EvidenceFieldAmong street and market vendors in Ho Chi Minh City, which would genuinely move day-to-day takings onto QR — versus politely agree in an interview but keep running on cash — and what actually moves the ones who won't?
The answer
Most vendors will say yes and keep using cash — the survey-style 'yes' is courtesy, and only stall-side observation separated it from intent. Adoption is blocked less by cost (bank QR is free here, though vendors don't believe it) than by settlement timing, the dawn cash cycle, and a fear of making takings visible. A younger, transfer-native, tourist- and delivery-facing segment genuinely switches; the rest follow trusted-peer proof, not a lighter app.
Recommended action
Build the first version for the transfer-native tourist/delivery segment where QR is already pull, lead onboarding by correcting the phantom-fee belief and guaranteeing same-day settlement, and recruit respected market vendors as visible local proof — do not build for the median cash vendor yet.
Grades are illustrative — pending expert calibration.
Each finding is graded for certainty and traced to the evidence it rests on — disconfirming evidence included.
The vendor 'yes' is courtesy, not intent — most affirm QR in the abstract while routing nearly all real takings to cash, a gap that showed only because interviewers watched behavior at the stall rather than trusting the answer.
The loudest objection — that QR 'takes a percentage' — is a phantom: bank QR here is free to the merchant, but vendors believe otherwise, so the real, addressable barriers are settlement timing and the cash needed at dawn for wholesale, not cost.
The one segment that genuinely switches is younger, transfer-native vendors already paid by tourists and delivery apps — for them QR is pull, not push; everyone else moves only when a trusted peer at the market has already proven it.
Every finding above lands here. Open a source to read its raw segments.
Nothing here is flagged for verification. No finding is both low-certainty and synthetic-only — every one rests on human evidence or carries enough certainty to act on as it stands.