Shoppers shun flagship M&S store in China ?

Shanghai's new Marks and Spencer is thought to be too British and far too expensive to attract customers
It's New Year’s Day, the big sale is on – and I am standing completely
alone amid rack after rack of unwanted pullovers, jackets, shirts and
underwear.
Welcome to the vast but deserted new Marks &
Spencer store in Shanghai, where you can feel less like a customer and
more like a survivor in an apocalypse movie.
This imposing store – the first M&S in mainland China – opened three months ago to an avalanche of curious locals.
They
came, they saw...and went away again, apparently deterred by the idea
of spending a month’s salary on a cashmere sweater or £4 on a small bag
of pre-cooked rice. The store has also been hit by superstitious gossip
of a curse, after 24-year-old Harshit Shah accidentally fell four
storeys to his death when leaning over the side of an escalator four
days after the doors opened.
Expensively located on West
Nanjing Road, Shanghai’s equivalent of Oxford Street, this was meant to
be the vanguard for 50 more M&S stores across China. But now its
viability appears to be in question, with company boss Sir Stuart Rose
rumoured to be planning a troubleshooting visit.
When I visited, it was alarmingly easy to see the cause for concern. In short, no one seemed to be buying a thing.
The
few expat shoppers I encountered complained it was all ‘too Chinese’,
while locals moaned that it was geared towards expatriates. And on some
floors, there was next to nothing to buy. On New Year’s Eve, the food
hall – which M&S had boasted would offer 1,000 lines – had only a
few dozen items.
There were rows of empty shelves and the
wine section contained nothing more than a few bottles of buck’s fizz.
‘The new shipment has been held up in Customs,’ an apologetic member of
staff explained. ‘Come back tomorrow.’
The next morning,
shelves were indeed heaving with gift-wrapped chocolates and Christmas
blend tea – all a week too late for December 25.



Empty aisles and empty shelves... except for the odd shopper One shipment that had arrived in time was the Christmas crackers, piles
of which were now being offered for about £4 for a box of 12 – slashed
from £15.
But few people in China know what they are. My
translator thought they were the loud firecrackers traditionally let
off at Chinese New Year.
Another shopper told me he thought
crackers were biscuits. A small printed sign explaining the English
custom was lost underneath the mountain of
unsold boxes.
By
midday, mannequins and staff still outnumbered shoppers by two to one.
In the food hall, housewife Liu Zhong Lian was complaining about the
prices: ‘It’s 42 yuan [£4.20] for a packet of rice and 15 yuan [£1.50]
for a tiny packet of water chestnuts. Who would pay that?
‘I
only come to buy clothes for my husband. The prices are high for people
in China but the quality is all right. The food is really terrible,
though – there’s little choice and it’s so expensive.’
Briton
Emma Greenacres, 34, said: ‘Expatriate women were excited about the
food and the underwear. But the place seems aimed more at locals than
expats. The food hall is tiny compared to UK stores. There’s nothing
there.’
Although declining to speak in detail about trading
at the Shanghai store, M&S insisted: ‘Initial customer feedback has
been positive. Our store offers the same core products as in the UK and
around the world, including Hong Kong where we have ten stores.’
However,
the spokesman admitted the complexities of importing food had
‘presented some challenges’, adding: ‘We are working to resolve the
situation.’
Websites have been inundated with complaints. One
expat said the mood had gone from ‘high anticipation to incredulity
that anyone would visit more than once’.
A Chinese woman
said: ‘It’s a shambles. All I found was fried rice, bamboo shoots and
frozen fish bakes. Most shelves were empty. The clothes looked
dreadful, apart from the underwear.’
Linda Wu, 35, did enjoy
the M&S experience – but only because ‘there are so few people
around’. She pointed to one problem: ‘Most of the clothes are for old
people but older people in China don’t spend money on clothes.’
Outside,
security guard Zhao Dali, 42, said: ‘I earn 1,000 yuan [£100] a month –
and with my month’s salary I couldn’t even afford to buy a jacket in
there.’
But it may be something more sinister than high
prices and poor choice keeping shoppers away. ‘Everyone knows about the
shopper who died,’ said businessman Wang Chuan, 44. ‘This does seem to
be an unhappy area. There’s something not quite right about it.’
Speaking
of ‘an evil presence’, feng shui master Wang Shuo Yu said: ‘It is
possible this place is haunted. Marks & Spencer should consider a
feng shui ceremony to address this.’
Whether M&S bosses
consider that the Shanghai store is a victim of evil spirits or just a
weak sales strategy may decide what happens next to their bid to crack
the vast, and lucrative, Chinese market.


"Oh Dear" That did not seemed to have worked .

looks like they are paying vat plus a little more than the extra 5% added on here