Go to Vietnam and harvest an era

On the outside of the surface

2024-05-26 22:52Posted on the official account of Hubei Table

This article is from: Outside the Surface, Author: Wang Saifang, Editor: Cao Binling, Fu Xiaoling

In Ho Chi Minh City in the summer, the heat wave is pressing, but Zhuang Mong feels that the sea of people in front of him is even more restless.

At that time, he was in a Vietnam cross-border e-commerce seminar, and when he received 500 e-commerce registrations in the early stage, he expected that the popularity would burst, but he didn't expect that more than 1,000 people came beyond expectations that day, and the scene was surrounded by water.

Among these people, there are many bosses who have flown in from China and are carrying millions of cash, their cheeks are flushed with excitement, and their eyes are not tired from a long journey, but shining, showing their ambition to win the Vietnamese market.

However, Zhuang Meng knew that at least 7 of the 10 people present would lose their money.

Few people will believe this, after all, in the Chinese Internet world, go to the Middle East to do APP, there are local tycoons chasing money to recharge; Go to North America to do cross-border e-commerce, and you can sit and listen to the sound of money coming into your account; Even going to Africa to sell used clothes can achieve financial freedom.

Winning Vietnam, the "Nantian Little China" and "World Factory 2.0", should be more like a bag to pick up things.

However, Zhuang Meng, who is rooted in Southeast Asia, knows that Vietnam's special national conditions determine that this hot land has a certain "atypical", and the nuggets are not only difficult, but also fast.

Every time he shares investment opportunities with gold diggers, he stresses that "there are many opportunities and pitfalls", but the problem is that people often think that they will be the lucky one.

First, the annual increase is half, and the Chinese are vying for the admission ticket to Vietnam

Passenger cars, ferries, motorcycles...... Changing N times at every turn, bumpy delivery experience of a few or even more than ten hours, is the norm for Ah Wei to act as an agent for health care products in Vietnam, but he is willing to do it.

His motivation comes from the fact that in just two years in Vietnam, he has achieved sales of more than 100 million yuan with three agent brands – while in China, it took 12 years to reach such a level.

"This is not to say that Vietnam has a larger market than the domestic market, after all, the population of Southeast Asia combined is only 700 million, less than half of China." In Ah Wei's view, the key is that the pool in Vietnam has risen, but there are not many swimmers in it, "A track in China may be stared at by 90% of people, while in Southeast Asia it is only about 1%. ”

On this point, Jia Wei, the founder of Fan Yi Space Design, has the most feelings. As an interior designer, he caught up with the "hell mode" in China at the beginning, and died in a cramped environment.

He is a rookie who has won many awards at home and abroad, but in the past two years of entrepreneurship, it is still common for the market to shrink and design fees to be pressed again and again.

Faced with a dilemma, Jiawei decided to jump out of the regional restrictions and think of another way out. And a party opened his eyes to new possibilities.

It was a private gathering of friends, which was meant to exchange information with each other and see if they could find a way, but after three rounds of drinking, morale was sluggish, because except for a friend who worked in Vietnam, almost no one escaped the "salary cut and unpaid income".

And this friend's sharing that "Vietnam business is the same as picking up money, and I just spent tens of millions of dollars to buy two suites in Shenzhen Overseas Chinese Town", which aroused the envy of everyone at the same time, but also made Jiawei see an opportunity: when a place's economy is hot, real estate usually takes the lead.

Without any hesitation, Jia Wei flew to Vietnam single-handedly to investigate. "As soon as I went to the real estate site, I knew that there was a play, almost every new property had a long queue, and the popularity of snapping up was not as hot as that of a few years ago." Jia Wei said excitedly.

Stimulated by the hot scene she saw, Jiawei immediately decided to buy 2 properties to "explore the way". At one of the home purchase sites, he waited in line for more than 3 hours before signing the purchase contract.

So without waiting for the results of the market research to come out, Jiawei decided to go to Vietnam to build a second business focus. "It's a bit hasty and unwise from a business point of view." He reconsidered afterwards, "But if you don't take that step quickly, the opportunity may not necessarily be yours." ”

Jia Wei is not the only one who has such an idea, almost every Vietnamese gold digger takes this as a guide to action.

