Lam Van Tuyen is one of the famous entrepreneurs in the Vietnamese business community in Poland and Eastern Europe. Few people know, he built his career today from two empty hands and the job of selling shoes for hire at the wholesale market.
After nodding and saying "ok", Lam Van Tuyen was kicked by a Polish young man into a 30m wide stream with fast flowing water. Eastern Europe is in autumn, the spring water is bitterly cold when the temperature drops below 20 degrees Celsius. Wearing two pairs of jeans, a jacket, and sports shoes, Tuyen struggled, unable to swim. Fortunately, the broker, after reaching the other side, quickly took off his clothes and threw them at Tuyen. He grabbed it, trying to swim in even though he was exhausted.
The 20-year-old young man was overjoyed because he narrowly escaped death and was reunited with his relatives in Poland. Before that, his border crossing from Slovenia consisted of 8 people, crammed in the trunk of a 4-seater sedan.
Enrolled students were born in poor rural areas in Nam Dinh province, did not receive proper education. Wanting his son to get out of poverty, his parents plugged in a red book and borrowed 6.500 USD for him to export labor to Germany but did not follow the official path. In 1999, this amount was a huge fortune.
After crossing the border and entering a German refugee camp, Tuyen said the first job he was introduced to was selling smuggled cigarettes. Risky job but no money, an uncle in Poland sent him here to work as a salesman for him.
When he came to Poland, he did not know or understand a word to break in half to communicate as well as living illegally, making him extremely shocked. He just wanted to earn enough money for a plane ticket to return to Vietnam.
Tuyen's uncle has a shoe stall at the stadium market. This market is a wholesale market for the whole of Poland. Besides Tuyen, he also took care of 12 other young people. All lived together in a small room like a military barracks, were fed and housed.
Their sales work starts from 2am to 2pm the next day. In the afternoon, after eating and drinking, the group of young people will go to bed to prepare for the next working day.
To sell goods, they only learn a few simple words to communicate about price and packaging. Once when a guest, after asking a few questions, threw a model shoe on the floor and left, Tuyen was shocked and didn't understand why. He was determined to be fluent in Polish by buying a dictionary, studying under a blanket from noon to 10 at night.
“The story of that day showed me that language is very important, especially in today's cross-border era. Language is a precious sword for us to go abroad, to help us understand the culture of a country as well as to sell products and services to them,” Tuyen shared. People intellectual during his return to Vietnam on the occasion of the 30/4 holiday.
One year of selling to his uncle, Tuyen received no income due to work business unfavorable as well as great costs when the older brother also carried 12 other people. The young man from Nam Dinh applied for a job by buying a stall at the market for 10.000 USD. Once again, his parents managed to borrow by mortgaging the red book of the land left by their grandparents.
Fortunately for him, at this stage in Poland, shippers imported a lot of goods from China but there was a shortage of sellers. As long as someone has a stall, is a little agile, there is a source of goods to sell without having to spend capital to buy in advance. After half a year, Tuyen paid off the $10.000 debt to his parents. The next half year, he paid 6.500 USD when he left.
Thanks to his agility and resourcefulness along with the location of a stall in a place where many customers pass, the Vietnamese guy's business gradually prospered. But in 2001, he went bankrupt when he lost his entire warehouse worth $80.000-90.000 overnight.
Once again he had to ask his parents to send money. With the help of Vietnamese importers who owe money on goods, he also slowly revived the business.
A year later, Tuyen decided to expand the business. Instead of selling at the wholesale market, he roamed the truck to empty stores across Poland.
In 2004, Poland fell into a serious shortage of fashion goods due to the import quota policy from China.
By chance, Tuyen had previously gone to Czechoslovakia to do paperwork because the country had a wave of "marrying fake wives". Czechoslovakia is a country of 8,5 million people with a large Chinese business community. They import a lot of goods here but the market is too small for consumption. The lack of sources of goods in Poland, and Czechoslovakia's lack of consumption sources brought business opportunities for Tuyen.
He decided to trade goods from Czechoslovakia to Poland to sell. Carrying goods across the border was assigned to a broker he knew in the past. According to the story, each container of Chinese goods imported from Czechoslovakia and sold in Poland is 4-5 times profitable. Mr. Tuyen proudly said that he wiped out Chinese goods in Czechoslovakia in the period 2004-2008.
