This post is a response to Yuchuan(Kevin) Ding’s blog <Abercrombie & Fitch Refuses To Make Clothes For Large Women>.

Abercrombie&Fitch refused to stock sizes larger than L in women’s clothing because Mike Jeffries–CEO of Abercrombie “doesn’t want larger people shopping in his store, he wants thin and beautiful people.”(Said by Robin Lewis)

But this is not the first time that A&F did something indecent. In 2006, Jeffries declared that A&F would only hired good-looking people in their store because “good-looking people can attract other good-looking people”, he wanted his clothes were tries on by the people who looks good and cool.

Unfortunately, nearly two-thirds of America’s clothes-buyers need US size 14 or even larger while you cannot find women trousers larger than 10 in A&F. This means that Mike Jeffries’s policy will not only made him accused, but also will lead a failure on business. Without any doubt, A&F will lose a big amount of consumers because of this besotted decision.

At the same time, H&M begin to sell clothes with size 16 to 18 and hired some models with plus-size to show their new beachwear. Even some Japanese fashion magazines–which are famous for their models with washboard stomachs, hired some overweight model to be their cover person. It is hard to find a person looks good and cool, but consumers with size XL are everywhere.

Blog link: https://blogs.ubc.ca/yuchuankevinding/2013/09/25/abercrombie-fitch-refuses-to-make-clothes-for-large-women/

News Link: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/not-available-in-xl-abercrombie–fitch-ceo-mike-jeffries-accused-of-only-wanting-thin-and-beautiful-people-8608022.html

This post is response to Xu Yueting’s blog <Expensive “homes” in Canada> about the average price for house in Canada rises 8% to nearly $40,000 in October.

In her blog, Yueting mentioned that the sharp increase of houses in Canada may lead to a wider gap between poor and rich, made the society unbalanced. I cannot agree more with her opinion because this has already become a big issue in China.

My hometown is a medium city 400km away from Beijing. In my hometown, many young people have to planning to buy an apartment and save a large percentage of their salary into banks as soon as they graduated from college because of the high selling price of an apartment. However, many of them still cannot afford a home without the financial help from their parents or get a loan from bank. The high selling price of a home in China leave a huge burden to the youth and made the sharp increasing price of home became the biggest problem for Chinese society.

Lucky, the survey shows that although the run-up in price may not be sustainable, but there is evidence that sales volumes are indeed very balanced (Pete Evans, Nov 15, 2013). It seems that Canada will not be second China in the short run.

Link:

Xu Yueting’s blog: https://blogs.ubc.ca/xuyueting/

CBC News. “Map: Real Estate Prices across Canada – CBC.” CBCnews. CBC/Radio Canada, 15 Nov. 2013. Web. 15 Nov. 2013.<http://www.cbc.ca/news2/interactives/housing-canada/>.

Pete, Evans. “Average House Price in Canada Rises 8% to $391,820.” CBCnews. CBC/Radio Canada, 15 Nov. 2013. Web. 15 Nov. 2013.<http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/average-house-price-in-canada-rises-8-to-391-820-1.2427778>.

Pictures from google

In Ashley Lutz’s blog <Three Reasons W HY Costco Is Beating Wal-Mart And Target>, he listed three main strategies made Costco achieved such a big success and compared the difference between this retailer and other supermarket giants such as Wal-Mart.

Business at Costco is thriving when competitors are struggled to attract consumers who have low consuming ability in term of making a bigger profit. Unsurprisingly, bargains and deals are the main reason to made Costco’s incredible success. Costco sacrificed its store displays and the variety of goods to offer consumers a lower price. In addition, Costco helps shoppers to save up to 55% on groceries by letting them to buy in bulk at warehouse chains. This strategy attracted and kept customers who want to buy some normal goods in a lower price successfully.

The other two reasons made Costco posting gains are focused on local markets and changes its brand names often. These two strategies made Costco cater for the consumers’ requirements, selling what they need and offering what they want. Those are what other supermarket giants cannot achieve.

In my opinion, supermarket is not a market that offering what you have but a place which selling what consumers need. Costco achieved this goal.

Link:

http://www.businessinsider.com/three-reasons-costco-is-beating-wal-mart-2013-11

In November 5^th, Acer Incorporated declare that its management team has set up a complete reorganization plan to reduce it cost for nearly 150 million dollars. Before this declaration, its financial report shows that Acer lost 13.1 billion NTD in the third quarter. This is Acer’s fifth quarterly loss since 2011.

