Most Vietnamese businesses pay little or no attention to marketing when exporting their products abroad. Pham Ngoc Chu, owner of a retail chain in Hungary said that European businesses often spend between 10-30 percent of their turnover on marketing while Vietnamese businesses find other ways of reducing their prices to increase consumer spending.

“My shops sell large volumes of Vifon instant noodles everyday but the price of a pack of noodles and similar products sold here is too cheap compared to people’s average incomes. If the selling price is raised to pay for marketing costs, consumer spending will also increase.” said Chu.

Vietnamese businesses need to learn about the culture of the countries they want to export their products so they can create suitable packaging designs for their products. Aesthetic packaging designs also play an important part in a business marketing strategy , emphasised Chu. Pham Van Thanh, President of the Montreal Overseas Vietnamese Association, said that Vietnamese businesses should use the overseas Vietnamese community as a marketing force because they have full legal status and understand the local market and consumer needs better, which helps to cut down other costs.

When Vietnamese businesses want to expand to overseas markets, they are able to send images of their products to Vietnam Business Associations abroad by Internet. By doing so, their products will become more popular in different countries around the world without spending a lot on marketing costs.

Do Ngoc Tuan, an overseas Vietnamese from the Czech Republic who returned to Vietnam in 2007 and is now Deputy Director of the Youth Communications Group said that Vietnamese businesses should focus on the quality of their exported products as they are competing in much tougher markets than the domestic markets. To expand to the overseas markets, they need to take into account standards and regulations set by other countries to build up a reliable trademark for their products.