Wealthy
Vietnamese are not eating to be full, but instead they eat for pleasure.
Therefore, they do not think twice about spending money to purchase goods for
Tet, and import products are always their first choice.

Foreign
beef priced at nearly one million dong per kilo, andcheese, sausages, sweets
and fruits imported from European countries, the US or Japan have become more
popular in the meals of well-off families. That explains why many shops that
specialize in selling import goods have been mushrooming in Vietnam, especially in HCM City.

At
9 am on January 23, Viet Hang Food Shop at No 237 Ly Tu Trong street in
district 1 was full of visitors. The shop, measuring four meters in width and
20 meters in length, was full of goods and visitors only had a very  way for people to go to seek goods.

Most
of the customers came on luxury motorbikes or cars. However, as there was no
parking, the owners of the luxury motorbikes and cars just had several minutes
to make their purchases. They were very quick in making decisions and then drew
out new 500,000 bank notes from their pockets to make their transactions. The
purchases all were made very quickly.
Therefore despite a lot of customers no traffic jams occurred.

Minh,
who lives in Phu Nhuan district, drove a 7-seat car to the shop. Then she got
out of the car, came to the saleswoman and gave the list of the items she
needed. Just several minutes later, a saleswoman gave her a big bag of goods,
including chocolates, cookies, sweets, two boxes of Heineken beer and some
other cookings. Minh paid three million dong for her purchases.

All
the goods Minh purchased were import products. These included US sourced chocolate, priced at 350,000 per bag,
cookies from Denmark,
priced at 420,000 dong per box, and Heineken beer priced at 450,000 per 20
bottles.

“I
go to the shop every Tet. The products here are a little more expensive than
the market prices, but I feel secure about the quality,” Minh said.

Minh
is an officer of a telecom company, while her husband is working in the
construction sector. Therefore, their income is high enough such that Minh can
spend tens of millions of dong on food for Tet.

Meanwhile,
people with a monthly income of 10 million dong are considered “high income
earners”.

At
An Nam Food on Hai Ba Trung street
in District 1, one kilo of salted pork imported from France
is selling at 1.2 million dong, while beef imported from the US, Australia or Italia is priced at no
less than 1.3 million dong, and German jambon 700,000-1 million dong.
Especially, the vegetables here, sourced from Da Lat and introduced as “clean
vegetables” also have prices several times than average market prices. However,
despite  high prices, the shop still
attracts a lot of buyers. Tran Huong Trang, the shop’s manager, said that not
only foreigners, but Vietnamese people also come to purchase goods.

“They
are ready to spend 5-10 million dong, or even 30 million dong, just to purchase
some boxes of candies or cookies, some bottles of wine, cheese and some canned
food,” Trang said.

At
a fruit shop on Nguyen Tri Phuong – An Duong Vuong Street in District 5, cherry
imported from New Zealand
is selling at 800,000 dong per kilo. Meanwhile, some people said they wanted
cherries from Australia
that were priced at one million dong per kilo, because the cherries were
sweeter.

Nowadays,
Vietnamese rich people, when seeking to purchase goods, tend to choose high
quality products rather cheap products. A can of aloe water is selling at 8000-12,000
dong at supermarkets. However, the imported products, introduced as high fiber
food, would be sold at 40,000 dong.

The
owner of Minh department store on Cach Mang Thang Tam said: “I thought that the
products were too expensive and I would not be able to sell them well.
Therefore, I took only a few dozen bottles to sell. However, al the products
have been sold out to two loyal clients”.

Viet Hang, the owner of the shop said that her clients are mostly high income
earners, therefore, she only sells high quality products. “I am very selective
about the products I sell,” she said.

Source: Saigon
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