Walk into a pharmacy in Ho Chi Minh City with a rash and you will very often be asked what it looks like rather than what you want. The recommendation that follows is the whole over-the-counter market in one moment.
The pharmacist is the decision-maker
This is the single biggest difference between a Vietnamese retail launch and one in a market where the customer arrives holding a brand name. In the categories where symptoms are described rather than products requested — dermatology above all, and much of gastro — the pharmacist chooses, and the customer almost always accepts.
What actually decides it
Familiarity. A pharmacist recommends what they can describe. A product they have had explained to them, by someone who came back a second time, is a product they will recommend.
Margin, but not only margin. It matters, and a product priced without regard to what the counter earns will not move. But a pharmacist who has recommended something that did not work does not recommend it again at any margin.
What is on the shelf behind them. Availability is a marketing argument. A product that is out of stock for three weeks loses the habit, and habits in this trade are re-formed slowly.
Presentation, at the point of the conversation. Not a campaign — the pack in the hand while the symptom is being described.
What it means for a manufacturer
A retail-facing product in Vietnam is not won with advertising spend. It is won by someone visiting pharmacies, repeatedly, in the provinces where you want it sold, and being able to answer a question about it in Vietnamese.
That is unglamorous, it is not scalable from abroad, and it is most of the reason a foreign manufacturer appoints a local marketing company rather than an importer.
