Originally Posted by
moondog
Fourth, the presence of western brands here is scant in comparison with tier 1 and tier 2 China. I was already prepared for this, but seeing it person has really resonated with me. Basically, 6 million people, many of which have lots of money, and they don't have access to the same LV bags that the rest of China covets. In other words, the big brands spend 90% of their marketing budgets beating each other up in Beijing and Shanghai, while completely ignoring this virgin soil.
That's all for now. I'll try to get out and take some pictures tonight.
Good insights, but also, although there is probably a lot of increasingly wealthy people in tier 3 cities, there may not be enough to sustain uber-expensive brands such as LV or Ferrari. But they would support middle tier branding, such as Nike, Levis etc. If I were into such things, which I'm not, facilitating the entry of such 'middle class' aspirational brands into tier 3 cities would likely be highly profitable.
Of course, I'm not convinced this is in the best interest of China's people -- they probably should try to steer a course from the quagmire of western capitalism before it is utterly too late. But hey ho, that would be veering into OMNI territory -- and I almost never visit OMNI!
tb