Hangzhou, China: there is a regular and common phenomenon of vendors who fill the streets at night to provide a thriving, exciting, sometimes illegal, and highly enlivening moment of wholesale at its best – or worst, depending upon who you ask – that should not be a total mystery to those of you who have yet to visit the PRC.
In an effort to bring the news directly to you, I have taken a moment to put together a little video clip of the 10:30pm scene outside of one of Hangzhou’s biggest and most popular retail attractions, the InTime Shopping Center. It’s a large and modern shopping haven for anyone who likes to spend top-dollar (or renminbi, in this case) for name-brand apparel and goods from all parts of the Western world. However, at night the situation is totally reversed, as the factories give their ‘emergency liquidators’ a special deal, and shave off some of that excess inventory at blow-out prices.
Check out my video clip:
Glimpse Into the Chinese Wholesale_ Retail Night Markets
Sales cycles for goods that don’t make it off the rack, or maybe don’t even make it to the distribution points can be interesting. With a population in excess of 1.4 billion, China’s retail sector is a logistical nightmare that often makes the control of goods a very challenging thing to grapple with. Instead of being afraid of it, most vendors simply look for the best and most ‘auspicious’ times to move their merchandise, and it’s only a matter of time before it’s funneled down to the lowest-level outlets for sale and eventual integration into the consumer pool… even if that pool looks more like a raging torrent.
What can you learn from the sellers working the streets of China? It’s not very different from what we do in the USA… because at the end of the day, it’s all about making those closeout/wholesale items move!
China’s “Night Markets”
I’ve read about this in a different context — I think it was some Economist Pariah (like John Perkins in “Confessions of an Economic Hitman” or maybe Mr. Liberal Economist Paul Krugman).
THE GIST was that when central governments try to control production, commodities and even agriculture . . . the people’s marketplace finds a way. Central control of eggs?? No problem — people show up at night markets with a single chicken. And they dispense fresh product, one unit by one unit, on the spot!
Just have to connect the dots to underground movement of other goods, like electronics (with and without mandated software) and all those Gray Market brand knockoffs that keep brand managers and lawyers fully occupied.
Thanks for the peek behind the curtain, Mr. Night Wizard.
YOU WROTE …
[ ... With a population in excess of 1.4 billion, China’s retail sector is a logistical nightmare that often makes the control of goods a very challenging thing to grapple with. Instead of being afraid of it, most vendors simply look for the best and most ‘auspicious’ times to move their merchandise, and it’s only a matter of time before it’s funneled down to the lowest-level outlets for sale and eventual integration into the consumer pool… even if that pool looks more like a raging torrent. .... ]