My Little Black Box

I am posted in Vietnam since 2 month ago… Ho Chi Minh City to precise… Never cross my mind that this journey could really opened my eyes, and changed me. I learned so many new things here.. i learn to new cultures, new language, new behavior, new way to think.

I mean, in-terms of market behavior, Vietnam can be devided into 4 major behavior based on geografic. The Northern people, the people in the central, the south and the Mekong Delta. Each of them have their own characteristic.

The Northern People are more cultural and closed minded, they are too opened to new things. More political and goverment people located in the north. The Central, also more a cultural cities. The good thing is the people from the north and the central have more loyalty to brands compare to the people in the south or in mekong delta.

The people in the south are a lot more opened minded, perhaps because they had a lot of influence from America and France. You can also see from their buildings, their cafe’s their bar’s and ofcouurse the way they dress.

The south specially Ho Chi Minh City is their business city, most of the business in this country conducted here in Ho Chi Minh City. Well if you are looking for a A-B market, i think you can only find it in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City for the time being…

But if you have a product for the middle low market and you can compete in terms of price, Mekong Delta should be the place you like to consider as an enter point. Coz most of them are middle low, and they are very price sensitive, they don’t have much brand loyalty.

Well in-terms of language, you can devide them into three area, the south, the central, and the north. They have different intonation, although they still speak the same language… since they have 6 intonation here, really could give you a headache!

Actually (although they don’t like to admit it) their culture is very much influenced by the Chinese tradition in a lot of things…

But i must say… this is a very interesting country!

Cheers,
Yoshua