Hire someone to queue up to buy an iPhone 7.

Many Vietnamese people are willing to pay $100 a day to hire someone to queue for three nights in advance at iPhone 7 sales points in Singapore. The first batch of devices will be brought back to Vietnam and sold at a high price.

"I need to find 5 people to queue up from the evening of September 13th to 16th to help me buy an iPhone. The salary is 300 USD per person. The store is in Somerset. If you can do it, please inbox me," wrote Cao Son Long on a Facebook group for Vietnamese people in Singapore.

The post immediately attracted many comments, including from international students and Vietnamese people living in the country. Some people hesitated about the requirement to queue up in advance on the night of September 13th, more than two days before the store officially opened.

Many people ate and slept in makeshift shelters while queuing outside the Somerset shopping center in Singapore, hoping to be among the first to buy an iPhone.

Like Long, many Vietnamese people have started turning to forums and websites for international students to "recruit" for the iPhone 7 launch season. The price for queuing for each day ranges from 100 to 120 USD (equivalent to 2.2 to 2.6 million VND).

Nguyen Huu Minh, an iPhone dealer in Ho Chi Minh City, said that the price for hiring people to queue this year is slightly higher than last year, with most people hiring them three nights in advance.

"Most of the participants are Vietnamese students studying in Singapore. They usually sign up in groups of friends, earning money while chatting and eating together for hours on end," Minh said.

Similar to Minh, Nguyen Hoang Ha, a shop owner in District 5, Ho Chi Minh City, is also actively seeking people to "reserve" spots in advance at various sales locations.

This person revealed that they had contacted about 9 people to queue in central Singapore, and needed more to "station" in suburban areas such as Jurong West, Paya Lebar... or even at Changi Airport, at a price of up to $360 per person for three nights queuing in front of areas where iPhone 7 sales were expected to take place.

Hoang Ha said this is the second year he has come to Singapore to collect the first batch of iPhones. Last year, Ha's group managed to bring back nearly 10 iPhone 6S Plus top-of-the-line models to Vietnam on the very first day.

Predicting the situation this year, this person believes it will be more difficult because more and more Vietnamese people are lining up in central areas like Somerset or Marina Bay Sands. Therefore, his group may focus on less-known areas closest to the airport to catch their flight back to Vietnam on the same day.

The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus will officially go on sale on September 16th. In Asia, the first countries and territories to sell the iPhone 7 include Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Japan, and Taiwan.

In Vietnam, many retailers specializing in imported iPhones have released projected prices for September 16th, aiming to avoid the chaos seen in previous years. The iPhone 7 32GB is priced at 24.9 million VND, while the most expensive model, the iPhone 7 Plus Jet Black 256GB, will cost up to 37.99 million VND.

According to ZING.VN