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Plastics products: domestic products losing home market
The golden age of domestically-made consumer plastics products is nearly over as imported products are dominating the domestic market.
Analysts say that sales of imported plastics products at supermarts have increased from 10-20% to 30-50% of total plastic products sales, which spells that domestic producers are losing their home market to imports.
Displayed imported plastics products now occupy 30-50% of the space on shelves at big supermarts, like Co-op Mart, Maximark and Citimart, while the figure was just 20% two years ago. Vietnamese consumers now tend to buy foreign-made products imported by Bai Tho, Tuan Anh, Song Nhu and Quang Tri Companies.
According to Maximark, made-in-China plastic products now make up 50% of plastic product sales, while Thailand-made products 30%. The other products on sale are sourced from Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan and South Korea.
Ngo Van Hai, Deputy Director of Citimart, said that only a few Vietnamese consumers purchase domestically-made products for normal use, while the majority of customers prefer imports for three reasons. Imports have good designs and bright attractive colours, while they are just 5-10% more expensive than domestically-made products.
Hai said that Vietnamese consumers have become more fastidious. They not only choose to buy products that fit their purposes, but also demand products with good designs that fit their interior decorations.
At Maximark, the ratio of domestically-made products and imports sales is 50:50, though domestic products are cheaper than imports.
Vietnam-made products have good quality, but they are still inferior to import products in diversity, according to Nguyen Phuong Thao, Director of Maximark. Foreign producers always provide products with new designs to satisfy the different tastes of customers.
Thao said that in general, domestic producers try to copy the designs of the import products that sell well and then make products with lower prices. However, when the domestic products appear on the market, Vietnamese consumers do not like the products any more.
“Why don’t Vietnamese plastics producers pioneer in designing new products, when their technologies and production skills are not inferior to other Asian producers?” she asked.
Meanwhile, according to Nguyen Thanh Hung, Marketing Director of Dai Dong Tien Plastics Company, the problem of plastics companies now is that every company can only make some certain items under the patterns, while the tastes of customers are different. Therefore, Hung said, it is quite normal to see import products selling in Vietnam.
He added that while supermarts in Vietnam are selling products imported from China, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, consumers of those countries are buying products made by Vietnam’s Dong Tien, Duy Tan, Tien Phong and Tan Tien companies.
VNN
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