At the peak, he alone carried a backpack of $500.000, crossed the forest to go to Czechoslovakia to import goods.
This period helped him accumulate a large amount of capital and relationships with Chinese partners in Czechoslovakia.
Thanks to them, in 2005, he was brought to China and connected with production partners here. In the period 2005-2016, Tuyen ordered production and imported goods directly from China instead of just getting from partners in Czechoslovakia. He said the peak was in 2016 when he imported 700 containers worth about $70 million.
“The unity and cohesion of the Chinese people is something we have to learn. Everywhere they go, they follow organizations and associations, not only the community in the host country but also connect with the country very well.
For example, the Chinese have associations in each province, industry associations such as shoes, clothing, and household appliances. The heads of these associations are very well organized. They are willing to use their reputation to recommend good business members.
With partners, they always focus on how to sell more, better products, their partners are most profitable. They believe that you profit, grow, I earn money. Therefore, it is very convenient for me to cooperate with Chinese partners, but most importantly, I have to keep my credibility," Tuyen recalled after nearly 20 years of working with Chinese partners.
“When I was at the peak of 2016, I was forced to let go of what I was with an average revenue of $ 65 million, profits of about 8-10% to enter e-commerce. Statistics show that the online customer flow is growing, the offline customer flow is getting worse and the payment is stagnant.
This is also the period when e-commerce is booming all over the world. Later that year, I stepped into online retail. This is one of the hardest decisions in life.
Will I be able to do it when there is no technological mindset, my previous job was completely traditional and I never had to spend money on marketing," the 44-year-old businessman recalled.
One of the big motivations that made him decide to invest in e-commerce was to leave the foundation for his son to succeed. According to share, by 2023, he has poured about 50 million USD into AZA Group - the e-commerce development group he founded at the end of 2016.
E-commerce is currently divided into 3 main business models, including e-marketplaces (Tiki, Shopee, Lazada...), online sales platforms of a business, individuals livestreaming on platforms.
With the advantage of having a direct source of goods from China, Tuyen embarked on building a second model with a niche market focusing on fast fashion. Currently, two brands BORN2BE and RENEE of AZA Group ranked in the top 2 in Poland and the top 2 in Ukraine before the political conflict occurred.
Thanks to the advantage of low-priced goods, AZA Group is willing to spend up to 35% of revenue on Google and Facebook in the early stages to attract customers. Currently, this rate has decreased to 13% when the traffic has reached about 120 million visits.
Events The Russia-Ukraine conflict in 2022 is also a big shock to this company's business. After just 1 night, revenue in this country fell to zero while this is the market that accounts for 0% of revenue.
Immediately, Tuyen was forced to focus on other markets such as Romania, Poland, and Hungary.
An event that is also considered a turning point for this distributor is the Covid-19 pandemic, which disrupted supply from China, causing sea freight rates to increase 5-6 times.
This businessman immediately switched to increase the proportion of goods from China in Europe from 30% to 70% instead of direct imports. This helps the corporation change its technology algorithm, moving from analysis that predicts future demand from 9-12 months to analysis of current customer feedback.
The import comes from the analysis of customer behavior that he applies, similar to the way that the largest fashion e-commerce company, Shein, is doing.
This model also helps him to reduce costs, not to stagnate capital, and to have fast cash flow compared to the previous traditional method.
After 6 years of investment, the platform's revenue in the first 5 months of 2023 has reached 65 million USD, the profit margin is 5%.
Assessing the potential of the e-commerce industry, Tuyen said that Vietnam has a lot of potential with a young population of 100 million people. The livestream market will be very developed in Vietnam in the future, similar to that in China.
The development of the e-commerce industry brings great opportunities for the logistics industry. In this return to Vietnam, Mr. Tuyen is intending to invest in the logistics industry based on more than 20 years of commercial experience in Poland.
“Looking back at my story in the past, I think that families who intend to send their children to work abroad should consider it, because it can even trade their children's lives. Today, Vietnam is very dynamic, job opportunities, making money in Vietnam will be on par with Poland and Eastern European countries," he shared.
Tuyen said what makes him happy is helping more than 100 people from his hometown to live in Poland. They have jobs, earn money and send money back to contribute to the construction of their homeland.
Content: Moc An
Design: Tuan Huy
Photo: Lam Le
03/06/2023
Dantri.com.vn
