ost others in the Asean region and the government looking to stimulate consumer spending as ballast against fragility in other sectors. The Vietnamese economy has done well: Retail sales of goods and services rose by 9 per cent in 2024, government figures show, although this number includes accommodation and travel services. Retail alone grew by a little less than that, around 8 per cent, to an estimated US$193.4 billion.   E-commerce was at the pointy end of growth: Sales through the online channel expanded at about twice the rate of the retail sector overall. For perspective, e-commerce generated US$25 billion worth of business in Vietnam last year, which has it running neck and neck with Thailand, with only Indonesia ahead of them both in the Southeast Asia region for e-commerce sales volume. It isn’t all about e-commerce, however, international retailers, including luxury brands, are putting boots on the ground in the form of physical stores. Chinese brands are particularly prominent, with the Dezan Shira report citing Pop Mart, Mixue, Chagee and KKV as examples. This interest from overseas players is occurring for a variety of reasons.  First, some reasonably decent real-estate platforms are becoming available in the form of malls operated by companies like Aeon from Japan, South Korea’s Lotte, and homegrown Vincom. Second, there are pockets of genuine spending power, particularly in the dense CBDs of the large cities.  Third, tourism has been on a continuous strengthening trend. Fourth, the Vietnamese  Government has been proactive in heading off weak consumer spending by reducing value-added tax and other measures. Fifth, Chinese brands are interested in growing outside of their domestic market, as their own domestic economy encounters persistent obstacles. Winning strategies for Vietnam are similar to those in other markets The Dezan Shira report outlines practical steps for setting up a retail business in the country, beginning with obtaining an Investment Registration Certificate, an Enterprise Registration Certificate – both primarily for foreign investors – a business licence and a retail outlet establishment licence. This last one is subject to an Economic Needs Test if the store is going to be a convenience store or supermarket larger than 5000sqm and located outside a mall. E-commerce retailers follow a slightly different route to setting up shop. The report also offers a fairly generic guide to success in Vietnam, titled “Seven Steps to Building a Successful Omni-channel Strategy”, which basically reiterates the same kind of boilerplate success drivers a retailer has to implement when entering a market anywhere in the world (understand your customers, adapt your product and marketing strategies accordingly, integrate your channels for a seamless customer experience, and so on).  None of this is new and it is mostly commonsense advice, but lurking in the depths of the report are a few highly useful observations that foreign retailers would do well to heed.  Vietnamese consumers are not brand loyal Brand loyalty is not something Vietnamese consumers are known for at all; they like to chop and change. The authors of the Dezan Shira report suggest that a good approach to securing loyalty can be an emphasis on local sourcing and design elements.  Additionally, beyond clever merchandise editing, there needs to be a focus on softer skills, like customer service and the quality of customer interactions generally. In this department, retailers in Vietnam and elsewhere across the region encounter problems. The retail workforce struggles, but it is partly retailers’ fault These may not be the authors’ words exactly, but that’s the subtext. Vietnam country director for Dezan Shira, Wei, put it this way: “Despite the growth of retail services during the post-pandemic recovery, a lack of skilled, high-quality workers has impeded consistent progress.” She continued: “Retailers are continuously challenged to fulfil the need for professional training and skills enhancement within their teams.” She articulated a problem that plagues retailers right across the region, from Ho Chi Minh City to Bangkok: getting good staff. It is not uncommon to enter a grocery store with, say, 25 employees on the shop floor, and every last one of them is head-down on their phone. No, this is not an exaggeration; it happens. This, of course, is the retailer’s fault. There is a simple solution: ban phones on the shop floor except when employees are on break. Product knowledge is lacking It isn’t just inattentiveness but also a lack of product knowledge, which is associated with an antipathy for serving the customer in a way that is genuinely helpful. So, instead of saying, “No, sorry, we don’t have your size in that training shoe,” and then quickly looking away, saying something like, “We don’t have your size training shoe in that model, but we do have it in this model, which is very similar and just as good” might be more in order. Hovering Of course, depending on the product category, the opposite problem, over-attentiveness, comes into play. Digital electronics and home-improvement stores are particularly salient in this regard. Store employees in Vietnam, Thailand and other countries in the region tend to ‘hover’ in close proximity to the customer attempting to browse.  Many large stores have wide, open fronts, and staff are arranged across the opening in a line just a few paces from one another. When the customer enters the store, an employee will quickly turn and follow, standing close by and watching silently whenever the customer stops to inspect an item. As the shopper moves through the store, the employee will trail them until they enter the territory of another employee, who will take over from the first in relay fashion. Retail stores across the region are subject to this kind of feast-or-famine approach in customer interactions. Not many domestic retailers are getting it right. Foreign retailers that hire people from their own country to train staff are having some success with that approach. Further reading: How Moshi Moshi plans to scale to 200 stores, drive 20 per cent growth in 2025.