Christmas in Shanghai

Today I took the subway to the XuJiaHui shopping district in Shanghai to see how consumers are bearing up this holiday season.

Christmas trees were everywhere - in every shopping mall lobby and in most big shops ! Chinese retailers have certainly learned the basics of promoting holidays as reasons to shop ! A new addition this year is deep market penetration by Hallmark cards. Their holiday card stands seem to be everywhere this year.

The crowds were as thick as ever. Shoppers were certainly out in force.

I visited the Digital Electronics Mall to find a small gift for our office "Secret Santa" party. I started negotiating with the clerk for a 40 RMB computer camera. I was not making much progress when a women next to me suggested that I should try the "financial crisis" as an additional reason to get a discount.

It worked I got the small computer camera for 50% off the offering price ! A total of 20 RMB or $3 USD.

So the moral of the story is that the economic crisis has come to China retail and it is now a legitimate reason to push for deeper discounts !

Globalization at its best !