Quite gloomy market on Black Friday 2017 in Vinh street

(Baonghean.vn)- Although many stores and fashion shops in Vinh city are bustling to respond to the Black Friday discount event on November 24, the shopping atmosphere is gloomy.

Walking around major shopping streets in Vinh City such as Nguyen Van Cu, Tran Phu, Quang Trung... Black Friday billboards have been hung in many stores. However, the attraction of this event has been significantly reduced.

This year's Black Friday event only takes place for one day, November 24, but because of fear of a lack of customers, shop owners have increased the number of days to attract customers. Photo: Quang An

To prepare for Black Friday, Ms. Le Thi Mai, owner of a clothing store on Nguyen Van Cu Street, Vinh City, began preparing items and hanging advertising banners on November 22. However, the number of customers in the past 2 days and the morning of November 24 was only a few people. She said: My store has responded to the Black Friday event for the 3rd year, but this year the number of customers has decreased significantly. In previous years, as soon as the store opened, customers were already waiting. We are waiting for the weekend.

Ms. Nguyen Thu Thuy, owner of a shoe store in Truong Thi ward, shared: in the era of social media explosion, people can order on Facebook and have it delivered immediately. In this cold weather, customers are reluctant to come to the store to buy things even if there are deep discounts.

According to observations, on Black Friday, the items with the highest discounts include clothes, shoes, household appliances and electronics. Some stores offer discounts from 50% - 70%. However, many people still do not care much about this event.

Although it is a discount holiday, there are not many customers shopping at the shops. Photo: Quang An

One of the tricks to reduce product prices without losing money that many stores apply is to increase product prices and then hang a sign with a 50% - 70% discount... this method is old but still fools many consumers. Especially those who love to hunt for cheap items.

Mr. Nguyen Gia Tung, Hung Phuc Ward, sighed: On Black Friday last year, I woke up very early to wait at the store because the branded shoes were 50% off. I spent nearly 1 million VND to own them. However, when consulting with friends, I found out that this pair of shoes was only priced at 900,000 VND in another shop. It turned out that the value of the shoes was only around 1 million VND, but the store owner raised the price to 1.8 million VND and applied a 50% discount to deceive consumers.

Another reason why Black Friday does not attract customers in Vinh is that in previous years, many store owners took advantage of this occasion to sell off their inventory and poor quality products, disappointing customers and making them wary of discount offers.

In contrast to the deserted atmosphere outside the market, social networks today are flooded with discount advertisements for online sales. Photo: Quang An

As offline businesses struggle due to lack of customers, many shop owners have turned to online business on this day. Social media is flooded with posts advertising and offering deep discounts on Black Friday.

Many shop owners in Vinh City said: Although it is a discount holiday, it is not a day off so people still go to work as usual and do not have time to shop. Therefore, doing business online helps customers and sellers save time, do not have to go out in cold weather and can offer free shipping for short distances.

Quang An