Christmas season: opportunity to stimulate the market at the end of the year

(Baonghean) - The Christmas atmosphere is bustling throughout the streets of Vinh city. The streets are filled with the colors of Christmas with banners, billboards, pine trees, wreaths, Santa Claus... This is also a special occasion for businesses to discount many items with the hope of stimulating the consumer market at the end of the year.

Rich Christmas market...

Since the beginning of December, Christmas decorations and gifts have been sold at souvenir shops and bookstores across the city. The prices of Christmas products this year have increased by about 15-20% compared to last year. The most popular item for sale and the top choice for consumers is the pine tree. According to Mr. Nguyen Bao Cuong - owner of a business specializing in providing all kinds of pine trees and Christmas decorations on Tran Phu Street (Vinh City): "In addition to pine trees made of PVC plastic, the "popular" pine tree models this Christmas season are made of fishing line with diverse shapes, exactly like real pine trees.

Like the golden-headed pine product, with the top of each branch turning yellow-brown, the snow-covered PE pine is the image of a temperate pine tree. On the market, there is also a type of pine tree made of real pine wood with a canopy facing down like a pine tree in the Arctic region. With the same size, the price of new pines is twice or three times higher than that of PVC pines. 1.5 - 2.2m high pine trees, PVC material costs from 350,000 - 500,000 VND/tree; pine trees made of postage cost up to 900,000 - 1,500,000 VND. The new point of this year's Christmas market is the appearance of high-end LED pine trees. This type of pine tree is 2 - 3m high, equipped with a dense LED light system with all colors so there is no need to decorate with other objects; The products cost from 5 to 50 million VND/tree... This year, most of the Christmas decorative trees on the market are "made in Vietnam" products, we in the business community do not need to order from China or Thailand like previous years.

Many shops on the streets have decorated for Christmas.

In the decorative accessories, this year there are more models of balls, stars, hand-woven straw shoes... with unique patterns and designs. The price of each accessory is from 5,000 VND - 65,000 VND/product. The decorative decal models have shifted to embossed, 3D shapes, creating a real and eye-catching feeling; the price is from 20,000 - 150,000 VND/set... Souvenirs are mostly handcrafted quite delicately and uniquely, such as the plastic Santa Claus statue with many poses priced at 35,000 - 60,000 VND/piece, the terracotta dwarf statue priced at 45,000 - 75,000 VND/piece, the Santa Claus clock priced at 150,000 VND/piece, the Santa Claus ceramic vase priced at 150,000 VND/piece, the rattan bell priced at 25,000 VND/pair...

This year's full Christmas decoration service for offices, shops and families is on a small scale, including Santa Claus and snowman decoration, door frame decoration, pine tree decoration, facade decoration, snow house, angel, grotto, laurel wreath, Christmas gift boxes... Representative of Ngan Thong Company (on Dang Thai Than Street) - specializing in providing full Christmas decoration services said that this year the company received one and a half times more orders than last year, in which more than 70% of customers are restaurants, hotels, and shops. The cost of full decoration ranges from 500,000 to 20,000,000 VND, depending on the specific requirements of the order.

Receiving Christmas gifts from Santa Claus is still the happiness of many children. Therefore, this service continues to develop with many vivid forms. For example, Funny Day Company offers 3 gift packages including Panda, Doremon and Dream. Depending on each package, in addition to delivering gifts, Santa Claus also tells stories to children, gives them a golden piggy bank and sends a message of saving to children through stories... The price of the gift delivery service depends on the package, delivery date and distance, ranging from 150,000 - 300,000 VND/child, 30,000 - 50,000 VND for the second and third child at an address.

Hope for the "golden" month

Despite the difficult economic situation, consumers are trying to cut down on spending, but businesses still import a lot of goods in the "golden" month with the big holidays at the end of the year, Christmas and New Year. Hoping to attract customers as well as stimulate consumption, many attractive promotions have been launched by business owners during this time. At the Apple Store (on Minh Khai Street - Vinh City), there is a promotion program to give away anti-scratch screen protectors worth 200,000 VND, 30% off leather cases... for Samsung, Iphone, Ipad, Notebook product lines.

In particular, when purchasing an Apple product, customers will receive a direct discount of 300,000 - 1,000,000 VND/product on the occasion of Christmas; the program is applied from December 1 to December 31, 2013. Not missing the opportunity to do business during the Christmas season, famous electronic centers and supermarkets in Thanh Vinh such as Hong Ha, Son Ha, Huong Giang... are also competing to reduce prices by 10-30% on essential consumer goods such as washing machines, televisions, refrigerators, dehumidifiers, phones, cameras... These promotions are launched from the first days of December and last until Lunar New Year. In the special promotion program for Christmas, Honda Vietnam also offers promotions for the two Wave Alpha and Wave RSX models. Accordingly, with each car purchase order, customers will receive a gift voucher worth 500,000 VND (including VAT).

Preparing for the year-end shopping season, from December 3 to December 25, 2013, Big C supermarket chain has also launched 4 grand promotional programs such as "Buy new items, welcome Spring", "Busy Christmas - Full of promotions", "Christmas collection" and "Gift baskets for the Year of the Horse". To stimulate consumers' shopping needs, on the occasion of Christmas, Metro supermarket is also launching big promotional programs "Buy 3 get 1 free", "Buy 5 get 1 free" and 30% discount on Christmas decoration products. Currently, Metro supermarket is also selling Tet gift baskets with a variety of types priced from 200,000 - 2,000,000 VND/basket... Especially on this occasion, supermarkets continue to implement lucky draw programs, accumulate points to exchange for gifts with attractive gifts to attract customers.

With reduced purchasing power and high inventories, businesses and shop owners are trying to stimulate consumer demand during the biggest shopping season of the year, hoping for increased sales. However, with the current difficult economic situation and consumers tightening their spending, businesses still have to make efforts and… wait.

Ngoc Anh