Fellow user Annetta recently posted about the new Giant supermarket in Q7 and on Friday I, and my friend who is a paid professional price checker, spent the whole of the afternoon poking around this new store.
The Crescent Mall
With 630,000 square of retail floor space, the Crescent Mall is one of the largest in VietNam with ground floor rents running at USD$50/metre/month and has attracted some big internatonal retailers. The average rent for the whole mall was recorded at US$75 per square meter, and the increase in rent caused the average occupancy of the market to decrease by 3% in the first quarter.
It is like a North American mall, heavily air-conditioned (one shop assistant was actually shivering - she touched my arm to show me how cold she was and her hand was freezing cold) and overly spacious. It comprises six levels of retail floors and three basements,
It has a Megastar multi-screen movie centre, on level 5, boasts eight screens and a total seating capacity for over 1,200 bums, a Giants supermarket (subterranran). Fashion followers can waste their money at Niketown, GAP for Kids, Tommy H and Diesel (all owned by the same company).
NiTown, covering 2,000 square metres, will bring many products and services focusing on children's recreational as well as educational activities. The highlight of tiNiTown will be tiNiWorld entertainment centre, while Shop tiNiToy will provide children's toys.
The NiWorld entertainment centre will also have dining areas for families, clay arts centre, Teddy Mountain where children can make teddy bear by themselves, and a cosmetic centre for children.
This is designed to sucker Foreigners rather than Vietnamese, so make suree your wallet is full or you have your plastic ready.
Location
The Crescent Mall is located on Nguyen Van Linh near the Nguyen Luong Bang intersection. It's address is Ton Dat Tien Avenue,
Tan Phu Ward, District 7.
Giants Supermarket
The target of our visit was the Giants supermarket which is setting a new standard in Q7. There is already a Lotte supermarket (poor variety, high prices and ideal for doing your weekly quota of walking) along with one of the dirtiest, smelliest Co-op Marts which is unfit for pigs.
Giants is a member of the Dairy Farm Group, a leading retail group in Asia, and this is their first large-scale supermarket in VietNam, which covers 4,500 square metres in the basement of the Crescent Mall.
Hong Kong's Dairy Farm retail group actually came into VietNam several years ago with its subsidiary Giant Asia VietNam brand and opened its first supermarkets under the trademark of Wellcome on the premises of the local supermarket Citimart chain.
Location in Mall
Unfortunately the Giants supermarket entrance is about 100 metres from the outside doors nearest the motorcycle parking PLUS an excalator ride PLUS another 25 metres. This is not a friendly location for te overloaded shopper!
Store Layout
One thing Giants has got right (for the moment) is aisle spacing. The aisles are around two metres wide - wider than Lotte and much, much wider than Co-op -with foodstuffs nearest the exit and dry goods at the back.
The food layout is roughly fish and meat on the left, then frozen food, vegetables, canned and packet food, milk and juices and ending up with beer/alcohol on the right front, with cosmetics on the right further back.
To the rear, behind the food area is, again left to right, small household furnishings, stationary, kitchen ware, clothing, bedding ending with miscellaneous on the right.
Selection
The variety of both types and sourcing of goods is outstanding. Lotte has deep stocking but minimal varietyl Co-op has good variety of produce tragetting local supliers and the Vietnamese consumer.
The pre-packaged meat is fresh cut, dated but there is less variety than Lotte Q10.
Past this section is the ready-cooked counter with a good selection of choices to help the cook in your household get dinner onthe table. Read pricing carefully, it is by the 100 gram portion!
The staff on the custom cut meat counter has minimal experience in meat preparation.
The wet fish section is next, the variety is good, quantities limited. I noticed that many of the tanked (swimming) fish had died - to be expected in a new store but they shouldn't be left floating bottoms up in the water!
Vegetales were in good condition, variety good. A word of caution - the Durians (my favourite) had been 'doctored' - injected with illegal shelf-life enhancing chemicals. What made this worse was the staff knew about it.
When I grabbed a discarded stem from their garbage box a staff member tried to take it from me which indicated, to me, he knew what I was looking for.
