Business activities are cooling as consumers have had to tighten their purse strings, with some vendors setting up business on wide sidewalks in HCM City.

In some localities in the country, no new supermarket has been set up over the last seven years.

Many retailers have left apartment buildings where they had done business for years. Some shophouses on the first floor of buildings are deserted and dark in Hanoi at night.

The income of the owners of villas and street-front houses has dropped dramatically over the last year because of low demand. Many owners have been told to pay tax if their revenue is over VND100 million a year.

Many shops hit hard by Covid-19 have had to close, but some foreign retailers have taken advantage of the opportunity to scale up their business in Vietnam.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused retail revenue to drop sharply in 2020, impacting the domestic retail property market, according to Savills Vietnam.

The year 2020 challenged the courage of owners of cafes and lemon tea shops who struggled to survive the pandemic, lockdowns and consumers’ fastening their purse strings.

A high number of businesses in the real estate sector are developers of 'clinically dead' projects, or projects that have disputes with clients.

Landlords need to be more open to different kinds of tenants to meet the actual requirements.

Although Vietnam has managed to effectively contain the Covid-19 outbreak, many unsuccessful shops have shut down, as retailers have opted to go online to reduce operation costs, with the trend expected to grow further in the coming time.

Many streetfront buildings in large cities that house shops that were busy in the past are idle because business activities have declined due to Covid-19.

More landlords want to sell townhouses after Covid-19, which has caused prices of houses in inner HCM City to slightly decrease in the second quarter.

Locally-invested private firm Egroup, primarily involved in education and tech, has been bogged down in difficulties due to its heavy investment into two businesses in Vietnam, which are also facing passive losses.

Chair of the Vietnam Retail Association (VRA) Vu Thi Hau, at a recently held event, complained about the suffering borne by Vietnamese retailers. 

Many realtors have slashed retail premises rent by 20-40 percent to help tenants survive Covid-19, which is damaging the economy.

Many shopping malls and landlords have accepted to lower retail premises rent or exempt rent to help tenants overcome difficulties at this time.

Businesses now have bigger choices for retail premises as the rent has decreased significantly.

The real estate market was lackluster last year. The land fever in early 2019 was followed by a sharp decline in supply and the number of transactions.

Zara’s revenue reached VND1.7 trillion in 2018, six times higher than 2016 thanks to the Vietnamese people’s preference for fast fashion styles.