Pleasing the China consumer has always been a challenge, but – as Tsingtao and Wanda discovered – consumers have become harder to get. Retail expert Ben Cavender nevertheless sees a lot of room for growth, he tells Reuters.Read More →
Fashion has been changing massively, as low-cost manufacturing moved from China to other countries, and the fashion brand focus on value, more than on cheap production, tells Shanghai-based retail expert Ben Cavender in Just-Style. And the transition process in fashion brands will continue to cause pain, as robots move in.Read More →
Victoria Secret took on China online, but has now decided to open its first offline retail flagship store in Shanghai. They move very cautiously, says retail expert Ben Cavender in AdAge, and they have a fair chance of getting it right in one of the most difficult retail markets in the world.Read More →
Fashion retailer M&S got it all wrong in China as they focused on non-exciting customers, says retail analyst Paul French to Bloomberg. M&S decided to close down some of its China operation to cut their losses, after a very ambitious start in 2008 in Shanghai.Read More →
Western fashion brands have a hard time succeeding in China. Getting local was the old mantra, but as globetrotting Chinese find a difference between localized products and their global appeal, they also have a problem, says branding expert Shaun Rein to Reuters.Read More →
The world looked with surprise when Nanjing dress-maker V-Grass Fashion bought South-Korean Teenie Weenie for double its own market value. But moving ahead in such a drastic way, seems to be the only way forward for China´s fragmented apparel market, tells retail analyst Ben Cavender to Bloomberg.Read More →
Grass Fashion Co. in a 1 trillion won deal (US$900 million). That is more than V-Grass is worth, warns branding expert Ben Cavender in Bloomberg, and might be very hard to recover in sales.Read More →
Procter&Gamble launched a global campaign for SK-II skincare also in China, inadvertently getting mixed up in the “left-over women” issue. Unmarried Chinese women in their late-twenties are under heavy pressure to find a husband. Retail analyst Ben Cavender explains the background at CNN Money.Read More →
Rich Chinese think their cars represent the way they stand in society. But Rupert Hoogewerf, founder of the Hurun Rich List, found out there might be a huge difference between the car owners and the rest of the Chinese, he tells the Shanghai Daily.Read More →
Going cheap is no longer the prevailing trend among China´s consumers, as especially the younger ones, who have traveled a lot, look for good quality, says retail analyst Ben Cavender in the International Business Times.Read More →
The anti-corruption campaign by President Xi Jinping has hit entertainment and the gift industry hard over the past years, tells Hurun Rich List founder Rupert Hoogewerf in the Financial Review and details the fallout. “We have seen the emergence of the so-called affordable luxury brands like Coach or Michael Kors.Read More →
Japan´s fashion brand Uniqlo is already leading in the China market over its Western competitors, and its link with Disney might give it an extra advantage, says retail analyst Ben Cavender in MarketWatch.Read More →