The buyers’ interests were focused on a wide range of manually-crafted products including wicker furniture, wood furniture, outdoor pottery and vases, patio furniture, ladies’ shoes, men’s shoes, slippers, sandals, fashion bags, canvas bags, backpack and suitcases.

The buyers, whose combined annual sales amounted to US$157.5 billion last year, were Sears from the U.S., ICA Group of Sweden, A.R.E.N.A of France, Hong Kong-based ThreeSixty Sourcing and MGB Metro from Germany.

The two-day Private Sourcing Events for garden and outdoor furniture and fashion accessories was organized by Hong Kong’s Global Sources.

Vietnam has high potential in supplying international buyers, said the organizer during the second such meeting this year. The first one was organized in March joined by some 30 local suppliers, and half of them have received orders from international buyers.

Minesh Pore, Global Source’s South Asia sales manager, said that products manufactured in Vietnam like textiles, footwear, garden ware, and home accessories among others proved attractive for the buyers due to their high quality, good designs and environmental safety.

What remains to be solved, according to him, is the lack of marketing skills on the part of local suppliers.

Minesh said Vietnamese suppliers should make themselves available everywhere buyers look, be it print and online materials or trade shows.

But he said Vietnamese enterprises were not good at marketing themselves and did not know how to do it right. “They should think beyond that and place themselves in the global competition.”

They also lacked long-term vision as evidenced in their marketing priorities, he said.

He added “this is the right time for Vietnamese suppliers to ship products to international buyers’ sale systems.”
George Ng, sourcing director of ThreeSixty Sourcing as a participating buyer, hailed local products and said his company wanted to look for more suppliers.

“Vietnamese suppliers excel at producing basic items like art and craft, pottery and furniture with good workmanship. We’ve actually increased our sourcing from the country in the past year,” he said.

“As it’s a new market for many of the items we source, we need to constantly find new suppliers who meet our high standards for quality. Private Sourcing Events give us a fast track to find reliable suppliers from the region… for long-term,” he added.

One participating supplier, Huynh Le Dai Thang, director of Nghia Son Wooden Furniture Co., Ltd. said “We see the economic slowdown as an opportunity to win market share as we believe our products deliver outstanding value for money.”

To Cam Thanh, director of Rosa Vietnam Planters Company, said that the number of orders for ceramic products has fallen due to the global economic crisis. “Joining the event, we want to have buyers in the near future. I believe our products to meet demands of the global buyers,” he said.

Minesh of the organizer, in commenting that many buyers were shifting from China to Vietnam, said that Vietnam now had a good chance as competitive prices were the country’s biggest advantages compared to its Asian competitors.