Hundreds of motorbikes cover the vast parking lot outside the Metro Cash & Carry, one of Hanoi's modern supermarkets.
Inside, customers queue up at the automated teller machine. There is a crowd at the waiting area for available shopping carts, which are lagging behind the fast-paced demand. Shelves are steadily emptying in the dozens of aisles of merchandise. And the lineup at each of the 20 checkout counters is six or seven deep.
This has been a regular scene at Metro for weeks in the run-up to the Lunar New Year, Vietnam's biggest holiday.
But new statistics show the trend is year-round. Retail sales reached nearly US$30 billion in Vietnam last year, up a remarkable 20.5 per cent from a year earlier. Stripping out the effects of inflation brings the increase down to about 12 per cent.
'Even compared to equally fast-growing markets, Vietnam is experiencing a very rapid transition to consumerism,' said Chris Morley, of ACNielsen Vietnam, whose surveys have found Vietnamese among the world's most confident consumers.
Observers say a key factor is the stark contrast between the country's horrific past and the present-day peace and prosperity. Vietnamese say when they had a little extra money in the past, typically they would store it away. 'Before it was difficult just to find things to buy,' said Nguyen Hoang Ha, 32, a staffer at the Australian embassy in Hanoi. 'Now it's just a matter of whether you can afford it or not.'