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Vietnamese shunning domestic goods
Cosmetics brought to Vietnam from France, new models of mobile phones brought from Singapore, surprisingly cheap laptops from the US or simply cartons of milk – goods brought across the border for resale are now preferred by consumers, especially young customers.
Goods exciting, foreign and cheap…
Goods brought across the border for resale have become so attractive to customers that they are hunted even though manufacturers have set up distribution networks and sell their products in Vietnam.
These kinds of goods are mainly cosmetics, jewellery items, fashionable clothes, gifts or high-techn products. Sometimes, they are even food and medicine.
Vietnamese consumers now like these kinds of goods because they prefer ‘foreign products’ to domestic ones, and they prefer ‘original’ products to products which are commonplace.
The wave of using goods carried across borders by those who return from travelling abroad has become such a phenomenon that buyers are often considered in the ‘upper class of society’.
As for these customers, a pair of shoes, a laptop or a mobile phone does not only mean shoes, laptops or mobile phones, but also means that they are stylish.
Thanh, a hunter of high-technology products, revealed that he only uses goods brought cross the border, or products not imported through official channels, because the goods always have high quality and are cheaper than official imports as they are not taxed.
Mai Hoa, a housewife, said that she never purchases domestic dairy products, or imported dairy products; she only purchases products from those who return from overseas trips and bring dairy products to Vietnam.
“I don’t dare use ready-made processed food. Newspapers always report that some kinds of foods cause cancer and others can be dangerous to human health,” Hoa said.
Hoa strongly believes that it is safer to purchase products which are made in foreign countries and carried to Vietnam by travellers. She added that even the distributors of foreign dairy brand names in Vietnam commit trade fraud by declaring the wrong dates of manufacturing.
On the other hand…
However, Hoa and many other people who are ‘addicted’ to these kinds of goods should know that they need to be cautious when purchasing these goods.
The problem lies in the fact that not all goods of this kind are brought from Europe, US or Japan, countries which are famous for high-quality products. Sometimes, goods are brought from China or Cambodia, or sometimes from areas in Hong Kong or Bangkok which specialise in selling cheap commodities. Those who sell the products purchase them in big sales in the market place.
Meanwhile, a lot of traders, in order to get bigger profit, purchase old products at low prices, renew the products with new products with other origins, and sell the products at exorbitant prices.
In most cases, the customers, who get low-quality products, cannot do anything to protect their benefits, as they cannot show any document to show their purchases.
Meanwhile, analysts have pointed out that the purchases of goods brought cross borders proves to be a ‘safeguard weapon’ of Vietnamese consumers while they have lost confidence in domestic products.
VietNamNet, TBKTVN
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