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Shops offer big sales, buyers tighten purse-strings
It is not the discount sale season, but the words ‘on sale’ can be seen on the plates hanging over many shops and trade centres. However, despite the attractive offers, consumers are still tight with their money.
When consumers tighten their belts
The commodities on sale are not key consumer products, but luxury items, including home appliances, electronic products, fashion, cosmetics, clothes, footwear and handbags.
Home appliance centres once thought that Euro 2008 would be a golden opportunity for them to push up the sales of TVs, especially LCD TVs. However, their hope has gone as sales have not seen any improvement over the last several months.
Nguyen Minh Thu, Director of Thien Nam Hoa Home Appliance and Decoration, said that a lot of home appliance centres and producers are launching promotion campaigns in June to heat up the market, which has been gloomy for the last several months. The discount rates prove to be very attractive of up to 20-50%, or VND3-10mil per product. However, the promotion campaigns have not helped raise the purchasing power.
“It seems that the budgets of families have become scanty and they dare not spend money on valuable products,” Thu said.
Except the TV market, which has warmed up a little, other markets of air-conditioners, DVD players, vacuum cleaners and washing machines all have seen the purchasing power down. Consumers always think carefully, even when they buy products which have prices of under a few hundred thousand VND.
Pham Thanh Tuyen, Marketing Director of Saigon Co-op, one of the biggest supermart chains in Vietnam, noted that the purchasing power of clothes, footwear and cosmetics has decreased dramatically over the same period of last year.
Tuyen said that consumers are spending most of their money on key consumer products, especially food and foodstuffs, which have become very expensive recently. Therefore, they have no money for luxury items.
Trade centres quiet
Parkson is now considered the supermart offering the biggest promotion programmes. However, it still cannot attract customers. Parkson these days is attracting more window shoppers than buyers.
Thuy Van, a young girl who is ‘addicted’ to original products, said that the products prove to be very attractive, but there are very few buyers. Showing us a very beautiful handbag with original design, Van said that she saw the handbag a couple weeks ago in the same position, which means that it still hasn’t been able to find a home.
As consumers now say ‘no’ to luxury products, a lot of fashion and cosmetics shops have become completely deserted.
Thu Huong, the fashion saleswoman at Diamond Plaza, said that the number of customers buying expensive clothes has dropped dramatically recently. Customers only seek products that offer big discounts. Meanwhile, the owner of OTC Fashion Shop on Nguyen Dinh Chieu street said that fashion shops are experiencing a difficult period as customers are all trying to save money.
That is also the reason why many shop owners are thinking of closing shops to shift to other business. Some shops are now offering big discounts of up to 50-70%, because the owners want to liquidate products to get back capital for other investments.
VNN
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