Zhuang Mong's overseas enterprise qualification certification application company, whether it is Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City's office, has to receive three or four waves of guests almost every day, and the common requirement of each guest is to expedite and expedit.

"How long will it take for the registration to be approved? Can adding money speed up the process? The text messages that lasted from one early morning to another made Zhuang Meng busy and at the same time, he also felt deeply enthusiastic.

Against the backdrop of global economic setbacks due to the pandemic, Vietnam is one of the few regions to achieve a strong economic recovery: the annual economic growth rate reached 8.02% in 2022 and will remain at a similar level in 2023.

In addition to the macroeconomic environment, the business environment has also continued to improve. On the one hand, since 2016, Vietnam has continued to introduce preferential tax policies to encourage foreign investment.

On the other hand, with the continuous promotion of the "Belt and Road", China has been Vietnam's largest trading partner for many years, and Vietnam is also China's largest trading partner in ASEAN.

Under the guidance of top-down, inside-out initiatives, following the pace of state-owned enterprises going overseas, private enterprises have also joined the tide of seizing Vietnam.

Zhuang Mong's company is headquartered in Indonesia, and it was originally very rare to get involved in Vietnam's business, and it was because there were too many consulting customers that it started this line. Today, Vietnam is the second largest business market in Southeast Asia.

According to him, in the past two years, they have served nearly 200 enterprises, with customer groups covering various fields such as semiconductors, shoes and clothing, infrastructure, automobiles and cross-border e-commerce, and the number of customers in the first half of this year increased by 50% compared with last year.

And everyone is like being wound up, in a hurry, in their eyes, "a month earlier, maybe you can make an extra million." ”

Trang Mong is happy in the face of such a frenzy, but he also reminds customers not to let their guard down on the Vietnamese market.

Second, I didn't drink Vietnamese soup, but first drenched in Vietnamese rain

"There is a Shenzhen boss who lost 7 figures in half a year, and his hair was gray when he returned to China......" Listening to the gossip of drinking friends at the food stall, Zhuang Meng was in a trance, and he seemed to have heard similar stories last month.

Domestic shrewd and capable entrepreneurs seem to have suddenly lost their wisdom when they arrive in Vietnam, and they don't look at the market scale and don't do peer research, thinking that they can avoid the competition of life and death in Vietnam, and use the domestic business model to reduce the dimension and attack the local "straw bale boss".

The Shenzhen boss is like this, after seeing that a Bluetooth headset priced at 70,000 VND (about 21 yuan) in TikTok Shop became unexpectedly popular, selling nearly 40,000 pieces a month, he was sure that the Vietnamese market was still a blue ocean.

Coupled with a lot of successful experience in China, he confidently purchased nearly one million white-label Bluetooth headsets in Huaqiangbei in one go, and went directly to Vietnam to make a lot of money.

As a result, the dream of making money was shattered in the first step on the peninsula - in Vietnam, electronic accessories such as Bluetooth headsets need to obtain official access before they can be launched on e-commerce and shopping mall retail channels, and the Shenzhen boss who has not prepared in the early stage is almost impossible to obtain a certificate of conformity at this time.

As a result, a large number of goods purchased at a large price can only be sold in mobile phone stores on the streets and alleys, and without brand endorsement, not only the sales are dismal, but the profits are even more pitiful.

After running out of ammunition and food, the boss had to cut his meat and admit defeat, "rushing in excitement and slipping away".

Ah Wei empathized with the boss's experience, "Chinese people have done many industries to the extreme, but when you go to Southeast Asia to copy, you will find that one is too high and the other is too low, and the intermediate links cannot be filled, and if you land, you will fall to death." ”

Compared with others, Ah Wei is already a cautious category, but he still has to "pay tuition" - sitting in the store, watching passers-by outside the glass window wander around the neighborhood repeatedly, hesitating to the end or shaking his head to leave, his heart is not a taste.

