How to sell mom and baby products in Vietnam

In recent years, mother and baby speciality store chains are growing, not only expanding geographically but also developing in the online market. Brands such as Kidsplaza, Tuticare, Concung… in addition to expanding their stores from Hanoi to Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City, have increasingly invested in promotions and regular discounts on their websites and stores on e-commerce platforms. Furthermore, there are also increasingly new online businesses selling mother and baby products.

That means the mom and baby market in Vietnam is quite crowded and competitive. Most of brands invest heavily in online marketing and e-commerce since this is the trend. Therefore, as a foreign brand being new to local customers, you need a distinguished strategy to differentiate yourself and gain trust.

An official Facebook Fan page is first and foremost for brands

International brands like you are usually good at building nice brand stories, missions and visions. This is very advantageous. However, to actually sell, you need to grasp the current business and sales trends in Vietnam. It is online sales through channels such as: a Facebook fan page, a website, livestreaming, run ads, a tik tok channel, e-commerce platforms…

Let’s start by creating an official fan page for your brand. A mother and baby brand that has its own official fan page which is updated with information such as product images, customer reviews, … regularly will definitely create more professionalism and trust.

A new fan page needs to be boosted for more interaction. Create small incentives for your first fans to introduce and share your page with their friends. Besides, you should regularly update new images of products, customer feedback or pictures when you start to sell, etc. on the page. Interspersed with sales articles, you should create articles that attract customer interaction such as: mini games, memes, funny contents… but they needs to be related to your products and customers.

Vietnamese moms love watching livestreams

Livestreaming is becoming indispensable on social media, especially Facebook. Currently, mother and baby shops are all applying this sales method. Do you know that Vietnamese moms spend numerous hours per day watching livestreams?

Mother and baby shops should maintain a frequency of 1-2 livestreams/week. This is both an opportunity to interact with customers and an opportunity to increase sales. If you have no livestream experience, no need to worry! Take the time to watch the livestreams of your competitors, the big brands in the industry or pay attention to the livestreams that interest you. Notice how they lead the story, how to use words, etc., then take notes and create your own livestream style accordingly.
Livestreaming on Facebook is being applied by many mom and baby shops today.

For mother and baby products, the main customers are nursing mothers. So, during the livestream, create small mini-games, discount programs, and give attractive gifts to encourage them to like, share and comment on your livestream.

In addition, regarding the livestream time, please post on your fan page to announce the time or poll if you want to hear from customers. This will help you ensure that the livestream will have many customers watching.

Get more exposure on e-commerce marketplace

The strong influence of the epidemic has shown the important role of e-commerce platforms such as Shopee, Lazada, Tiki, etc. Therefore, in addition to physical stores, you should definitely invest in developing your e-commerce sales channels. In particular, selling through Shopee is currently the most popular.

Shopee, Lazada are developing many activities to boost sales and customer attraction for sellers such as: livestream, promotion banners, pushing products to top search results, even running ads, … similar to selling on Facebook.

Currently, there are many e-commerce platforms to choose, but you need to make the right choice for your products, customers and your resources. At first, you can choose to focus on developing on Shopee or Lazada first and then expand to other platforms gradually. In addition, it is also necessary to consider your target customers’ online shopping habits to allocate resources properly.
For example, many high-end customers will prefer to buy at major genuine stores such as: Shopee mall, Tiki, etc. while many customers in the countryside are still not used to shopping through e-commerce platforms but prefer to buy Cash on delivery via Facebook.

Build a localized website to showcase your brand

Build a well-designed website to establish yourself as a prestigious international brand. Small mom and baby shops in Vietnam don’t usually invest in a proper website because it doesn’t generate sales immediately.

Besides, Vietnamese customers always have the habit of searching for information about sellers and manufacturers on Google before choosing to trust them.

Therefore, investing in creating a mother and baby brand website as well as SEO will increase the brand’s reputation and in the long term, you can gain sales via your website too.

If you are looking to enter the Vietnamese market, localized websites are necessary. Translation and localization of your website into the local language are essential if you want to grab your audience’s attention, and retain it.

