With only one day left until the new year of At Ty (2025), the atmosphere at major flower markets such as Lac Long Quan Street or Nguyen Hoang Ton Street (Hanoi) is unusually gloomy. Although prices have dropped sharply, the ornamental plant market still does not attract the expected number of customers.
Ms. Huyen, a kumquat tree seller in the Lac Long Quan area, shared that this year's revenue has decreased significantly compared to previous years. "The price of kumquat trees this year is 300,000-500,000 VND/tree lower than last year, but the number of customers has not increased. If last year I could sell 400-500 kumquat trees during Tet, this year I will probably only sell about 200 trees."
Not only has the number of kumquat trees sold decreased compared to last year, but the price of kumquat trees has also dropped sharply in the last days before Tet. “Today is the 28th of Tet, if a kumquat tree was sold for 800,000 VND 5 days ago, today I have reduced it to 300,000 VND, but there are still very few buyers.”
According to Ms. Huyen, the sluggish market situation this year stems from many reasons, but the most important is the difficult economic situation that has caused people to tighten their spending. Although peach and kumquat are traditional symbols of Tet, many families have chosen to cut their home decoration budget to spend on more essential needs, or choose lower-priced ornamental plants, causing the price of peach and kumquat to decrease accordingly.
Ms. Huyen shared: “When the day is close, we accept to sell cheaply, at a loss, as long as we can earn whatever we can. I still have a lot of goods, I am afraid that I will not sell them all by tomorrow, an acquaintance asked for a few trees to plant, I am willing to give them. In previous years, when I could not sell them all, I did the same.”
Similarly, on Nguyen Hoang Ton Street, Ms. Thu Hang, a trader specializing in wild peach blossoms, also faced great difficulties. “The import price of wild peach blossoms this year has increased, but the selling price is much lower than last year. Sales are also slower, and there are still quite a lot of unsold goods today, so I have to reduce the price. The large peach branches that were sold for 3.5 million VND yesterday are now only 2 million to 2.5 million VND, but the number of buyers is still very limited. The closer it gets to Tet, the more she is forced to reduce the price, even selling off her goods at the last minute to recover capital.
According to Ms. Hang, the high input costs are a great pressure for small traders as they have to import goods at higher prices than last year, but cannot sell them at the same price. This causes profits to shrink, and many traders even have to accept losses.
According to the large flower and ornamental plant markets in Hanoi, the situation of sluggish sales, lack of customers and deep price drops is happening widely. Many traders said that the price of ornamental plants this year has decreased by 30-50%, some items have even dropped by 70%, but purchasing power is still very low.
In other areas such as Hoang Quoc Viet or Quang Ba flower market, many traders are also forced to sell their goods at prices lower than the cost price to minimize losses. However, consumption has not improved, making many traders worried because of the large amount of inventory.
