There is a specific kind of disappointment that comes when you finally find the Vietnamese book you have been looking for: THE PRICE TAG for the book and the shipping it comes with! It SHOULD NOT cost this much to stay connected to your own language. We started Viet Bookstore because we believed that, and we have never stopped believing it.

The hidden cost that Vietnamese families already feel

In e-commerce, there is a well-known playbook. Sellers mark up prices so they can offer fake discounts that make customers feel like they are getting a deal. They pay for five-star reviews. Big corporations pay dozens of thousands dollars to influencers to promote. The result is a noisy market where customers do not trust what they see. And small businesses are left with an increasingly tightened market driven not by the real value of the products, but how much money the businesses put in promotion. 

For Vietnamese families living in the US, there is an extra layer to this problem. Vietnamese picture books, bilingual readers, and learning workbooks are often treated as rare or imported items, and the prices reflect that. When a bilingual book is priced out of reach, it sends a silent message to every family that finds it “Your language is a luxury. Only those who can afford the price tag can get connected to resources”

We REFUSED to accept that. From the very beginning, when we were packing every single order ourselves from our rental apartment in Indianapolis, we made one simple promise to ourselves that Vietnamese books and bilingual learning materials SHOULD NOT BE A LUXURY. They should feel like something any family can afford and we do everything we can to keep that promise. 

What we lose when books are too expensive to buy

This is not only a pricing problem. It is also a language, identity, and belonging problem. Research on heritage language development consistently shows that when children have regular, casual access to books in their mother tongue, they develop stronger vocabulary in both languages, a deeper sense of cultural identity, and closer bonds with family members across generations. Books themselves are not magic, but access to them is, because access is what allows language to live naturally in everyday life.

However, when Vietnamese books are difficult to find and expensive to buy, families gradually begin to give up. A grandmother stops searching for something to read with her grandchildren. A teacher decides the classroom budget cannot stretch far enough to include Vietnamese titles. Little by little, a child begins to learn that their language does not belong in the everyday spaces where learning takes place. Over time, this absence shapes how they see themselves and where they feel they belong.

Why we run our business the way we do

We are aware that our approach might be described as "unproductive" by conventional e-commerce logic. We do not pay for good reviews, we do not give away free products in exchange for positive posts, and we do not raise our prices simply to offer dramatic sales that create the illusion of savings. 

What we do instead:

We keep our prices the most affordable so that Vietnamese bilingual books are not a luxury but an essential part of every child’s and every reader’s joyful reading experience. We wrap every order with care because we remember what it felt like when every dollar mattered. We ship as soon as we know a child is waiting. And we build this store on trust rather than transactions because we are not just selling books. We are helping families hold onto something irreplaceable.

We have grown slowly, yet the people who found us noticed. They noticed how each order was packed, how quickly it arrived, and how much care was placed into the smallest details. They left reviews not because we asked or paid them to, but because something about the experience felt different and worth sharing. That response reminded us that doing things honestly still works. People recognize care when it is genuine, and a real community grows naturally when trust remains at its center.

What every Vietnamese family deserves

We started small because we had to, but the belief that drove us was never small. It comes down to three things that should never be out of reach:

• A child should be able to read in their mother tongue on any day of the week  and not just on special cultural occasions.

• A Vietnamese student who is new to a classroom should be able to find the same story their classmates are reading but in Vietnamese, so they feel like they belong there just as much as anyone else. 

• A parent or teacher should be able to show a child that they are seen and valued simply by putting the right book in their hands.

None of these things should be hard to afford because they are not extras or luxuries. They are the basic things that every family deserves to have without having to sacrifice anything to get them.

Building something that grows with you

We will likely never grow the way big-box retailers grow, and we will not have the biggest advertising budgets or the most dramatic sales events. We will grow more slowly than businesses that are willing to buy their reputation instead of earning it one honest order at a time. But we grow alongside our community, and that has always felt like the only right way to do it.

Every order from Viet Bookstore is a small but meaningful statement that language, culture, and connection are worth protecting and that Vietnamese books belong on regular shelves in regular homes and not hidden behind prices that make families think twice. Something real and lasting can be built when a business chooses honesty over shortcuts, and we are here because you believe that too. We will keep showing up for it, always. (Quynh & Tung)