The move from small traders

In recent years, cashless payment, scanning QR codes to transfer money has become popular in the trading activities of small traders in traditional markets from the city to the districts. On clothing, footwear, food, fruit stalls... most have QR codes for customers to pay when buying goods and using services.

Selling decorative and cosmetic products at Tam Co market (Tuyen Quang city) for many years, Ms. Nguyen Thi Nga shared: “Previously, most customers paid in cash or when customers transferred money, I often read the account number, but for more than a year now, I have been using QR codes to pay. Currently, almost every stall has a QR code board, even one stall has 2-3 codes of banks. This form of payment is very convenient and more and more customers pay in this form.”

Ms. Nguyen Thi Duong, who has been selling pork for decades at Tam Co market, said that she is old so she is not as good at accessing technology as the younger generation. Opening an account and using cashless payments also takes her more time than others. After fumbling around for a while and not being able to do it, she stops using it.

Fruit vendors at Phan Thiet market (Tuyen Quang city) use QR codes of banks for customers to pay conveniently and quickly.

But since the Covid-19 pandemic, she has been scared of handling customers' money, so she had to learn it. After learning how to use it, she said that if she had known how convenient it was, she would have learned it sooner. Since learning how to use it, she no longer has to collect cash every day from the restaurants where she delivers meat. Customers who come to buy retail have a QR code that she has posted on the counter, so they just need to pay.

After more than 20 years of traditional trading, Ms. Nguyen Thi Nam - a fruit trader behind Tam Co market, did not think that her fruit stall would appear on Zalo and Facebook every day. At first, thanks to the help of her children, but after a while, Ms. Nam is now very proficient in taking pictures of fruits and writing promotional content on groups and fanpages of "online markets".

Even during the recent Ham Yen orange season, tons of oranges were ordered by customers from all over the country. Customers asked Mrs. Nam to pack them into boxes, each box weighing 10-20 kg, to send to relatives as gifts. Customers who ordered them as gifts were also taken care of carefully and meticulously by her, and she did not forget to "take pictures" of them for promotion. Retail customers who did not use cash had them scanned with QR codes, while customers who lived far away paid by bank transfer. She also transferred the money to the orange garden owner to import the goods for convenience.

“If we just sit and sell at the market, we will have about twenty retail customers every day, each person buying a few kilos, and we can only sell 1-2 quintals per day. Fruits often spoil because of slow consumption. But with online sales, the amount of imported fruit has increased 5-10 times compared to before, and the number of customers has also increased,” Ms. Nam shared.

Not only Ms. Nga, Ms. Duong, Ms. Nam, many small traders said that if they want to survive in traditional markets, there is no other way but to change their business model and approach the market, especially in the digital transformation trend that is being strongly implemented in all fields today. Small traders now not only have to know how to sell products online but also livestream, advertise, and provide home delivery services. At the same time, most small traders know about cashless payments by bank transfer, QR code scanning, etc.

Agribank Na Hang district branch implements a program to give QR codes to traders at the district central market.

The cashless payment model is not only applied by small traders in Tuyen Quang city but also spread to traditional markets in the province from Na Hang town market (Na Hang) to markets in Ham Yen, Yen Son, Son Duong districts...

However, in order to survive and develop, in addition to keeping up with digital transformation, small traders need to ensure safe food business, with clear origin and source, and improve competitiveness with similar goods on the market. At the same time, build a civilized and polite business culture, increasingly better meeting the needs of customers and consumers when coming to traditional markets.

The Government's national strategy for developing the digital economy and digital society to 2025, with a vision to 2030, aims to develop each citizen into a digital entrepreneur, each enterprise and business household into a digital enterprise, applying digital technology to do business in the online environment. The goal is that by 2025, the proportion of the digital economy will reach 20% of GDP.

Thus, small traders in traditional markets cannot stay out of the game. However, to achieve this goal, increasing solutions to promote digital transformation in State management of markets based on the application of information technology and e-commerce in management and serving the operations of traditional markets is one of the urgent requirements. At the same time, in the process of digital transformation of small traders in traditional markets, it is necessary to have the cooperation of market management boards and local authorities to build the market into a shopping place suitable for new habits, civilized, modern, and in line with the trend.

Source