After leaving the hectic city of Hanoi, we arrived in the smaller more relaxed town of Hoi An. Though less chaotic, Hoi An is a town that thrives on tourism and its effects are immediately noticeable. The streets are lined with shops with competitive vendors trying to convince you to buy from their shop, insisting that they will give you a “special price” because it is “happy hour.” Whenever a store owner said it was happy hour I would immediately respond “Oh, so it’s a two for one deal!?” Needless to say the shop owners did not find this response very amusing.
When I entered the first shop in Hoi An to look at their inventory, I saw the rest of the family in the back room of the store. This first encounter was very powerful for me because I realized that this shop was the family’s soul source of income and their livelihood depended on a sale. Making a sale was the difference between going to sleep hungry or full. After walking through the streets and seeing almost the same shops selling similar products, I began to think how a certain shop could gain an advantage over the store across the street in this seemingly perfectly competitive marketplace to better support their family. I thought to myself that I would not open a shop because it would not be very successful because no shop had a particular niche that differentiated itself from the rest.
Then walking a few more streets, I saw a shop that had a giant poster that said Trip Advisor and beneath it were reviews that people had given the shop. Although they sold the exact same goods as all the other stores, it gave tourists confidence to buy from their shop because a well-established source recommended it. When I purchased items from these stores, the owners always insisted that I write them a good review on Trip Advisor to help their business attract more people in the future. This intense competition between the stores sparked innovation for one store to gain the advantage over the other and help better support their family. A simple promotional method like a Trip Advisor sign made all the difference; I thought it was genius!
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