National Day saw supermarkets packed to the max in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.
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| Many supermarkets in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City were overcrowded |
The purchase demand was 5 times higher than usual on the holiday as customers were lured by many attractive promotion programmes.
In Hanoi, city dwellers and outsiders were drawn into supermarkets and trading centres such as Metro, Big C, Fivimart and Hapro Mart.
From early morning, the Metro supermarket was busy with customers. Food, electronic and home appliance kiosks seemed to be the busiest.
Finding parking before getting into the supermarket was a nightmare for some customers.
Additionally, buses transported passengers from other provinces to supermarkets in Hanoi.
Beginning at 9am, the traffic on Tran Duy Hung Road was terribly jammed because of the throngs of people headed to Big C supermarket. Food, clothes and home appliance kiosks were extra-crowded with customers.
Most of consumers came to supermarket because they wanted to buy goods at much lower prices than usual.
Pico supermarket has launched a promotion campaign on the occasion of the National Day from September 2 to 5 offering thousands of products with substantial promotions, especially on electrical-electronic and home appliance products.
In Ho Chi Minh City, supermarkets expected the increase in customers so they adjusted their opening and closing times and reserved goods as much as possible to serve customer demand.
At 7.30 pm on September 1, customers lined up in front of Big C and Co.op Mart supermarkets on Nguyen Kiem Road, Go Vap District.
Xuan, living in Binh Thach District, said that she came to Co.op Mart at 4.30pm but could not find her way out until 8pm. “I like to go shopping during this occasion because I can benefit from many promotion gifts however, there were too many people in the supermarket so now I feel exhausted,” shared Xuan.
In Big C supermarket, at about 8pm, the parking area was fully occupied. Many people had to wait outside and whenever security guards opened the door to receive vehicles, customers rushed to get in. On normal days, it takes only few minutes to park the vehicle but it took over 15 minutes to do so on this day.
Many could not wait and decided to go home but many tried to find other parking areas.
Duong Thi Quynh Trang, Public Relations Manager of Big C supermarket, said the number of customers was expected to be 30-40% higher than normal holidays at her supermarket.