You must know that when this Malatang first opened, business was booming, the store was full, and the supply of ingredients exceeded demand. Nowadays, the clerks have time to chat and watch videos.

When he saw Haidilao becoming popular in Vietnam, he was also gearing up to enter the catering industry, and he did not forget to do some research before going down, and confirmed that Ho Chi Minh City, which has a population of 12 million, had no more than 5 Malatang before he made up his mind to make a move.

As soon as the store with the sign of "Chinese authentic Malatang" landed, it quickly set off a boom among the surrounding people who were eager to consume. However, the good times did not last long, because the food supply chain could not be optimized, the price of the dishes was slightly higher, and the enthusiasm of customers was unsustainable.

Ah Wei also tried to reduce costs, but he found that unlike Malaysia, Thailand and other countries that have been deeply infiltrated by the Chinese community, Vietnam's overseas Chinese have only risen significantly in recent years, and are mainly active in industrial areas rather than big cities, and the local food, daily necessities and even home appliances and automobiles are basically monopolized by Japan and South Korea.

For example, 80% of the motorcycles on the streets of Vietnam are Japanese brands; 6% of the cosmetics market is controlled by Japanese and Korean brands. The same is true of the supply chain of the food retail industry, and it is not difficult to guess that Chinese cannot get around the restrictions when looking at the popularity of South Korea's Lotte and Japan's Aeon.

"It's hard to imagine that the frozen meatballs that have been flooded in the domestic vegetable market can't be bought in Vietnam." Ah Wei was very helpless, in order to ensure the taste and richness of the dishes, they finally had to import meatballs from China, and the price naturally remained high.

However, in the face of difficulties, he did not lose confidence, "opening the market takes a process, and business also needs time to precipitate", as long as he does not lose money, he will continue to insist and wait for a turnaround.

And Kiddy, who has been doing foreign trade in Vietnam for many years, has been waiting for the day when the bitterness comes.

In the first year of selling lamps in Vietnam, Kiddy didn't dare to look directly at the demand from the supplier, because it meant that she had to withdraw money from her credit card to get by.

But by the second year, Kiddy had gotten rid of the dilemma of relying on credit cards, and in the third year, he didn't have to worry about money at all.

She was able to turn the situation around because she always believed that "there are profits and losses in business, and persistence will lead to accumulation".

In the early days of the business, except for the two leading brands in the market, the others were basically the same domestic OEM products as Kiddy, with very similar quality and price, and the competition was unprecedentedly fierce. When some of her peers began to reduce allocations and prices, she always insisted on taking the route of good quality and low price.

Finally, a lamp in the store took the lead in breaking the circle, and customers spread the word, and business gradually improved. Today, Kiddy not only has a more stable lighting business, but even has extra energy to study side hustles.

But she also clearly feels that the window period left for Vietnamese players to go overseas is getting shorter.

Third, the golden nest has become a silver nest, and Vietnam is losing its cost performance?

The Vietnam inspection trip of the second generation of the garment factory, Catherine, can be summed up in two words: "disappointment".

The moment she walked into the Vietnamese clothing market, she felt as if time had gone back more than ten years: the hottest and best-selling clothes were still black, white and gray, tightly wrapped old, conservative styles, and there was nothing to chew on when she looked at them.

E-commerce channels are full of clothes, such as Korean style, European and American sweet and spicy style are popular in the women's clothing field, and the return rate seems to be higher. But Catherine learned that Vietnam's cross-border e-commerce is a "nine deaths" track.

In Vietnam, where "cash is king", the proportion of cash on delivery is still as high as 26% (2020 data), users get clothes, and return them if they don't like them.

Moreover, unlike the popular Amazon and other shelf e-commerce in Europe and the United States, Vietnam's live streaming is extremely hot - in 2023, the volume of Vietnamese e-commerce will only be 25% of the Indonesian market, but the size of TikTok Shop's team in Vietnam is already on par with the Indonesian team, which is obviously not what Catherine, who has been "suffering from live streaming for a long time", wants to see.

However, in such a "rich before rolling" track, players are still desperately squeezing in, and the reason why Katherin flew to Vietnam is to see that it is in the limelight, and a large number of peers have successively transferred their factories to Vietnam.