Durian, jack fruit and a few other large fruits are 'doctored' by injecting illegal Chinese-sourced chemicals down the stalk in to the fruit body. You look for two or three holes in the end of the stem where the syringe was pushed in.
This is illegal in VietNam. Also illegal to sell.
Canadians will be happy to know they can buy McCains (of PEI) products in Giants. Real big home fries! There ae many foreign favourites here from many countries.
Need the prawn-sized shrimps for a special dinner - they are here, both fresh and frozen. Want to make snake soup for those chilly nights? Giants has those, too.
The usual stufffilled the shelves after this - I did notice they had a good canned food selection, even several types of 'baked beans' the fallback food for bachelors.
The cosmetics selection was good, enough to satisfy most users. They have pads but, as usual, no tampons. One thing that stood out was a selection of adult diapers for any incontinent seniors in your family.
In the dry goods area I made a few brief notes. They sell baby strollers, toys, etc. for children. Need a quality drill or other power tool? Then the selection of Bosch and other quality name brands are available.
For those needing sheet paper for their laser printers, no need to go any further. The overall selection of stationary items for every day use was very good.
Pricing
My professional shopper friend carries a wholesale price database on his Android and he said that prices were often 'promotional' (discounted) as is common for new stores.
He said the true prices will be posted in February or March, when he will return.
One nice touch, they print the bill (at least the individual items) in English for Foreigners!
Conclusion
Even though I favour certain Co-op Mart stores, I will return to Giants as the selection is so wide.
I will continue to buy meat and fish products from Lotte in Q10 nothing else though as their prices are about 10-15% higher than Co-op. Lotte Q10 has meat and fish areas that smell sweet and remind me of Canadian meat and fish counters. Co-op meat and fish counters stink.
The extra kilometre or two from Lotte Q7 is well worth it and for residents in PMH pass on by that smelly Co-op store, the extra gas is worth it.
Conflict of interest: I am a holder of Co-op and Lotte affinity cards. I buy a lot of my needs from Metro.
Giants - a North American style supermarket throws down the gauntlet!
Jaitch
Happy to read this follow-up from my original question about their pricing.
I take it from you that they are, if not the price leader as their claim, at least one of the low price supermarkets.
I am satisfied with their selection anyway. I find also many European brands there as well.
Jaitch wrote:Unfortunately the Giants supermarket entrance is about 100 metres from the outside doors nearest the motorcycle parking PLUS an excalator ride PLUS another 25 metres. This is not a friendly location for te overloaded shopper!
Correction: they do have much more convenient parking in the basement, so you can just walk 40 m straight out from the supermarket with your trolley of stuff right to your car or bike, and the parking is free too. Just don't turn right to the aboveground parking when you get to the Crescent, continue straight about 30 m and you'll see the underground entrance.
I also did not find the place cold at all, but I guess it is individual.
The place is still new with spaces still not rent out yet. The foodcourt selection is meager, a far cry from the good-valued, large foodcourts I see in, say, Bangkok or Singapore (or any American foodcourts).
Finally Vietnam got biggest mall?, Well, I still want to see more larger than that in Crescent,D7. I guess I will invite one of the Mall Icon Owner here in SEA..
Hi,
I've been a regular buyer at Giant's store in others southern Asian countries, I used to go there weekly and really enjoyed it there, in Malaysia for exemple, Giant is very well developed there and considerated to be The number 1 in terms of price/quality
But Im quite surprised about their opening in VN, since Giant is mostly targeting and available in Asian country with important muslim community such as Indonesia, Brunei and Malaysia and offers a wide range of HALAL products through their own brand "Giant", which so far is not an important criteria/factor for VN...
Because, I guess all Giant's brand products (not fresh products but canned food,ect) which they do offer here in VN must be Halal too as they've got the same supplier...
May be Jaitch can you confirm from your friend about the certification Halal of some of their products: the giant's product ?