English is not as widely used in Vietnam as Vietnamese, especially for moms. Vietnamese website localization can greatly help you achieve and exceed your goals. You’ll speak to your audience in their native tongue, which will create trust and generate more revenues.

Reach more customers with Facebook ads

Big brands certainly spend tens, hundreds of VND millions to run advertisements. Especially when they first launch a new product, they will run a lot of advertising before – during – after the campaign. However, as a new brand, you may not want to throw a large budget just yet, but we shouldn’t ignore the option of running ads. The matter is to focus your ads on certain activities so that they can be cost-effective.

– Run some ads before your launching to attract customers to know about the opening event of your mother and baby brand. Together with big promotion schemes, they would visit and buy goods during the opening period.
– Minigames with attractive prizes should also be promoted to attract customers to interact and know about the brand.
– Push more ads during important sales seasons such as: year-end, Black Friday, Mother Day,…

Physical stores still account for > 50% of transactions

Not so obviously, but in the context of strong e-commerce development, more than half of transactions still take place in physical stores.

The reason for this is quite simple because there is no convenience that can replace the feeling of trust and satisfaction when the customers can see and touch the products directly.
In particular, in the Mother and Baby category, the stores are highly appreciated because this is the place where mothers choose their favorite products for their children or where husbands take their wives to shop.

You can build your own stores. Then the construction plan, the costs of space, labor, and decoration must all be noted. Stores selling Mother and Baby products need to be spacious, airy and have elegant but lively and funny colors to attract customers. In addition, businesses should also pay attention to the signs by using fonts that are easy-to-see, easy-to-read and easy-to-remember.

Another more cost-saving option for foreign brands is to take advantage of available large-scale distribution systems of distributors, wholesalers and retailers. Of course this is not easy to be able to partner with top distributors in Vietnam. They usually depend on personal relationships to decide which brands to distribute.

Promotions never fail to attract moms

One of the things customers love about online shopping is convenience, and many consider the prices online to be lower than in stores. Therefore, if you offer long-term promotions but always ensure the product quality, you will become a favorite shopping address of moms.

There are many forms of promotion suitable for online businesses with different advantages and disadvantages. Depending on the ability to provide products and shipping services, you can choose the form that is right for you. If you want direct discounts on the website, you can show the normal price with the % off together with the discounted price. Thus, customers can easily see how heavy the discount is. This program can be applied on a weekly basis for certain types of products or applied simultaneously to all products.

The golden day and golden hour program is also a form of promotion applied by many shops. During the promotion period, customers can buy discounted products with good quality or even at extremely shocking prices. During this time, you can reduce the price of best-selling products such as milk, diapers or normal products with high prices such as bedding sets, strollers …

Your Online Community is your valuable asset

One of the outstanding features of pregnant customers is the desire to share information. If moms are first time to pregnancy, they will want to hear from experienced people who also want to share information about pregnancy. That is also the reason why webtretho, the largest community of women in Vietnam (mainly pregnant women participating) is still a prestigious community with many members and useful information.

If you want to create excitement and more content views, either on your website, fan page or any social media channels, you should create plenty of spaces for this special group of customers to share their experiences anytime they can. Many brands have awarded members who have a certain contribution and influence in the community such as commenting, products reviewing, sharing tip blogs… Do not hesitate to encourage customers to interact with your brand, you will receive extremely useful comments.

Organize Offline workshops to establish authority for your brand

Mothers always seek for more information about pregnancy, childbirth and child raising. This is an area of knowledge that is not always provided rightly by many brands due to insufficient financial and information resources.

Prenatal classes are something that is being invested by large mother and baby store chains. This is not only a useful and authentic information source, but also a place to exchange practical experiences among mothers, and also a time to introduce new products and services for the brands. If your brand doesn’t have the ability to organize such large-scale and professional antenatal sessions, you still have the ability to leave your own identity through online channels such as Youtube, Slideshare or Tiktok.

Besides, you can provide mothers with useful information about raising children, through chat sessions, or articles, descriptive videos or useful handbooks published for free your website. This will be the direction to develop and make an impression for your new brand.

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