Cai Rang Floating Market has long been famous for its role as the biggest wholesale market in Mekong Delta today. As widely accepted, this is one of the last places where the most unique characteristics of commercial tradition on the water of the local is still well conserved. Together with the cease of Nga Bay floating market – the biggest floating market of the region in the past – most traditional cultures regarding to trading on the riverway have gradually disappeared despite the fact that many efforts have been spent to recover. Thanks to the development of tourism, this market is attracting the social concern and investment to conserve remaining values to mark its name on the tourism map of Vietnam and the world.
Contrasting to the vivid activities as we may often see, traders and hawkers on Cai Rang Floating Market are struggling to earn for their daily lives. Most of them are the poor who run small business and attach their lives to the waves of the Hau river. Sadly, once has been asked, most hawkers or even nuclear families with generations trading here did answer their wishes of moving land. As a common concept of Vietnamese that ‘an cu lac nghiep’ – or ‘solid business starts with a good place to live’, the wishes of the people on Cai Rang Floating Market is reasonable and should be listened. From another perspective, however, if the hawkers on this floating market have resided their lives on land, this famous will no longer be exist. Such paradox has motivated us, who are born in Mekong Delta, to do something to conserve and develop the most characteristics of Cai Rang Floating Market while supporting the local hawkers in doing their business to secure their daily lives.
As per presented thinking, Mekong Smile does launch a project name Cai Rang Floating Market Online focusing on two ambitions: (1) conserving the uniqueness of of floating market besides securing local life and (2) bringing/ introducing the goods and special products of Cai Rang Floating Market to the domestic and international consumers. We do want every product of the floating market, which is distributed by us, should deserve with the prosperity of ‘nine dragons’ – the beautiful name that people has gracefully granted Mekong Delta.
Upon the significant development of technology as well as the change of consumer’s buying behaviour, Mekong Smile has launched two e-commerce flatforms:
We do want products delivered to customers are specialities bearing the sense of Mekong and floating market in particular. We also want to blow the sense of Mekong in every product, which illustrates our high attention to treasure the customers’ experiences and traditional cultures. We believe that finding a way to consume or export products of Cai Rang Floating Market is the best way to conserve this market in the future since the local people will consider trading on this market is a mean for their living. Furthermore, this project is a common place where local enterprises can connect to build a supply chain with various and abundant products with high quality and clear origin. In our opinion, only the solid connection between local enterprises can generate a global value for brands originated from Mekong Delta. This may further increase the competitiveness, quality and highlight the origin of the products within the context of today globalization.
From the bottom of our heart, with all sincereness, we do hope that our effort will receive supports from friends, partners and customers, domestically and internationally. All are for the conservation and development of Cai Rang Floating Market – potential tourist destination of Can Tho and Mekong Delta.