Thanks,
Hi Anatta: I went there using my friends wheels so I quite honestly didn't pay too much attention to parking. We were more interested in the supermarket! In any event Lotte Q7 must hold the record for walking distance between parking lot to store entrance.
Stores are very sensitive to professional shoppers and we both wore wrist mounted cameras concealed in our shirt sleeves to record prices. We spent about 3+ hours in the store and no doubt someone was alert to our presence. At least we didn't get tossed out.
I will be back there again at least twice so I can map the aisles and locate the position of goods. Trouble is they don't open until 10.00H. I start my day at 04.30H.
The food court is a concept they will have trouble with as can be seen in Diamond and Hung Vuong malls. Why buy Kentucky Fried Chicken when you can get two of three street meals for the same price?
The kids playground has to charge high prices because with 2000 square metres at USD$50/month it will be hard to make a profit.
Back to Giants. You can see from their stocked items the HongKong 'English' influence, how long they will keep this up is hard to say given the hassle of importing goods in to VN.
There is a good number of VN sourced products, I noticed that Australian/Dutch/New Zealand dairy products were far below that of competing stores, particularly Co-op.
Amelle85: The Vietnamese shopper is still acclimatising to the fixed price concept, as opposed to the bargaining 'cho' atmosphere. Many VN shoppers are fastidious, particularly when it comes to supplies for young children. They are expert Best Before readers. They also, wisely, avoid Chinese food products.
I will keep an eye out for Halal products, hopefully I ca determine their slack periods and be able to walk down the aisles taking pictures without having to stop.
Vietnamese market demands are distinctly different from Chinese or Malay markets. Luckily we live in the most diverse market in VN and we benefit in many ways.
Lotte Q10, if you've ever been there, has a good selection of Korean and Japanese foodstuffs. (Lotte is Korean owned)
I will check on certification. Since VN has small markets for specialised foods, even vegetarian, certain 'compromises' in adherence to rules occur. However, given that a number of VN citizens follow that religion, Halal foodstuffs closer to the real thing are available.
Vegetarian food, for sure, is widely 'interpreted'. The Chinese temples and restaurants serve what they call vegetarian but they contain certain animal products. There area couple of stores claiming to have pure vegetarian food but it isn't in compliance with the U.S.D.A. definition of vegetarian.
Another store claims to have it's own vegetarian farm in Da Lat yet I have seen their buyer in the local wholesale food distribution market.
Thanks a lot,looking forward to read about it again...
Right, its even harder to eat vegetarian food, that's what I mostly eat here..
Besides,I always got my paper in which it is mentionned in VN (writen by a VN friend): "I can eat only seafood/fish or vegetarian food, No meat nor animal products"
I used to go and shop/eat everywhere with this note but doesnt really help at the end, even bakery couldnt promise their products are vegetarian atleast (I mean simple bread or any kind of sweet too),
I'm just wondering how vegetarian people can make it good in HCMC...Was surprised by that because I heard VN would eat Veg food several times during a month, Im wondering what and where they eat...
Amelle85 wrote:... I'm just wondering how vegetarian people can make it good in HCMC...Was surprised by that because I heard VN would eat Veg food several times during a month, Im wondering what and where they eat...
They eat i the temples who use animal by products, too.
In Chinese food stores you can buy simulated meat and fish look-a-likes that are actually made from To Fu/soya bean and they are pure vegetarian.
I used to buy the yellow powdered hot Chinese mustard in the states. I just added a tad bit water and stir and wait a minute and then it is ready to use as a dip for prawns, pork, etc... Cannot find it here. Anybody know where I can find this product? Thanks.
Amelle85 wrote:Right, its even harder to eat vegetarian food, that's what I mostly eat here..
I'm just wondering how vegetarian people can make it good in HCMC...Was surprised by that because I heard VN would eat Veg food several times during a month, Im wondering what and where they eat...
It is not difficult to be a vegetarian in HCMC, if you know where to look.
