Locating suppliers in Vietnam is not easy, and this deters many people who want to take the easy way to source products. Using Alibaba's filter to find suppliers in Vietnam is not a lot of help unless you are a gambler, because you will find very few Assessed Suppliers by that means.
I think this is the key point.
Having been to both countries several times, it's easy to see why Vietnam isn't as popular as China. One, the population is a fraction of China's, and two the English is poor, and the Vietnamese aren't up to speed on the opportunities of the internet (but they aren't far behind). There are good factories in Vietnam, but you're going to need boots on the ground to find them, and you'll almost certainly want to visit them. You can get away with not visiting factories in China, although I still recommend it. I visited 5 factories for ONE product in China and I learned so much that I couldn't on a web browser.
In the end, Biophase is right: source from wherever you need from. Perhaps, you start in China and end up using Vietnam, Thailand or Cambodia down the line.
I do implore to visit your factories. You'll learn so much about the culture, products, factories themselves and the people you're working with than you ever could behind a keyboard.
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