Importing into Vietnam-low scale

Easiest ones to sell here are beauty products

danrodri wrote:

Hi, as an economist, I like to take advantage of price differentials among countries while I travel. What are goods that are excessively expensive in Vietnam that can be brought in with personal luggage? Like perfumes, alcohol, tobacco, gaming (XBox, PS4, NintendoSwitch and alike...). Before you tell me I can't enter VN...I know, I have a special permit to enter soon.
Thxs for any heads up.
Have a great one!

Probably most important, don't bring too much of one thing. You can make the argument that you are bringing things in for your personal use, but not if you have 10 of them.

1 item that I think would move well is the big bottles of Naproxen or Aleve (Walmart or Costco/Kirkland brand)

Also Gillette Fusion 5 (or 5 +1) blades.

Ahh yes Gillette blades.. skin guard ones please.

Jlgarbutt wrote:

Ahh yes Gillette blades.. skin guard ones please.

especially important when I shave my head 🤕

Serious? Gillette? Wow, never would have guessed that. Will bring a good pack for me but also for selling then. Where I am now I can get a 4 blade refill pack Fusion5 Proglide for 305 Dong (did the conversion already). To make the effort worthwhile, the retail price in HCMC would need to be at least 450 Dong. Is that generally the case?

danrodri wrote:

Serious? Gillette? Wow, never would have guessed that. Will bring a good pack for me but also for selling then. Where I am now I can get a 4 blade refill pack Fusion5 Proglide for 305 Dong (did the conversion already). To make the effort worthwhile, the retail price in HCMC would need to be at least 450 Dong. Is that generally the case?

In general I think so, because over here mostly we're only getting the two blade pack and those are selling for between 250 and 300 VND in my experience

Jlgarbutt wrote:

Easiest ones to sell here are beauty products

Beauty products are actually aplenty here, some of them have lower prices than in the original countries (brought or shipped to VN via private methods, no duty paid) and others are reasonably higher prices (sold in licensed shops, prices include duty and VAT).   

Beauty products from Spain is not recognisable here, and if you buy American or French names, your cost would be too high to be worth selling.

Tobacco is less expensive in VN than in duty free shops worldwide.

No perfumes unless they're popular American or French, and they should be EdT because EdC and EdP are too heavy for this climate, and they also cost more.

My suggestions based on what we've been using or giving out when people asked for them:

- large bottles of vitamins (Costco size),
- Neosporin (large or multiple sizes),
- large bottles of low-dose aspirin,
- hydrocortisone ointment,
- instant cold compress, 
- OTC general meds for cold or allergy (the same complaint in VN would involve 6 different kinds of pills, one for each symptom)
- antacid
- decongestant
- calamine lotion/Benadryl cream
- family-size bags of cotton balls

That looks like a packing list for the jungle, does it?  There are substitutions here but I've found most of them unsatisfactory.

PS how are you planning on selling such ad hoc low volume items? and is it really worth the trouble?

(I guess most people (women) in VN would use FB, but i assume you don't have a FB network here to support that. also, from memory, my beautiful ex-DIL wanted us to bring skin care products.)