Vietnamese garments gain ground globally, lose locally

Vietnam has surpassed India to position itself as second largest supplier of garments and textiles to US, but still it has to do a lot more for its local market.

Though garment and textile businesses of Vietnam paid a greater interest to the domestic market, they did not succeed in their goal, as the local customers are seeking original “Made in Vietnam” goods having superior designs and variations in fashion.

Vietnamese businesses either completely overlook or pay little attention to product designs. Although older people, especially those above 50 years of age love to shop, but young consumers remain to be the core focus of most of the businesses. For this reason, a majority of the customers are now adapting to Chinese goods and more so because usually they face difficulties in finding appropriate ready-to-wear clothes amongst the local garments, and it costs much to get tailor-made ones.

Also, the businesses export superior products to other countries, and retain the inferior ones for sale in domestic market.

Vietnam with 86 million inhabitants can be looked upon as a big market which is drawing increasing number of foreign businesses. Thus, the country instead of losing on the domestic front should rather prioritize the domestic consumers.

Enhanced efforts need to be put in for developing networks for distribution and for evolving popular trademarks for customers. The country needs to make fresh investments for human resource training, refurbishing technologies, evolving trademarks and for building up a professional distribution network delegated with the responsibility of distributing the domestic products to rural areas throughout the country.

Tags: Vietnam garment exports, Vietnam Garment industry