Many large supermarkets in Vietnam’s economic hub Ho Chi Minh City have been filled with shoppers over the past few days, even very late at night, as the Vietnamese traditional Tet (Lunar New Year) holiday is only two days away.

As the waves of shoppers have been on the rise, a lot of supermarkets said they would extend their opening hours and increase their stock to serve the increasing purchase power.

Late at night on Wednesday, the Emart supermarket in Go Vap District was jammed with shoppers, from counters of goods to check-out areas, leaving almost no empty spaces.

‘Banh chung’ (stuffed sticky rice cake), one of the traditional Tet items in Vietnam, is seen on display at a supermarket in Ho Chi Minh City in this image. Photo: Nguyen Tri / Tuoi Tre

The two spacious parking lots outside the supermarket were fully packed and many shoppers could not find any space left for their motorbikes.

In addition to selling goods by packs with a fixed weight, Emart has adopted a new method of sale in which buyers can buy a lot of Tet items by weight that is up to their choice.

Products sold in the flexible way include various nuts, candies, jams, melon seeds and sunflower seeds, among others, at prices ranging from VND12,000 (US$0.51) to VND25,000 ($1.06) per 100 grams.

This image shows vegetables in large quantities at a supermarket during the days leading to Tet in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: Nguyen Tri / Tuoi Tre

Other commodities such as meat, fish, vegetables, spices, cooking oil, instant noodles, milk and others have been in high demand these days.

Particularly, traditional Tet products such as ‘banh chung’ (stuffed sticky rice cake), ‘nem’ (fermented pork), ‘cha lua’ (pork meat pie) and ‘cu kieu’ (pickled scallion heads) are also among best sellers these days.

The same Tet shopping atmosphere and scenes have been seen at many other major retail facilities including Go! Big (also in Go Vap), MM Mega Market (in Thu Duc City) and various Co.opmart supermarkets around the city.

In addition to the most purchased items including confectionery, jam, ready-to-eat foods, and processed and dried foods, shoppers also buy clothes and other necessities.

This image shows plenty of Tet-popular fruits offered at stable prices at a supermarket in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: Nguyen Tri / Tuoi Tre

Despite the rapid increase in consumer demand, the volume of goods at supermarkets remains plenty, without any shortage thanks to the good stock reserves.

Supermarkets said the high purchasing power will remain over the next few days, and that they will extend opening hours until 11:30 pm or 0:00 during the last two days ahead of the Tet holiday, which begins on January 22.

Such retailers will resume their normal working hours from the second day of the holiday, or January 23.

Areas of goods put for sale at a supermarket under sale promotion programs offered by many large retail chains in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: Nguyen Tri / Tuoi Tre

All the supermarkets said they have not only maintained stable prices of goods but also offered shoppers rebates of up to 50 percent for fashions products and discounts of 10 to 20 percent for various necessities including foods.

Specifically, Co.opmart supermarkets and MM Mega Market have applied discounts of 10-30 percent for thousands of commodities.

Vissan, a big producer of fresh and processed meat, said it has cut down prices by 10-40 percent for most of pork products over the past few days at its shops in Ho Chi Minh City and other provinces.

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