Japanese retailer Miniso sets foot in Vietnam

Le Thi Ngoc Hai, president of Le Bao Minh, the company in charge of franchising the Miniso brand, in a recent interview with newswire vnexpress.net said that the two companies had signed the franchising contract in April 2016.

“We are going to open three stores in Hanoi in August and after one month there are going to be six. At the end of 2016 there will be a total of 13 stores in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Danang, Vinh, Can Tho, and Hai Phong,” she said.

Miniso sells household tools, electronic accessories, beauty products, as well as gifts and toys. Miniso’s products are familiar tools with new shapes and functions. The products are priced from VND43,000 ($2) up. The Miniso design team includes professionals that used to work for Ikea, Nike, Adidas, Toyota, and Cisco. The store boasts an average of 100 new products each month.

Established in 2013 in Japan, Miniso now has 1,600 stores in 21 countries. The company targets to open 200 stores in almost all Vietnamese localities and employ 5,000 people in the next five years.

Hai said the demand was increasing in Vietnam and consumers were now more updated on world trends in fashion and beauty products.

“We find Miniso’s target segment, brand character, price range, and products suitable to the young Vietnamese populace. The Miniso brand has also been very successful in South Korea, Malaysia, China, the Phillipines, and Thailand,” Hai said.

She added that Miniso does not compete directly with other retail brands in Vietnam because its products are different.

Le Bao Minh has been the exclusive Vietnamese distributor of Canon products for the past 15 years. It now has 230 stores in 63 cities and provinces.

The Vietnamese retail market continues to attract investors. Japanese retailer Aeon is going to open its fourth megastore in Vietnam this month, after being present for only two years in the country. The company has invested $500 million in the stores as well as to acquire stakes in two Vietnamese retailers Fivimart and Citimart. In 2017, the country is going to welcome its first 7-Eleven stores.

According to Euromonitor’s Retail Asia-Pacific Top 500 report released yesterday, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam were the only countries to see all of their ranked retailers grow in 2015.