Image by Zingaro. I am a gipsy too. via Flickr The sudden closure of Mattel‘s Barbie store in Shanghai seems to have nobody apart from Mattel, says retail analyst Paul French in the LA Times, today. He is sceptical about the firm’s announcement they are merely changing plans. The closureRead More →
Shaun Rein by Fantake via Flickr Foreign firms in China currently make fat margins, showing the strenght of the economy, Shaun Rein tells Bloomberg, despite high profile failures like Barbie, Home Depot and BestBuy. Inflation might still be a huge problem, but there is no bubble in the making, he argues.Read More →
Image by Fantake via Flickr Even though Chinese consumers are spending more on expensive products like Apple, they shunned the Best Buy stories, explains Shaun Rein in CNBC. The economy of scale did not pay off: According to our research, Best Buy in China was perceived as being too expensive,Read More →
Shaun Rein by Fantake via Flickr Home Depot and BestBuy were just two of the foreign companies in China that failed, while the consumer market is reaching record heights. Shaun Rein explains what they were missing in CNBC. First, they get China’s middle class wrong: For one, Western brands needRead More →
Former flagship in Xujiahui, Shanghai The decision by US electronics retailer BestBuy to close its outlets in China hardly comes as a surprise, says retail analyst Paul French in USA-Today. “They were ahead of the consumer.” Unlike the warehouse style of top Chinese electronic chains Gome and Suning, where salesRead More →
Shaun Rein is the Managing Director of the China Market Research Group, the world’s leading strategic market intelligence firm focused on China. He is one of the world’s recognized thought leaders on strategy consulting in China. In 2012 he published the bestseller “The End of Cheap China.” He travels from Shanghai.Read More →
Paul French is former Chief China Market Strategist at Mintel. As a China specialist he has been quoted in a wide variety of publications including the Financial Times, Newsweek, the Wall Street Journal Asia, the South China Morning Post and the LA Times. In 2012 he published the very popular book “Midnight in Peking.” The rights for a TV-show on the book have been sold He travels from Shanghai.Read More →