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/