Unsatisfied customers
Attracted by the advertising signs "all prices 49K, 99K, 199K in the whole store" on Black Friday at a large fashion store on Cau Giay Street, Hanoi, Ms. Nguyen Long (an office worker) thought she would be able to buy many beautiful clothes for this winter at cheap prices. However, when she arrived at the store, Ms. Long found that the discounted items as advertised were mostly summer items, old items and quite a few models. On the shelves were mainly items priced at 299K, 399K and 499K; while the items priced at 49K, 99K were some out-of-date models and very large sizes, unwearable.
According to Ms. Long, in recent years, to stimulate consumer demand, many fashion stores have offered big discounts, giving customers many opportunities to shop, so not many customers are interested in Black Friday. "Shopping on Black Friday, people are crowded, while the clothes are not beautiful. It is worth mentioning that many stores advertise "exaggeratedly" with 70-80% off the entire store, but when you go there, only old models are heavily discounted, new models are only 10-20% off, not much different from normal days" - Ms. Long said.
This year, Black Friday falls on November 29, and many stores have already put up discount signs more than a week in advance. However, Lao Dong reported that the atmosphere at shopping malls and fashion streets in Hanoi was quite gloomy, with no longer the scene of customers jostling to choose items or lining up until late at night to pay as before.
At shopping centers such as Vincom, Aeon Mall in Hanoi, or streets with many large clothing stores such as Cau Giay, Chua Boc, Xuan Thuy... many fashion brands simultaneously launched discount programs of up to 50-70% to stimulate demand... However, by November 28, the number of customers coming to these shopping centers was not crowded, only equivalent to peak weekends. Even some stores on Cau Giay Street, at noon - the peak time for office workers to hunt for Black Friday discounts every year - had almost no customers.
Ms. Ngoc Anh, owner of a fashion store on Dang Van Ngu Street, Hanoi, said: “At this time last year, my store launched promotional programs and the number of customers coming to buy was very large. However, this year, the shopping atmosphere is quite gloomy, even though I have been selling items at 10-50% off since the beginning of the week. Compared to last year, the number of customers this year has decreased by 20-30%. Hopefully from now until the end of the week, the number of customers coming to buy will be larger."
What is the solution to stimulate shopping?
From the perspective of a retail expert, Vice President of the Vietnam Retailers Association Tran Thi Phuong Lan said that in recent years, Black Friday has gradually lost its appeal because more and more stores have launched promotional programs before and extended them past Black Friday, so shoppers are no longer as eager to wait until the right day to hunt for sales as before.
Right in the first days of November, supermarkets and stores have organized large-scale discount programs on Singles' Day 11.11. Thus, after only 2 weeks of organizing Black Friday promotion programs, it is expected that on December 12, e-commerce platforms will organize large promotion programs... This makes many consumers feel "overloaded" with a series of promotional programs, so they are no longer as excited as before to shop during the holidays.
To stimulate shopping, according to Mr. Le Duc Anh - Director of the Center for Information Technology and Digital Technology, Department of E-commerce and Digital Economy (Ministry of Industry and Trade), from November 25 to December 1, the Ministry of Industry and Trade will organize the National E-commerce Week and Vietnam Online Shopping Day (Online Friday 2024).
"We have 60 hours of bustling shopping (from 0:00 on Friday, November 29 to 12:00 on Sunday, December 1). During these 60 hours, there are many activities such as voucher festivals, many businesses will launch valuable vouchers for customers to use in their shopping activities. The second activity, within the framework of 60 hours of shopping, will have the participation of Vietnamese businesses" - Mr. Le Duc Anh said.
According to Mr. Le Duc Anh, the State agencies are also designing and building ecosystems to support the development of Vietnamese goods. The Ministry of Industry and Trade will create a mark for Vietnamese goods in the online environment, which is also a way to verify the origin to ensure that products in the online environment are associated with quality.
