Features of doing business with Vietnam – language, logistics, purchases

Our group operates in 17 countries and has over 48 investments, 6 of which are managed for growth. This is fast track. Our three principles are scalability, manufacturability and social significance. Those companies that meet them move from the investment category to the management category. That is, they get all our infrastructure and capabilities.

Today, our business is most actively developing in three countries – Vietnam, Austria and the United States. About projects. The first is the pharmaceutical company Project V, which produces dietary supplements and cosmetics in France. The second is the Sessia IT project. This is a social network with an integrated kickback program that we provide to businesses to work and develop interaction with clients.

I will focus on Vietnam, as I think that this is the most interesting case.

Peculiarities of working in Vietnam

We started by finding acquaintances there who helped us understand the market and understand what kind of audience in the cities, what regions are more suitable for us. This is important for doing business in Vietnam, as it is difficult to do business there without knowing the language. English is not common, business must be conducted in Vietnamese. There are no problems with this anymore, professional translators work for us, but at first it is problematic. By the way, the first clients for our pharmaceutical project Project V are local Russian speakers.

About Vietnam. 95 million people live there. The Vietnamese, firstly, are hardworking, and secondly, they try to take care of their health. The dietary supplements market in Vietnam is over $80 million, and the annual growth is over 6%. He seemed promising.

How much does physical presence cost

Renting in Vietnam is inexpensive, which is good news. But there are very high deposit rates – from four to ten months. For Russia, this is quite unusual. If the property costs, say, $10,000, it is not easy to shell out more than $100,000 at a time.

On the plus side, there are no problems with bank accounts and payment gateways. The interest is slightly higher than in Russia, but not critical – 2.5-3% of the turnover.

Attitude towards imported products

There is a loyal audience – if they love the brand, they will use it for a long time, even if the price increases. Plus, they appreciate products from Europe. There are many local dietary supplements in Vietnam, but France (note – the country of production of Project V products) is associated with high quality.

An important point: they pay attention to certificates and understand them well. At the same time, it is not easy to obtain permission to import products for trade. This can take 3 to 6 months as they protect their pharmaceutical market from overseas manufacturers.

About logistics

Not in all countries we can afford to deliver goods for free, but here we had to do it for two reasons. Firstly, the Vietnamese are accustomed to cheap logistics within the country. Secondly, our expenses for it are less than 1%, which is inexpensive. Therefore, we decided to make delivery here free.

About people

People in Vietnam love events, promotions, joint meetings. If in Russia we sometimes hold online events, we offer online trainings as a bonus, in Vietnam they still prefer offline. Here, for example, even when watching a webinar, it is customary to gather 10-15 people at a party and watch together.

One paradoxical observation: the Vietnamese are not bad at online shopping, but they love cash. They know about online stores, use apps, but would still prefer to buy with cash in a physical store. I suppose this is due to the problematic Internet and their high sociality – they love team games, gamification, participation in various ratings.

We managed to create a community of customers who communicate on a social network with an integrated Sessia kickback program. They conduct business there, communicate, share purchases, product reviews. So in Vietnam it was possible to combine two of the three main businesses. The Vietnamese market is growing fast – we believe in it.