A young woman uses social media to sell forest products in Vietnam

Lê Thị Thủy, a 24-year-old woman from Thanh Hóa, Vietnam, established an online business to sell local forest products directly to consumers.

After working in Hanoi with a low salary, she returned to her hometown during the pandemic. She chose to stay and build a business in her rural village, despite her parents' initial concerns that she should seek employment in a city.

The village of Hóa Quỳ is located near the buffer zones of the Bến En and Bờ Mùn national parks. Thủy works in a region where diverse forest products are harvested seasonally, including honey, bamboo shoots, and various types of mushrooms and tubers. She initially joined local foragers to collect these items and sold them to middlemen, but she found the inconsistent income insufficient.

To improve her situation, she taught herself video editing and filming techniques to market the products through social media. Thủy invested in a used camera and spent months filming her trips into the forest. Her efforts resulted in a video of honey harvesting that gained 4 million views. She now manages a social media page with over 40,000 followers.

Beyond selling her family's products, she acts as a buyer for neighboring villagers, hiring local workers to process large quantities of goods like yam. Her husband, Lê Viết Quý, now handles the filming and editing, allowing her to focus on product development.