Acer depended on its innovation capability and cost advantages in the early stage, became the world’s second largest computer maker in 2010. IT companies in Taiwan are good at control and reduce their cost .However, when electronics turned into ordinary cheap goods, those low-cost followers lost their advantage. Contractors in Taiwan moved their factories across the Formosa Strait in terms of the mainland have lower costs in labor and capital. Taiwan’s technology industries have separated by contract and brand.

However, the tradition to be contractors confined their creativity on products design, made those IT companies corned. Taiwan’s companies have weakness in Strategic accumulation and market scale compared with IT companies in the mainland and have lower innovation capability than those producers in North America.

It is high time Acer and other IT companies in Taiwan found some solutions to offset the stagnant growth.

Reference:

http://money.163.com/13/1114/00/9DJQF7OV00253B0H.html

 Since Kazuo Hirai has become the CEO of Sony from 2012, he made several big revolutions such as stripped non-core business and sold off real estate projects. After that, Sony was able to breakeven and started to make profit.

Before his took office, this electronics giant has become a money-loser for nearly 4 years. Since the fiscal year 2008 it showed a loss at 98.9 billion yen, itgot great deficit in fiscal year 2009(40.8 billion yen), 2010(259.6 billion yen) and 2011(456.7 billion yen, about 5.7 billion American dollar).

Besides, Kazuo is trying to change the culture of Sony. Compared with the time of Howard Stringer, Sony gets a faster ritmo on decision making and new products producing, which is impossible to Sony before 2012. It has been said that Sony will launch several new products next year,” Interesting products will be the important weapon in the Sony attack.” Kazuo Hirai said in the October of 2013.

The ability of producing trend-setting products used to be Sony’s core competence. But it has been put on a passive position because of missed the opportunities in the Internet Era and Mobile Era. Sony has to catch up with the path of change in the future.

References:

Liang Luo，Sina News 13,11,2013  SONY’s defense and offense.

http://tech.sina.com.cn/it/2013-11-13/01448907810.shtml

Starbucks is trying to make a new trendy by opened a tea bar in New York City named Teavana Pine Teas+ Tea Bar. This newly opened tea shop offering various tea beverages, sweets and other food with a similar price as Starbucks’ coffee productions.

The recent survey shows that more and more people are willing to have a cup of tea when they want to have something to drink. At the same time, tea orders are one of the fastest-growing drinks in Starbucks café. Interestingly, other tea shop owners are more delighted than worried when heard this news. Instant of a strong competitor, Starbucks actually can attract more consumers’ interest to tea productions.

As tea has become fashionable again, it is a wise and timely action for Starbucks to a take an action on tea production area. As Teavana used to be a chain to sell boxed and loose tea, can it switch into a shop who sells freshly made drink successfully? It is a risk to both Starbucks and Teavana but worthy to have a try. Hope Starbucks can do as what its CEO Howard Schultz said, “Elevates the tea experience in the same way we’ve done for coffee.”

Resources:

1.      Johanna Derry, Friday 25 October 2013 13.11 BST, Starbucks tea house: can the coffee giant make a decent cuppa

 http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2013/oct/25/starbucks-tea-house-independent-cuppa

2.      Candice Choi October 23th 2013 Starbucks to open ‘tea bar’ in pursuit of new trend http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-business/us-business/starbucks-to-open-tea-bar-in-pursuit-of-new-trend/article15022318/

Yesterday, the chart <Top 500 Asian brands> published in Hong Kong by World Brand Lab and World Executive Group. The top three brands are Samsung, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and Japan’s Toyota, China, Japan and South Korea are included in the three countries with the most brand.

These 500 companies were comes from 19 different Asian countries and regions. China defeated Japan got the first place with 204 brands (included Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan).That means more than 40% top 500 brand were born in China while Japan occupied 32.8% and only 9% South Korea brand were included.

Interestingly, in the <Brand loyalty survey in Asia> which brought out in the same time, Chinese showed a totally opposite reaction with Japanese. In Japanese citizens’ mind, the top 10 brands are all made in Japan while Chinese citizens chose 10 foreign brands. It shows that although Chinese companies shows a significant improvement on the international market, they are still cannot be accepted by local. From the poisonous milk power to the cheap smartphone, Chinese industry has become the spokesman to the stuff with cheap price and unfaithful quality in Chinese people’s mind deeply and might not be able to be changed in a short period.

It seems that Chinese brands still have a long way to go on rebuild the market inland.

News link:

Weiwei Guo,亚洲品牌500强揭晓 中国内地118个品牌上榜,         Xinhuanet http://finance.huanqiu.com/world/2013-09/4406012.html

Picture: from flicker.com

Since the Hai Di Lao Hot Pot came to public in September 7th at Arcadia, Los Angeles, America, there always a long queue outside the shop. But it only got a score at 2.5 on Yelp.(Yelp,2013) It is not hard to find the reason—-Hai Di Lao didn’t acclimatized itself to the American Market.

