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Superstores introduce discount product lines to attract consumers
Since the beginning of 2009, the global financial crisis has led to weakened demand for commodities. This has prompted distributors and suppliers to offer low cost products, hoping to attract newly-thrifty consumers.
Focusing on low cost products
An executive at Minh Long Porcelain Company says that restructuring sale items and pricing schemes are what businesses need to do now in order to get domestic consumers and stimulate demand. He said that Minh Long has adjusted the prices of all of its products and offered them for sale at supermarkets and trade centres, rather than just at Minh Long’s showrooms.
The business director of Happy Vina, said that its ‘Happy Cook’ non-stick and stainless steel pots have been selling slowly. These are high-grade products with high sales prices. To boost sales, the company has decided to launch a new line called ‘Happy Sun’ which, though of comparable quality to ‘Happy Cook’ products, will sell for 30 percent less.
Meanwhile, a senior manager of the woodworking industry group Truong Thanh said that it has adjusted the size of furniture and other products to make them a better fit for small houses in Vietnam. This step has helped economise materials and reduce production costs.
According to the Vietnam Retail Association, supermarkets are now displaying several hundreds of low cost items bearing the brand names of the supermarkets themselves, like Big C, Co-opmart, Maximark, Citimart and Hapro.
A deputy general director of Big C Thang Long (Hanoi) related that at the end of 2007, Big C introduced a house brand, ‘Wow.” Aiming to boost sales, Big C is now marketing over 150 ‘Wow Brand’ products. These include detergent produced by Lix, ‘Wow’ fish sauce produced by Lien Thanh, ‘Wow’ paper products made by Saigon and Bai Bang, and ‘Wow’ canned goods produced by Saigon Fishco. The ‘Wow’ products have the same quality as the products bearing the brand names of the producers, but sell for twenty percent less.
The Big C exec said that the cooperation between the supermarket and producers to make products under new trademarks not only can help stimulate current demand, but will also bring long term benefit, since consumers will have more choices when they seek to buy commodities.
Offering attractive discounts
Most supermarket chains have launched promotion programmes to boost sales. Intimex, for example, has joined forces with several hundreds of producers to launch promotion programmes, offering discounts of five to ten percent for consumer products and cosmetics products.
Citimart chain has slashed prices by 10 to 20 percent for 1,000 items.
Big C Thang Long has also launched promotions for May and June, offering price reductions of ten to thirty percent for household necessities, garments and school notebooks. The supermarket will also encourage people to purchase new washing machines and refrigerators by buying back their used appliances.
VietNamNet, KT&DT
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