Students choose textbooks at the Bac Kan Books and School Equipment Joint Stock Company (Photo: VNS/VNA)

As people's purchasing power has gone up in recent week when it comes to buying schooling equipment, bookstores and supermarkets are abuzz with crowds of students and parents shopping for good quality products and hunting for better prices and designs, particularly for indigenous products.

Bookstores and supermarkets in HCM City, such as Fahasa, Thang Long, Nguyen Van Cu and Co.opmart, Big C have been witnessing heavy crowds of customers comprising mostly students and parents in recent days.

To compete with imported products, domestic school-equipment producers have attached special importance to both the quality and design of the products.

Hong Ha Stationery Joint-Stock Company this year has put out for sale a huge quantity of newly-designed anti-dazzle notebook.

Miti Company, a domestic school-bag producer, has come up with a newly-designed high-quality plastic material backpack, weight 600grams-800grams, for primary school students.

A representative of the company said production has been doubled compared to last year, and about 200,000 backpacks will be manufactured.

Phuong Bien, representative from Thang Long bookstore in District 1, said the quality of most domestically-produced school-equipment categories this year has improved.

Ninety percent of school-equipment products displayed for sale at the Thang Long bookstore have been produced domestically.

Vinh Tien and Vinh Gia Phat notebook, Thien Long pen and Miti school bag are among the best-selling products in the domestic market.

A representative of District 1's bookstore said most products in various stationery categories that were on display here were domestic products. Although designs have remained unchanged, customers preferred these products because of their good quality and reasonable prices.

"Purchasing power has increased in recent days, and is 30 to 40 percent higher against what it was two months ago. Best-selling products are mainly those that are of high-quality, and include made-in-Vietnam notebooks, school uniforms and bags," he said.

All bookstores and supermarkets were applying trade promotion programmes, including discounts and gift offers.

Vinabook stationery company and Nguyen Van Cu bookstore were offering discounts of 5 to 10 percent on all textbook categories.

Co.opmart and Co.opXtra supermarkets have been offering discounts since July 27 ranging between 20 and 33 percent for over 300 categories of school products.

Lotte Mart supermarket brought out a July 21-August 2 discount programme for 2,000 categories of schooling products.

Hanoi's stationery market also saw a lot of movement across a diverse range of categories and offered prices that remained stable.

This year, some newly-designed products such as an anti-dazzle student board and an lamp have entered the market. These can protect a student's health better.

Made-in-Vietnam products accounted for 70 percent of the Hanoi schooling-equipment market.

Not only large bookstores and supermarkets, but also small book shops stocked domestic goods in their warehouses. More and more customers preferred to buy domestically-produced trademarked equipment.

Parents always selected textbooks and reference books from prestigious and age-old brands or publishing houses.

Nguyen Thi Xuyen, a mother of two living at Vinh city in Nghe An province, said she spent time to go to the bookstore with her two daughters before any new school year.

"I selected Nghe An Book&School Equipment Joint-Stock Company's store to purchase school products because of the guaranteed quality and stable prices. Company cꦫonsultants readily give advice to customers to help them choose reference books as per the students' ability," she said.-VNA