Hai Di Lao’s biggest fault was it didn’t offer English severe. Even if this is a Chinese food restaurant, it’s weird that you cannot found any English words expect the signboard and most of the waitresses are Mandarin speakers. It is nearly impossible for a costumer who cannot speak Chinese to order food.

There is also some culture difference made this China’s most popular hot pot restaurant reaped such a low evaluation among Americans. One of Hai Di Lao’s characteristic is its meticulously severe, such as manicure and shoe shines for consumers who are waiting in the long lines. But in Americans eyes, those exclusive severe are neither inopportune nor insanitary.

Luckily, Hai Di Lao improved its severe in time and added English explanation on menus. There still have a lot of problem to be solved, but we can see that Hai Di Lao is trying its best to acclimatize itself to the American Market. This is a task which every transnational restaurant have to face and solve.

Resources:

1. Jiaoyu Duan, 海底捞美国水土不服，只获2.5星差评http://finance.sina.com.cn/zl/international/20130927/091416868872.shtml
2.  Yelp, Haidilao Hot Pot http://www.yelp.com/biz/haidilao-hot-pot-arcadia

15,0000 smartphones have sold out in 2minutes and 56 seconds in December 28^th,2012(Lei Jun,2013).It’s Xiaomi, a smartphone designed and made in China, has become an arch rival to IPhone 5C in China.

Xiaomi Inc , a privately owned company with design, produce and sell electronic stuffs, was built by Lei Jun and his Xiaomi group in Beijing, 2010(Xiaomi Inc, 2010). They wanted to produce a smartphone which cater on the consumers who are crazy about smartphones but can’t afford the high price of many international brands such as IPhone, Nokia and Samsung.

,Xiaomi Mi3,the would fastest Android OS smartphone with a 5-inch screen, NVIDIA Tegra 4 chip and 13 million picture element will be pushed into the market at 15th October(Xiaomi,2013). Surprisingly, its fixed price is only 1999RMB, as an IPhone 5C is cost 4299RMB in China (Jingdong Online Shop, 2013).

Xiaomi has successfully solved the problem which IPhone 5C wanted to solve—produce a high quality smartphone with cheap price. Many people wonder that whether Xiaomi can get profit from such a low price. As a matter of fact, Xiaomi Inc sold 7.19 million smartphones in 2012,and its net sales is 12.65 billion(tax included).

Xiaomi’s appearance brought a stream of fresh blood to the smartphone market, it shows that high quality does not equals to high price. It is no doubt that Xiaomi is a winner in the smartphone market of China.

3. Baidu Baike,http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=SHFNTN_K0Dotv_0zc2iDszFIP7myPP3UE3BbTzyH3afIJKW3HZB88rhhB2gh7oAX_aCc90qH2xy-G61_-6soEa

4. Xiaomi Mi3,Xiaomi Keji http://www.xiaomi.com/mi3

Sanlu, one of China’s biggest and most famous milk-production company, has went broke in 2009 because of a terrible milk powder safety problem which caused more than 70 one-year-old babies suffered from kidney stone. The crime culprits who caused this severely food-safety problem are farmers who sold their milk to Sanlu.To enhance the content of protein in milk, they put Melamine(C3H6N6),a uneatable chemical into milk to reach the protein line in 2008.

Because of this scandal, Sanlu,a brand valued 14.907billion, broke off its sharp expansion and being insolvency by paying fines and the sick babies’ hospital treatment expense.8 months later, this leader deer(Sanlu means three deer in Chinese) finally collapsed.

However, this ‘poisonous milk powder’ event is only a fuse lighter for Sanlu’s broken down. The mian problem is about this company’s ethic and management. At that time, stockholders and executives were only focus on the company’s expand and make profit. For the milk-production firms, control the milk source means everything. So that they took a lower standard of the milk’s quality they bought in and used second-class milk to produce baby milk powder.

Most important thing is that when the ‘poisonous milk power’ caused some babies illess, Sanlu chosen silence rather than take some action to redeem the company’s honor and told consumers the truth.In the end, Sanlu took itself into the depth of despair.

News link:http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=YwwszsW-UwmzCHAmSM4mvQXsAe0iniXamZIpn7TYguy48DNnvY3kMjqDOBABgByeQ-FGtn0GLlGP-1fuigHA6vVt0fUaxbBluz0gQIBOfS6QVTXppLFeUhmnadtKiuN7SONsbI5iwcaMhkc8iGyWLUyQOoJFuTHPJfHGDo8XWOGxUMYjjLyMtAl02CIXCUwR