Chinese big spenders
Following on about Chinese tourists being the top spenders in Brown Thomas, Dublin again have witnessed Chinese female shoppers on a splurge on December 26th sales at Brown Thomas, I have witnessed this phenomenon on a daily basis in Hong Kong while I was there for a few weeks recently.
Yet this is also happening in other countries as well, such as UK. It’s not just normal sales, it’s luxury items that Chinese crave. They have the money, so why not spend it. I was watching the Hong Kong news one evening and they were interviewing this Chinese guy and asking him why he buys luxury goods and if he thought about the price. He just comments that he buys them as presents for friends and relatives, he doesn’t look at the price at all. Plus the fact that items are real and not fake, that’s the real draw (and yes, they have the money to spend in the first place).
Back to my experience seeing all these queues outside LV, Chanel, Dior, Dolce & Gabbana, <insert your luxury brand> shops, all mainly from Mainland China. They actually buy stuff as well. Hong Kong people don’t go overboard buying luxury items like the Chinese from Mainland China. Again, they are less likely to end up with fakes in Hong Kong than in Mainland China. Although a recent PR disaster for Dolce Gabbana for banning Hong Kong people taking pictures outside their shop front (Hong Kong people like taking pictures in front of nearly everything), but not those from Mainland China or Western tourists. This really made Hong Kong people mad and they ended up organising a protest outside the shop for 3 days in the row and the shop couldn’t open its store because of the crowds outside. Money may talk but Hong Kong people felt enough was enough, fair play to them for organising the flash mob. I was in another part of Hong Kong at the time, so was not caught up in the protest. Here’s more information about the incident.
It’s great to finally see Chinese being respected in shops, my aunt recalled when she was on vacation to Greece some 30 years ago, she was asked if she was Chinese or Japanese. She said Chinese, and then she realised that if she said Japanese, she would have been directed to a room with a welcome committee. Chinese people wasn’t seen as money-spenders back then. Now it’s a totally different story. But then again, materialsm brings out the worst in people. Snooty Chinese people are just snooty rich people. It’s a double-edge sword, but many countries will try and entice these punters with overflowing pockets.