In Binh Thuan commune (x\u00e3 B\u00ecnh Thu\u1eadn) in Son La province, farmers have begun moving to turn the smartphone into a tool of trade. Crops that until now ended with being handed to wholesalers are put on photos, short videos, and live streams and delivered directly to consumers: it is a stage of groping toward that kind of channel development. Ka Thi Ngoc, who serves as vice-chair of the Binh Thuan commune People's Committee, says the wall is not the presence or absence of equipment but the shift to an idea of mastering the smartphone as a tool of trade (B\u00e1o N\u00f4ng nghi\u1ec7p v\u00e0 M\u00f4i tr\u01b0\u1eddng, September 9, 2026). Many residents are still to start filming and streaming, and direct sales have not taken root. Even so, this move is not a distant matter for Japanese food buyers sourcing produce and processed ingredients from Vietnam. The reason is that once growing areas can tell the story of their products themselves and show how they are grown and who grows them, the very entry point of procurement changes.<\/p>\n
What the source article conveys is a rethinking of sales channels beginning to take shape in a mountain growing area. Not simply posting product photos, but filming the harvest, the grower telling the background by voice, answering questions in the comments, and taking orders on the spot: that is the kind of selling the article envisions. The Vietnamese headline's phrase telling a story and selling (k\u1ec3 c\u00e2u chuy\u1ec7n) refers to this whole chain of communication. It is an attempt to shift the center of gravity from transactions that merely line up a crop's name and price to selling that conveys who grew it, where, and how.<\/p>\n
The challenges Ngoc raised are concrete. Many residents do not know how to film, edit video, or live-stream. Older producers freeze up for fear of making a mistake in operation. Moreover, they need to handle the whole chain from confirming an order to payment, packing, and delivery themselves. The article conveys that she said, in effect, that digitization is determined not by handing out equipment but by whether farmers can feel a real response. It is the on-the-ground sense that even when the tools are distributed, the usage that connects to sales does not spread automatically.<\/p>\n
Smartphones and the internet have spread in rural Vietnam too, and in Binh Thuan from the source article, Zalo and Facebook have become familiar. If a route opens to reach distant consumers from a device in hand without a physical store, the greater the gap between growing-area price and retail price, the greater the appeal of direct sales. But streaming, payment, packing, and delivery take cost and effort, and cutting out middlemen does not make the burden zero.<\/p>\n
There is change on the buyer's side too. Consumers wanting to know who made it and where have increased, and streaming answers that desire with video. For growers, room arises to differentiate through story rather than a discount competition. A well-known specialty area like Son La rides this current easily. In fact, in the same Son La province, a case of custard apple selling out at the field was also reported on this site<\/a>. The groundwork for a growing area's strength turning directly into selling power is already in this region.<\/p>\n It cannot be compared directly with Son La, but the state of another region where live sales have taken root within Vietnam is a leading clue. VnExpress (English edition, February 6, 2026) reported how 18 craft villages in Phuong Duc commune on the outskirts of Hanoi handle orders by live stream during the Tet demand season. The practitioners are workshops for bamboo and rattan goods, toys, peanut sweets, and the like, differing from Son La's produce direct sales by farmers and cooperatives in both line of business and maturity. Even so, producers of processed farm goods are included, and one can follow in figures how orders, production, and sales value moved in the same period as streaming spread. The following are verified figures the article cited (the growing area is the Hanoi-Phuong Duc case, not Son La).<\/p>\nIn Hanoi's craft and food villages, orders and production have grown this far<\/h2>\n