April holidays nearing, but retailers ignore sale promotion campaigns

The long four-day April 30 holiday will come in just several days, which is long enough for people to go shopping. However, to date, very few distributors have announced sale promotion campaigns on the occasion, which is really a big surprise.

Only a few notice boards with the words “sale off” can be seen hung over the entrance doors of the shops on shopping streets in Hanoi, like Pham Ngoc Thach, Chua Boc, Cau Giay, Ton Duc Thang or Nguyen Thai Hoc.

Hanh, who lives on Lac Trung Street, said she is quite surprised when seeing very few retailers intending to offer discounts to promote sales on the occasion. Hanh thinks that office workers will have time to go shopping on the long holiday, therefore, retailers should offer big sale promotion campaigns to attract more buyers.

The saleswomen of Tracy Fashion Shop on Ba Trieu Street in Hanoi said they have not received any notices from the owners about the sale promotion program for the April 30 holiday.

The salesmen at Tran Anh Computer chain have also said they have not received any information about whether to run a sales promotion campaign.

“Tran Anh runs sales promotion campaign continuously. Therefore, I think the company will only announce the discounts to be specifically reserved for April 30 holiday,” a salesman guessed.

Meanwhile, An, the owner of An Linh footwear shop on Nguyen Trai street, said frankly, that she does not intend to offer discounts to the buyers on April 30 holiday. She said that in previous holidays, she offered big discounts, but this did not help improve the sales turnover. Therefore, An has decided to keep sales on normal track.

In fact, An also offered big discount of 30 percent on the occasion of the Hung King death anniversary two weeks ago. However, An found out that though the campaign last one month, the number of buyers only increased a little on the off-work days. Therefore, An believes that it is not necessary to start sale promotion program too soon, because people still have to go to work and they do not have time to go shopping.

“Retailers offer discounts only when they can see that the increase in the quantity of products to be sold is big enough to offset the price decreases,” An said. “If we reduce the sale prices, but the amount of products to be sold does not increase, we will incur loss”.

In fact, some shops have announced the price discounts for their products, but the discounts prove to be modest, at 15-20 percent. Very few shops offer the big discount rate of 50 percent.

Especially, one can see that some shops offer big discounts, but it seems that the sale promotion programs do not relate to the April 30 holiday, because the programs finished several days before the holiday.

When asked why sales promotion programs ended so soon, shop owners said that they offered discounts on the occasion of the shop’s opening, or just to sell out stocks, while they did not intend to offer discounts on holiday.

Duc Manh, the owner of the footwear shop on Nguyen Thai Hoc street, said that it is now not a “fashion” to offer sale promotion programs on holidays any more. In fact, consumers just want to know at which prices they have to buy goods, while they do not care why sellers offer price discounts.

Some retailers say that it would be a big waste if they have to print banderoles to advertise sales promotion programs which last only several days. Therefore, they decide to hang the same banderoles with the words “sale off” all year round.

Pham Quynh Anh, the owner of a children’s wear shop on Pham Ngoc Thach street also said the banderoles or boards can be used for many times to attract buyers.

However, the “initiative” of retailers has not been applauded by customers. Thanh Thuy in Cau Giay district in Hanoi said that only specific sale promotion programs can help stimulate the demand.- VnExpress

Tags: vietnam retail industry, Vietnam retail market