Online food vendors get a Covid-19 boost

Since the fourth wave of Covid-19 began at the end of April, Huyen in HCMC’s District 8 has seen orders surge five times.

The woman began selling fish, pork, chicken and vegetables via social media at the beginning of the year, achieving sales of around 100 kilograms of food in the weekends.

"Now every week I deliver five times that for over VND100 million ($4,360) a month," she said. Her profit on this turnover is VND25-30 million.

The expanding demand has encouraged her hire her own delivery person to reduce shipping time.

Oanh in Thu Duc City has seen her orders for vegetables and meat grown rising 50 percent in the latest Covid-19 wave.

A customer that typically ordered VND300,000 worth of her produce before now wants VND1.3 million or even VND4 million. With her increased business, she is able to make a profit of VND15-17 a month.

In the central Vietnam beach town of Nha Trang, An has been shipping 15 boxes of seafood to HCMC customers each day these days, compared to 10 before.

"The number of customers has doubled as people don’t leave their homes," he said.

The online vendors who are doing well say the key to retaining customers is to get the highest quality supplies which are priced 20-30 percent above the average.