In fact, it's not just the apparel industry betting on Vietnam, as Trang Mong has seen, all walks of life in the country are looking for new opportunities. However, Vietnam's size is limited, and there is a ceiling in labor, space, and supporting facilities, and the influx of a large amount of overseas investment will undoubtedly make Vietnam lose its "cost performance".

In the past two or three years, Vietnam's labor costs have risen, and the cost gap with China has been narrowing; The originally low factory rents and land prices in some popular areas have risen to almost the same level as those of first-tier cities in China such as Shenzhen and Guangzhou.

Ah Wei feels the changes in human resources the most. "I have never been wronged by my parents since I was a child, so why should I suffer from you?" Seeing the Vietnamese employee throwing a tantrum in the office, he hurried forward and skillfully patted his shoulder to comfort him.

He has done a similar "psychological SPA" countless times, and if he can't handle the emotions of local employees, they will "fire the boss squid" every minute.

Ah Wei said that Vietnam's European and American workplace culture makes local employees less obedient than in China, and if they are not happy today, they may leave tomorrow. In addition, there is no shortage of job opportunities, which also gives them the confidence to "wait for the price and sell".

He had to take these factors into account when dealing with the employee who had lost his temper.

When assigning work tasks, Ah Wei can hand over several things to Chinese employees at the same time, and they will judge their own priorities and allocate time reasonably within the specified time. But Vietnamese employees can only complete a single line of tasks, and if more than two things are arranged at once, they will most likely collapse directly.

Chinese employees who are accustomed to the "orderly division of labor" cannot understand the "stupidity" of Vietnamese employees, and it is inevitable that there will be quarrels.

At this time, Ah Wei has to turn into a psychological massage master to relieve the emotions of the employees, and cannot let the employees run away at will, because the Vietnamese government's requirements for foreign-funded companies stipulate the proportion of local employees.

In addition to being "squeamish", Vietnamese employees also have no low requirements for salary packages.

"In some factories, they will also ask for shuttle bus pick-up and drop-off to and from work, and there is compensation for overtime, and the labor law will be mentioned if they disagree. My current thinking is that as long as there is no strike, everything is negotiable. Ah Wei lamented that it was really "too difficult" to be a boss in Vietnam.

However, in 2019, official data from Vietnam showed that 80% of strikes in Vietnam occurred in foreign companies.

"To put it bluntly, in other people's territory, in addition to following the local customs, we must also get used to the government's priority protection of local resources." Ah Wei said that Vietnam's future belongs to the Vietnamese people after all.

Not only that, but also get used to some "Vietnamese characteristics". For example, there are often staff members who come to the door to "audit" in various names, which is essentially to collect tips; To apply for compliance qualifications, even if the procedures are complete, don't think that you can sit back and relax, and think about whether there are still "unfinished procedures".

Of course, now that the Vietnamese government has explicitly banned this kind of behavior, he believes that with the deepening of the degree of openness, Vietnam's business environment will get better and better in the future. But he also admitted: "It's no longer realistic to go to Vietnam and make money lying down." ”

end

In fact, going to Vietnam to dig gold did not happen in the past two or three years, Catherine's uncle went to sea 20 years ago.

At that time, not long after Vietnam opened its doors, my uncle resolutely went there to engage in engineering mechanical and electrical engineering, and now has 2 office buildings in Haiphong; Nowadays, Chinese people began to go to Vietnam to build infrastructure, and my uncle turned around and set up a Vietnamese investment company, turning from a contractor to a capital tycoon.

Catherine might have been a little bold if she had rewind a few years, but now Vietnam is a discouragement for her.

"Even Li Ka-shing never mentioned Vietnam, so why should I go to earn the last copper plate?" Looking at the blue earth behind her, Catherine boarded the plane back home.

(Zhuang Meng, Ah Wei, Kiddy, and Catherine are pseudonyms in the article, and special thanks to the blogger Go Global for new opportunities to go overseas and cross-border big cousin China, Australia and Vietnam for their support for this article.) ）

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