Crowds of people lined up in front of famous fashion stores at shopping malls in Ho Chi Minh City on Saturday as the shops offered discounts of up to 50 percent on the occasion of Vietnamese Women's Day (October 20).

Many fashion brands have launched one of their biggest promotions of the year to mark the upcoming Vietnamese Women's Day.

Discounts were up to 50 percent at multiple venues, according to the observation of Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper reporters on Saturday.

Various products of international fashion brands dropped sharply to about VND100,000-199,000 (US$4.4-8.7) apiece.

As the sales took place on the weekend, a large number of residents flocked to local shopping malls in the hope of buying their favorite outfits at cheap prices.

A lot of young people were also excited to go shopping again following a prolonged lockdown over COVID-19.

Long queues were inevitable because malls and stores had to apply pandemic prevention and control measures, including requiring customers to file health declarations and limiting the number of shoppers inside the venues.

Shoppers had to wait in long lines at fitting rooms and checkout counters.

According to a store representative at a shopping mall in District 1, purchasing power has surged compared to the first week of October due to the rising number of fully-vaccinated people.

Many people have been back to work, thus the demand for new outfits has increased, the representative added.

In order to reduce waiting time, several stores asked customers to try on the clothes at home and allowed them to change sizes within 30 days.

Meanwhile, shopping malls in District 7 were less crowded compared to those in downtown areas.

Ho Chi Minh City has been the hardest-hit locality since the fourth outbreak began on April 27, with over 416,600 local infections.

The city had imposed social distancing measures at various levels since May 31 before loosening multiple restrictions on October 1, as the majority of its adult population had been vaccinated with at least one dose.

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