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Tightening purse strings, consumers hunting for secondhand clothes
The global economic crisis has forced Vietnamese consumers to practice thrift and prompted housewives to save money by using secondhand clothes.
Thanh, a staff of Thuong Dinh Shoes Company, related that in the last three months, she always drops into Kim Lien ‘secondhand commodity street’ to buy cheap clothes. Thanh said that the small street is always full of people, who also come to hunt for cheap products. However, as Thanh has ‘good technique of selecting clothes’, she can find the cheap products which have high quality.
Thanh said that if she went to the shops of brand name products, she would have to pay double the sum of money she paid at secondhand shops.
Khuong Thuong, also a well known ‘secondhand product street’ in Hanoi, also welcomes a lot of buyers these days. If customers go there in winter, they still can find shirts and T-shirts for summer with very ‘soft’ prices, VND20,000-30,000 for a summer product and VND25,000-50,000 for a winter product.
The clothes here are clearly not brand new, but if customers spend time, they will find suitable products with soft prices. Customers prefer secondhand clothes also because they believe that the products are imported from Guang Xi, Hong Kong and from Europe, and have high quality.
Trang, the owner of a secondhand clothes shop on Kim Lien street, said that the number of clients has increased by 20% over the end of the last year, and double that of two years ago.
Trang said that her loyal clients call her every day to ask when she has new consignments of products.
“More and more clients come here to buy sale products. In such difficult conditions, it is understandable why they have been trying to cut expenses,” Trang said.
Those who go to Kim Lien and Khuong Thuong secondhand products streets are mainly students, who have low incomes. Meanwhile, those who have higher incomes and still prefer secondhand products go to Hang Thung street or Hang Da market, where select products are on display. The prices of the products here are between VND70,000 and 80,000.
In the evening, when street lamps light up, in the areas of Chua Boc, Nguyen Quy Duc, Thanh Xuan, Au Co, Tay Ho or Xuan Thuy streets, people can see a lot of pavement clothes shops which are also very bustling. Most of the clothes on sale here are out of fashion, or inventory items, which are sold at VDN40,000-50,000.
Mai, the owner of one of the ‘pavement shops’ on Xuan Thuy road, said that she has a lot of customers. With VND100,000, customers can get two shirts from her, while they will get one from big shops.
Consultancy firms have recently released reports, saying that most Vietnamese people have been tightening their purse strings. Nielsen’s survey said that 60% of Vietnamese customers have to limit their purchasing demand, and that customers nowadays purchase at traditional markets more regularly than at modern trade centres.
VietNamNet/VNE
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