If you want to eat out, here is the list.
http://www.happycow.net/asia/vietnam/ho_chi_minh_city/
My favorite is u Lạc 60 Tân Vĩnh Street; District 4 which you can read more about here
http://saigonvegetarian.wordpress.com/
The staff there is very friendly. They even refuse to except tips from me. You can also buy dried fake meat products (and sweets) there.
If you don't like fake meat (which is made mostly of soy and wheat), you need to fill your daily quota of protein: you can buy tofu and soybean drinks in nearly all supermarkets. I still have not found tempeh products. If you know where to buy them, I would be grateful. Otherwise, you can eat get your protein from beans in combination with rice which are sold in many stores. Since you also eat fish/seafood, not having enough protein (or B12 vitamin) is not a problem like a pure vegan like me.
If you cook yourself, you can get your materials from reliable supermarkets like the Giants. Otherwise, I get high-quality vegetables and fruits from Annam gourmet markets, Organik (www.organikvn.com) or VgFood 176 Hai Bà Trưng, D1.
Sorry, don't know much about seafood/fish.
Many Vietnamese eat vegetarian twice a month: the first and the 15th (I think) of the lunar months so the vegetarian restaurants are filled those days, so many of those shops tend to be closed on the 2nd of the lunar months.
Amelle85 wrote:Because, I guess all Giant's brand products (not fresh products but canned food,ect) which they do offer here in VN must be Halal too as they've got the same supplier...
May be Jaitch can you confirm from your friend about the certification Halal of some of their products: the giant's product ?
Thanks,
I did not see any Halal certification on any of the Vietnamese products.
I saw some Thai products with their Thai Halal certification there.
Muslim community is small, so it is not a big enough segment for the supermarkets yet. In 1985, the Muslim community in Ho Chi Minh was reported to consist of only nearly 10,000 individuals, roughly 0.2% of the city's population.
Here is a good resource of Halal food for you
http://vn.gohalalplanet.com/
Giants Supermarket - Down to business & Up with Prices!
I needed some paper for my photocopier, so I popped down to Giants where they have a decent number of choices, including genuine Xerox paper.
Stocked up with binder folders, markers and other stationary, too. Again, a good selection.
Over the Tet vacation, I had taken the opportunity to do some work at the house and polished up my stainless steel, called Inox in VietNam, After several hours of work with my angle grinder/polisher tool it was beginning to smell. That electrical smell that comes from overworked motors that were about to call it a day.
Giants has a really impressive display of power tools; Skil, Bosch, Makita, etc. They had a few decent lower priced tools, too. None of that Black & Decker junk like they sell at Lotte supermarket.
They even have an work surface where you can check out tools plugged in. So I bought a Makita, my Tet present for myself. Price was very competitive, too.
I decided to take a swing around the food section with my discrete POV camera to collect pricing data for my professional shopper friend who surveys the whole of VietNam's retail sector for a living.
Bad news: Giants has now repriced everything following their opening specials so their prices are nothing special any longer! In fact, with no affinity/discount card their prices are as high as Lotte's, who have an affinity card.
I also noticed several dead fish floating around the Giants live fish tanks, wouldn't happen at Lotte's in Q10 - still the best, cleanest retail fish counter in town.
Anetta, who first posted about Giant's was right - underground parking puts you near Giants, in fact shopping trolley reach.
Outside, guarded, parking is free and underground parking is free for short periods.
Bottom line: Giants has great selection, remember those frozen home fries and giant shrimp, but their prices are nothing special.
Hi Jaitch, your posts are well researched and full of interesting facts. I read about your halal comment and would be interested to know if you find any. I only heat halal meat so if you come across any pls do let me know. Also do you know whether they have Kraft cheese? can't seem to find! thanks!
Thank you for your kind words, Sir, I try to add information whenever possible.
There are certified Halal eateries in town, the oldest being attached to the mosque on Dong Du Street in Q1.
For those curious as to what constitutes Halal food see: < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_dietary_laws >, < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halal >.
My friend the professional shopper says there is certified Halal meat being imported from New Zealand and Australia. I would trust the true compliance of this more than what passes as vegetarian here.
Rather than add the Halal info here,I have put it in a separate thread.
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