|
Business and Finance
Business Briefs: Hello Kitty, Pepsi price wars, and Shanda TV adsPosted by Joel Martinsen on Friday, February 17, 2006 at 7:00 PM
During the run-up to V-day, Hello Kitty MP3 players hit Kedi convenience stores in Shanghai. The company expected to sell 1000 of the units at the 50 locations it had them in stock. The move by Sanrio to license Hello Kitty MP3 sales at a convenience store raises two important questions. First, does this herald the entrance of convenience stores into the consumer electronics marketplace? Kedi says that should the promotion prove successful, it would introduce other products geared at young, successful consumers. There is at least one Shanghai chain - FamilyMart - whose parent in Taiwan sells computers and TVs at its outlets on the island, so a move in that direction is not inconceivable. But Shanghai's appliance trade association is more skeptical about the stores' ability to handle things like warranty service. Simple electronics - MP3/4 players - maybe. Second, and I may be displaying my own warped understanding of romance here, but are there really 1000 people for whom the perfect Valentine's Day gift is a 358-yuan MP3 in the shape of a cartoon character? I do have to admit, however, that making users tickle the cat's feet to change the volume is inspired. Pepsi vs. small retailersSupermarkets in Yantai, Shandong, employed 2.5 liter bottles of Pepsi as loss leaders as a means of tempting customers into their stores during the Spring Festival shopping rush. Normally 5.6 yuan, just above supply costs of 5.52 yuan, one supermarket lowered its advertised price to 4.9 yuan, causing a competitor to drop to 4.8. The supermarkets' supply contract with Pepsi prohibits this kind of price slashing - stores are not allowed to sell below cost - because it wreaks havoc on the company's distribution network: wholesalers buying from supermarkets and things of that nature. Turns out this is not anything unusual; apparently it's just one of the hazards of doing business in China. Stores take a gamble that Pepsi won't punish them too hard, and all Pepsi does is halt supplies for a short time. Other major brands often find themselves in similar situations. Moutai liquor has enough brand cachet to prop up retail prices, and China Business says that Coke periodically has to cut off supplies to no less than Carrefour when the store tries to pull something like this. KLM connects to ChengduIn a move that will certainly be welcomed by European backpackers headed for Tibet, KLM will start flying from Amsterdam to Chengdu in May of this year. Passengers will be able to fly non-stop from Sichuan to Europe twice a week starting on 28 May. This is the first move by a European or American carrier to open a route to a second-tier Chinese city; Singapore Airlines has had the jump on carriers from those two continents for a while. International airlines are reportedly champing at the bit as they wait for China's domestic airline sector to be deregulated. Could this move to open routes in smaller cities be the start of some strategic jockeying for position? ![]() EZPod: When you need a SNDA button on your remote. Shanda spends 20 million RMB pushing a remote controlShanda promoted its new EZPod entertainment system in a 20 million yuan TV ad campaign over the Spring Festival holiday season. Continuing the recent trend of web companies advertising on TV, Shanda ran spots on CCTV 1 & 2, Shanghai Oriental, and Hunan Cable pushing the "broadband remote control." The spending came after rumors that Shanda CEO Chen Tianqiao would sell off his interest in Sina to raise cash for his struggling company, and more recent rumors put Shanda's available cash at 2 billion yuan. That should be enough to cover the multimillion-dollar ad blitz that Shanda is planning using to promote the EZPod and related products this year. Also in the news this week:
These summaries were collected from the The China Perspective, which covers major business news and trends in the China marketplace. Links and Sources
|
Partner Links
Jobs in China
Recent Comments
Henry on
The Eurasian Face
Caroline W on
Big in China
Michael on
Julia Lovell on translating Lu Xun's complete fiction: "His is an angry, searing vision of China"
Brandon K. on
Clueless academic takes on popular fantasy novels
China Media Timeline
Major media events over the last three decades
Danwei Model Workers
The latest recommended blogs and new media
From 2008
Books on China
The Eurasian Face : Blacksmith Books, a publishing house in Hong Kong, is behind The Eurasian Face, a collection of photographs by Kirsteen Zimmern. Below is an excerpt from the series:
Big in China: An adapted excerpt from Big In China: My Unlikely Adventures Raising A Family, Playing The Blues and Becoming A Star in China, just published this month. Author Alan Paul tells the story of arriving in Beijing as a trailing spouse, starting a blues band, raising kids and trying to make sense of China.
Pallavi Aiyar's Chinese Whiskers: Pallavi Aiyar's first novel, Chinese Whiskers, a modern fable set in contemporary Beijing, will be published in January 2011. Aiyar currently lives in Brussels where she writes about Europe for the Business Standard. Below she gives permissions for an excerpt.
Front Page of the Day
A different newspaper every weekday
From the Vault
Classic Danwei posts
+ Korean history doesn't fly on Chinese TV screens (2007.09): SARFT puts the kibbosh on Korean historical dramas. + Religion and government in an uneasy mix (2008.03): Phoenix Weekly (凤凰周刊) article from October, 2007, on government influence on religious practice in Tibet. + David Moser on Mao impersonators (2004.10): I first became aware of this phenomenon in 1992 when I turned on a Beijing TV variety show and was jolted by the sight of "Mao Zedong" and "Zhou Enlai" playing a game of ping pong. They both gave short, rousing speeches, and then were reverently interviewed by the emcee, who thanked them profusely for taking time off from their governmental duties to appear on the show.
Danwei Archives
Danwei Feeds
Via Feedsky
or Feedburner |






