At 4:00 PM, with the pork offal cooked to perfection on the stove, Phan Thi Thanh and her husband load three large steaming pots onto their vehicle and head to their usual roadside spot near home in Bac Ninh Province.
As Thanh’s hands fly across the cutting board, slicing portions with practiced ease, her son sets up a smartphone and starts a live stream. Within 15 minutes, concurrent viewers jump from a few hundred to several thousand. Since her children stepped in to broadcast her daily trade on social media, the small food stall has attracted immense attention, with peak live sessions pulling in over 10,000 simultaneous viewers.
“I am not a celebrity like some viewers say,” Thanh told reporters from Dan Tri. “Being embraced by so many customers only pushes my husband and me to work harder so we never let down their trust and affection.”
Going Viral Through Daily Live Streams
Back in 1997, starting with virtually no capital, Thanh and her husband first turned to selling boiled pork offal to make ends meet and raise their firstborn. After she gave birth to their second child, the couple switched to other livelihoods. In 2019, she decided to return to the trade.
“Having worked across various jobs, I realized this is where my passion lies,” she reflected. “I love the feeling of preparing steaming hot pots of food with my own hands and serving delicious dishes to customers.”
In late 2025, her children began recording and live streaming her daily stall operations on social media. Accustomed to a quiet, unassuming life, Thanh initially felt shy and worried about neighborhood gossip.
In the early days, only a handful of people tuned in. Over time, several short clips went viral, racking up hundreds of thousands of views.
“Seeing such positive engagement, I let my children continue filming and posting on my channel,” she said. “My husband and I never imagined our everyday work would receive so much love.”
According to Thanh, nothing in the live streams is staged. Because of her naturally gentle personality, interactions with customers flow effortlessly. Given the brisk pace of business at the cart, she rarely has time to read or reply to live comments, choosing instead to focus entirely on the patrons standing in front of her.
Thanks to the viral reach of the videos, hundreds of customers now line up each day. Her customer base has expanded far beyond the immediate neighborhood to include food lovers from surrounding provinces.
Recently, she has been selling three to four large pots of offal daily, roughly triple her initial volume. Her warm, accommodating service has won the hearts of travelers from afar.
One family traveling from Southern Vietnam to Hanoi rented a motorbike specifically to ride out to her stall in Bac Ninh. Another woman in her 70s from Hanoi took multiple bus connections to visit the stall in person, deeply moved by the vendor’s gentle and hospitable nature.
“Remembering regular customers’ preferences helps me prepare their orders faster,” Thanh explained. “For first-time buyers, I carefully advise them on the right portion size for their group rather than cutting excess food just to make more money.”
Thanh credits her family’s steadfast teamwork for keeping the stall thriving. For years, her husband has quietly supported her behind the scenes, preparing the broth and organizing the cart. Lately, her daughter-in-law handles cashier duties and packaging, while her son films and manages the live streams, connecting her stall with millions of online viewers.
A camera mounted alongside the workstation broadcasts Thanh’s daily sales live online. (Photo: Provided by the subject)
Food Quality Remains the Ultimate Foundation
For Thanh, live streaming is merely a tool to boost visibility, not a magic wand for business success. The freshness and quality of ingredients remain the deciding factor in keeping patrons coming back.
Refusing cheap frozen items, she sources every ingredient meticulously. Every morning at 5:20 AM, she visits the local market to handpick fresh herbs for stuffing the blood sausages (doi). Each herb variety is washed thoroughly, leaf by leaf, and drained before processing.
The roadside stall stays packed with customers from opening until every pot is sold out. (Photo: Provided by the subject)
Around 1:00 PM, she heads to trusted butchers to collect freshly butchered offal and internal organs.
“I have never thought about buying cheap ingredients for higher profit margins,” she emphasized. “Using subpar produce only destroys customer trust.”
Many diners return specifically for the owner’s welcoming demeanor. While chopping meat at rapid speed, Thanh converses cheerfully with waiting patrons without showing a hint of frustration.
Crucially, she caters to every budget, cheerfully packing orders worth just 5,000 to 10,000 VND ($0.20 – $0.40). This flexible approach makes her food accessible to local students, factory workers, and low-income laborers.
“Whatever amount customers ask for, I serve without hesitation,” Thanh said. “In business, maintaining trust and ensuring customers leave with a smile is what matters most.”
Traditional Vendors Embrace Digital Transformation
Thanh’s story highlights a broader trend as traditional merchants leverage technology to revitalize their businesses. Across wet markets, small vendors are adopting digital tools to attract customers amid changing consumer habits and slower foot traffic. Rather than relying solely on local walk-ins, online streaming helps them reach nationwide audiences, generating steady revenue streams.
Recently, Tran Quang Si, a stallholder at Bac Ninh Market in Thu Duc Ward, Ho Chi Minh City, made headlines by hosting energetic live streams to sell evening gowns, combining singing and comedy into his broadcasts. His sessions regularly draw nearly 1,000 concurrent viewers within 10 minutes of going live.
Si noted that since the pandemic, consumers have shifted toward e-commerce platforms, leaving traditional brick-and-mortar stalls quiet. In response, he invested in ring lights and smartphones to master live selling.
Initially, he had only a few dozen viewers, selling seven to ten orders a night mainly to acquaintances. Everything changed once his engaging clips circulated across social platforms.
“During some sessions, viewers jumped to 1,000 and then 2,000,” Si shared. “Order comments scrolled past so quickly on the screen that I couldn’t even read them, let alone respond in time.”
To support this momentum, the Vietnamese government recently issued Resolution 88 to stimulate domestic consumption and expand the “Vietnamese People Prioritize Vietnamese Goods” campaign.
Under this initiative, the Ministry of Industry and Trade is executing modern retail and logistics development strategies, integrating traditional markets with digital distribution channels, and promoting AI, blockchain, and IoT adoption to streamline supply chains.
The program also assists small enterprises, cooperatives, and family businesses in onboarding digital platforms, conducting e-commerce live streams, building “Standard Digital Vietnamese Stalls,” and providing comprehensive digital commerce training for micro-merchants across the country.
Source: Dan Tri Newspaper
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Source: Vietnam Insider