Hanoi going all out to boost online, smart shopping

The event is held each November by the municipal People’s Committee to stimulate consumer demand. This year’s program is introducing changes to reflect the Industrial Revolution 4.0.

According to Nguyen Thi Mai Anh, Deputy Director of the Hanoi Promotion Agency, the event organizer, in order to provide consumers with maximum convenience and encourage smart purchasing through flexible, timesaving shopping modes, the Hanoi Sales Promotion Month 2019 picked the theme “Shopping in the era of Industry 4.0”.

Mai Anh said consumers, especially young people, prefer e-commerce. Using smart phones saves them having to go to shops and enables them to buy products at home or the office at special prices. Through a wide variety of attractive promotional activities, the event also aims to enhance connections between management agencies and businesses, and between businesses and consumers.

According to the organizing board, about 500 businesses will take part in the Hanoi Sales Promotion Month from November 1-30 with different levels of discounts, some as high as 100 percent.

The opening ceremony will take place at 8pm on November 1 at the Ly Thai To Monument Square in the capital’s Hoan Kiem District. At the “4.0 Shopping Festival” from November 1-3, visitors will have a chance to experience smart shopping with many incentives at 20 booths of large businesses and brands.

Meanwhile, the Tourism Promotion Festival from November 1-3 at Octagon House near Ly Thai To Monument Square with 60 booths will offer consumers big discounts on domestic and foreign tours as well as air tickets from transport, aviation and travel enterprises.

The “Golden Promotion Day” on November 9-10 will introduce many discounts and preferential programs at 60 Golden point of sales, which include supermarkets, trade centers and e-commerce websites.

The “Golden Promotion Fair” will be held from November 22-26 at Times City Square, with nearly 130 booths of prestigious enterprises offering a variety of goods such as electronics-technology, household items and fashion.

In addition, “Online Friday” will be held from November 29 to December 6. This event is co-organized by Hanoi City and the Department of E-commerce and Digital Economy (Ministry of Industry and Trade) to boost the development of e-commerce in the city. Consumers will have an opportunity to experience smart shopping by ordering discounted products on the website onlinefriday.vn.

Notably, the organizing board will coordinate with enterprises to promote transparency of information on discounted products and services through authentication codes. Smart purchasing will be implemented via participating business mobile applications and websites. Promotional programs, gifts and discount vouchers will be tracked through simple QR code scanning.

The organizing board will also coordinate with the Department of E-commerce and Digital Economy to advertise the event and sign up local participants on the website onlinefriday.vn.

In 2018, the Hanoi Sales Promotion Month attracted 300 businesses and offered 20-80 percent discounts on 300,000 products and services. Total promotion value reached almost VND1 trillion, yielding revenues of more than VND34.7 billion. The event helped increase the city’s total revenue in November by 2.3 percent compared with the previous month.