Local retail businesses should focus on developing their own brands, improving the product quality and diversifying products in order to enhance their competitiveness in the domestic market.

Vietnamese products are attractive to foreign distribution channels as lots of purchase departments of foreign distribution channels have arrived in Vietnam to speed up purchasing contracts with local enterprises.

Hanoi continued to see fierce competition among retail properties during the first quarter of 2019, partially due to an additional 16,000 square meters from an inner-city project, reported Savills Vietnam.

VietNamNet Bridge - With the CPTPP, which removes all market access barriers in the retail sector, Vietnam expects to see an influx of foreign retailers. 

VietNamNet Bridge - Many retailers have reported losses, but they are continuing to pour more money into Vietnam to expand their networks.

Analysts several years ago predicted that foreign retailers, with their powerful financial capability and experience, would dislodge Vietnamese retailers out of the home market. But their business results have become worse.

VietNamNet Bridge - Having been in Vietnam for 10 years, with four Vietnamese partners, Aeon, the big retailer from Japan, is cancelling its cooperation contracts with several partners because of business differences.

VietNamNet Bridge - Japanese retailers are pursuing their business strategy to open more convenience stores, malls and mini-marts within the next few years. 

VietNamNet Bridge - Some years ago, analysts predicted that modern distribution channels would develop rapidly in Vietnam as income continued to rise. 

Family Mart has decided to follow the lead of Parkson Retail Asia and stop throwing good money after bad into the Southeast Asian Vietnamese retail market, according to a report by Reuters.

The foreign retail brands which have entered the Vietnamese market recently are all powerful and experienced, but it is too early to say who will thrive.

VietNamNet Bridge - Brands are trying to fully exploit their advantage to compete with rivals, but most of them are developing a model that is a hybrid between a convenience store and fast food shop.

Pham Trong Nhan, a National Assembly (NA) Deputy said the NA plans to approve a law on supporting small and medium enterprises (SMEs), noting that many merger & acquisition (M&A) deals in the retail market have been made recently.

Vietnamese goods have to go through many intermediaries to enter foreign supermarket chains. As a result, enterprises have to pay high costs to sell their goods, and cannot develop their brands. 

VietNamNet Bridge - Japanese investors are now eyeing non-production sectors, such as the retail industry.

VietNamNet Bridge - E-commerce firms now have more rivals as the most powerful conglomerates in the industry have arrived in the country.

VietNamNet Bridge - Vietnamese retail chains are hurrying to expand their networks in anticipation of stiff competition with foreign giants.

VietNamNet Bridge - Fast moving consumer goods (FMCG), which is believed to be one of the most profitable business sectors, has not grown as quickly as thought. 

VietNamNet Bridge - Analysts have noted new characteristics of the current Japanese investment wave in Vietnam: more capital flow to retail, food supply and finance services.