Why so many small shops in Vietnam?

Question

I once visited Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam and realized that there were sooo many small shops in the city and so few supermarkets and department stores for the city of that size.

Usually, because of economy of scale, small shops are often swept by larger scale supermarkets who have wider variety of products and lower prices.

Are this many small shops result of some economic policy of the Vietnamese government? Or is it only traditional thing?

Answer 1

The reason why there are alot of small shops in Vietnam because there are alot of poor people there ever since.They don't have that much money to have big shops and also they don't know what to sell if they have big shops.They either sell small things like snacks and drinks.Sometime they sell what they make at home and sell it.

I hope this will help you!=]

Answer 2

they are getting more rescource

Answer 3

As usual, Smiler is correct, If he didn't live so far from me, I'd drive up and buy him a beer.

You didn't say when you were in Saigon last, but unless it was a month ago, things have changed radically. There are supermarkets and department stores everywhere now. As the companies get larger, ie. Metro to name one, their buying power will increase and they will begin undercutting the prices of the small shops. Thats good for the consumer, bad for the small shop-keeper.

I live in the country and was visiting last year when they opened a new supermarket/department store in My Tho. Most of the local Viets had never ridden an escalator so I gave "lessons" in how to get on and off of it to the small crowd who where gathered around the foot of it. lol

Answer 4

When supermarkets first became popular in the Uk they where convieniant but expensive,it is early days here and just the same.As for the small shops,well you have to look at the houses,on average 4to 5 meters wide,when enough money is scraped together the front of the house can be converted into a shop,if that shop becomes sucsesfull then next door may be bought and the shop made bigger.This is the same as any where in the world,most shops began life as a small house,in streets that where once residential,given time central Saigon will be no different than London or New York.