City begins promotion season

The HCMC Departments of Industry and Trade, Culture, Sports and Tourism on Wednesday kicked off the 2010 promotion month, ushering in a shopping spree with 700 enterprises giving 5% to 50% discounts on thousands of products.

The commercial activity in the city has become even more bustling as relevant agencies in all districts have also launched promotions at stores within their precincts. Enterprises joining the program expect that the purchasing power will be higher this year after they had seen revenue surging by around 30% to 40% in the 2009 program.

Saigon Co.op supermarkets have reported stronger buying power after they began the program on August 29.

“Pork products sell well given strong discounts by key food processors Vissan and Sagrifood. We also give 35% to 50% discounts on apparel products,” said a representative of Co.opMart.

Huynh Thi Ngoc Tram, public relations officer of Big C supermarket chain in the southern region, said Big C had launched discounts on 2,300 products with most of which being raw and processed food.

“We even discount those products whose prices are increasing strongly at traditional markets such as beef, poultry and seafood,” Tram said.

For electronic equipments, the buying power at Thien Hoa Electronics Supermarket has surged by around 25% from previous months.

“Thien Hoa is cooperating with manufacturers to launch discounts from 10% to 50% on all products. Consumers now are interested in home appliances such as cookers and gas stoves,” said Thien Hoa deputy marketing director Nguyen Thi Quyen.

Tram from Big C said the number of customers at Big C supermarkets rose by at least 30% during the holiday. They were interested in fashion items, home appliances, food and beverage, she said.

A representative of Saigon Co.op told the Daily via telephone that the enterprise this year targeted to increase revenue by 45% to 50% against normal days.

“The target is not high compared with a revenue growth rate of 40% last year. However, this is a substantial figure given strong revenue growths of our supermarket network over the past time. It is not hard to achieve the target as we have opened more stores this year,” the source said.

Meanwhile, Thien Hoa aimed at the 40% to 50% revenue growth rate and was confident to reach the goal.

According to the HCMC Department of Industry and Trade, quality is the most important factor for the success of the promotion month. The department has signed a document to ask market monitoring agencies and related offices to launch inspections into shopping venues to ensure product quality and protect consumers.