Mooncake sales slow, sellers worry about debt

Although the Mid-Autumn Festival is only a week away, the mooncake market is still quite gloomy. Retailers, stores and businesses are competing to slash prices in the hope of selling their products in time, but the prospects are still not very promising.

A mooncake shop on Xo Viet Nghe Tinh Street (old Binh Thanh District) hangs a sign "buy 1 get 3" - Photo: NGUYEN TRI

Although the Mid-Autumn Festival is approaching and purchasing power is weak, many customers said that there is still a situation where sellers "advertise goat's head but sell dog meat", making many buyers feel uncomfortable.

Racing to reduce prices but still unsold like never before

Records on Pham Van Dong Street (old Thu Duc City, Ho Chi Minh City) show that a series of points of sale are applying deep promotional policies such as "buy 1 get 3", 10 - 20% discount for customers buying in large quantities, and giving away lanterns. Most of them focus on Dong Khanh cakes with many varieties. However, every stall still has quite a lot of cakes left.

While waiting for customers under the heavy buying sky, Mr. Bui Van Hien, the owner of a store here, said that a week ago he applied the "buy 1 get 2" policy but it was still unsold so now he increased it to "buy 1 get 3" and possibly "get 4" if the purchasing power is not as expected. The price he sells is 145,000 - 165,000 VND/item, customers "buy 1 get 3".

"After the Mid-Autumn Festival, demand will decrease sharply, not to mention that goods that are close to their expiration date will be difficult to sell, and even if they are expired, it will be considered a heavy loss. Therefore, this is the time to sell at a loss. It took nearly two months of effort, money for premises, and hiring sellers, but there is a possibility of having to go into debt," said Mr. Hien.

Similarly, on Xo Viet Nghe Tinh Street (old Binh Thanh District), Mr. Van Vien is also sadly waiting for customers even though he has been displaying a "buy 1 get 3" sign for many days. According to Mr. Vien, with the above policy, customers who buy at 135,000 - 175,000 VND/piece depending on the type (150g or 210g - corresponding to cakes with 1 or 2 eggs) will receive 2 more of the same type, which means each cake costs just over 50,000 VND, a sharp decrease compared to the beginning of the season.

Customers who buy in large quantities can get an additional 10 - 20% discount, but the possibility of unsold cakes is very high.

"This year I was afraid I wouldn't be able to sell so I only imported about 600 Dong Khanh cakes, but so far I've only sold over 200, which is an unprecedented low sales figure. Purchasing power is much weaker than every year, and it's been raining all day, so I have to give up," Mr. Vien worriedly said.

In addition, Mr. Vien said that he imported more than 500 Kinh Do cakes and retailed them at the company's listed price, from 80,000 to nearly 500,000 VND/cake depending on weight, but the number of sales so far has only reached 60 - 65% of expectations.

According to many retailers, Dong Khanh cakes are bought and sold in bulk, so if they do not sell well, they will suffer heavy losses. Meanwhile, cakes like Kinh Do... are usually sold at the company's required price, without any promotions. However, if they do not sell well, the company will take back the inventory, so there is no need to worry about losses, but the profits are very modest.

Speaking to Tuoi Tre , Ms. Nguyen Thi Thu Thuy, representative of Dong Khanh mooncake brand Bong Lua Vang ( Tay Ninh ), said that purchasing power is weak due to the decrease in demand from both wholesale and retail customers, in which the group of customers are businesses that usually buy a lot in wholesale but in the past two years has been decreasing. Not to mention the increasingly diverse supply of mooncakes, produced all year round, so people have more choices.

Weak purchasing power for moon cakes, coupled with many days of continuous rain, has made many sellers even more worried - Photo: N.TRI

Customers are upset with the situation of "hanging a sheep's head but selling dog meat"

Although the Mid-Autumn Festival is approaching and purchasing power is weak, many customers said there are still cases of sellers "hanging a sheep's head but selling dog meat".

After stopping by a store with a sign saying "buy 1 get 3" in Binh Quoi ward, Ms. Nguyen Thi Binh was disappointed when she heard the seller quote a price of 185,000 VND/210g cake. "A week ago, I bought this type of cake for only about 120,000 VND, but the price was still high so I only bought one to try. Now the seller has increased the price to 185,000 VND, so it's like "buying 1 gets 2", Ms. Binh said.

Meanwhile, seeing a store hanging a sign offering free lanterns to customers buying moon cakes, Mr. Tran Van Dong (An Phu Dong ward, Ho Chi Minh City) excitedly brought his two children in to buy them, hoping to get some lanterns to play with.

However, the seller said that to receive the small lantern, customers must buy a tiny moon cake for more than 60,000 VND each.

"This small lantern, if bought at wholesale, only costs 7,000 - 10,000 VND, while the cake is only 40 - 50 grams but costs 60,000 - 70,000 VND. Compared to the product, the actual price is still quite high, and there haven't been many promotions," said Mr. Dong.

According to many consumers, the same brand as Dong Khanh cake, but some places sell it for 150,000 VND/piece, some places sell it for 200,000 VND/piece. However, it is not known which place is cheaper because it depends on the flexible promotion policy of the seller, even if you do not compare carefully, the buyer may not "profit" as much as expected.

Not to mention, at many points of sale in Ho Chi Minh City, although they hang signs saying "get 2 for free, get 3 for free"..., many types of cakes in the display such as sticky rice cakes, vegetarian cakes, children's cakes... are not included in the list of applicable gifts, causing many customers to stop by the counter but not be able to buy anything.

In addition to retail outlets, there are many mooncake businesses that put their own brand name on the box but the inside is actually another company's cake. According to many sellers, this is a form of processing, which is acceptable, but if picky customers still feel uncomfortable, even buying it as a gift can easily cause misunderstandings.

"There is a 5-star hotel that provides cakes, the buyer feels "luxurious" because they buy cakes produced by this famous unit with a very luxurious label, name, and packaging. However, the inside is from another small production facility, without any name or reputation. Buying like that, I feel unhappy, even feel like I've been cheated", Ms. Tran Thi Quynh (HCMC) was upset.

Purchasing power decreased by 30 - 40%

In addition to retail outlets, supermarkets are also competing to offer deep promotions. In recent days, Bach Hoa Xanh has applied a series of promotions and deep discounts such as up to 50% off for Phuc An mooncake brand, 25% off for Huu Nghi mooncake and 20% off for Bao Ngoc.

Similarly, during the period approaching the Mid-Autumn Festival, MM Mega Market supermarket applies a discount of up to 20% on moon cakes and each moon cake purchase bill over 650,000 VND will receive an additional shopping voucher worth 100,000 VND.

Many large-scale sales points and manufacturing enterprises also confirmed that despite diversifying product types and trying to control prices (in the case of the cake line with the highest price increase, it only increased by 6-7% compared to last year), purchasing power this year has decreased significantly, even decreasing by 30-40% compared to the good level of previous years.

Still increasing inspections despite the Mid-Autumn Festival approaching

Speaking with Tuoi Tre , a representative of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Food Safety said that although the Mid-Autumn Festival is approaching, the unit is still strengthening inspections of production and sales points to avoid the situation of selling low-quality products and expired products to consumers.

However, the representative of this unit confirmed that products sold online, with unknown origins on the internet market, are more popular, so this type of cake poses more risks to consumers.

NGUYEN TRI

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/banh-trung-thu-e-am-nguoi-ban-lo-om-no-20251001085922459.htm