ninomaxx, whose ages were from 17 to 30, were the surveyed group. A questionnaire was employed to collect response from the group and was distributed in two ways: an online link and offline papers. Various nonparametric statistical techniques and one extensive model were used to analyze results of the survey. Conclusion:    From the perception of Vietnamese customers from 17 to 30 years old, there are 5 elements of e-commerce that are identified as very strong value-adding factors, namely, availability of information on the website, accuracy of demonstrating products’ color on website, seller’s ensuring products’ quality, seller’s trustworthiness and safety of using products. There are additionally 11 strong value-adding factors from perception of apparel customers in Vietnam. However, there is evidence of differences in customers’ response regarding their demographic characteristics and Internet usage. Apparel companies should consider accordingly in order to form the optimal strategy for e-commerce retail channel in Vietnam.

What makes real life contractual arrangements? How does the law influence real life contractual arrangements? These are everyday questions for businesspeople and commercial lawyers. The traditional ‘imperative’ view of law assumes that business people contract ‘in the shadow of the law’ and contractual arrangements conform to what the law says. But empirical studies on contract practice suggest that contract law may, in fact, play a very insignificant role in real life contractual arrangements. This thesis provides a sociological view of the role of contract law in real life contractual arrangements in the context of the Vietnamese market. Specifically, this thesis applies an institutional law & economics approach to investigate how social structures of the market influence contractual arrangements to marginalize contract law in the Vietnamese market. Drawing on two surveys of contract behaviour in the Vietnamese market, this thesis finds that real life contractual arrangements respond to the institutional structure of the market as a whole, rather than only ‘the shadow of the law’. Institutional changes in the Vietnamese market suggest that there exists a merchant law system, constituted of traditional moral norms and social structures in the market. This merchant law system continues to order contractual arrangements in the market, despite the introduction of a transplanted contract law system. Disagreeing with the imperative approach, this thesis claims that contract law reform should conform to the institutional structure of the market to reduce transaction costs of contracting and to provide an effective framework for real life contractual arrangements.