A lone customer selects Christmas decorations at IKEA. (China Daily)
Tianyi market, the largest wholesale market in Beijing with more than 3,000 traders selling everything from buttons to jewelry, is busy preparing for Christmas.
Li Qingfu, the deputy general manager of Tianyi, told METRO: “Christmas and Spring Festival are the two major shopping seasons in Beijing. In our market, we estimate that a throughput of goods for Christmas season alone will be close to 100 million yuan.”
A 4-m-tall Santa Claus has been welcoming shoppers from the roof of the market since early November, and Christmas decorations and lights already decorate the market’s first floor.
But a trader in the market surnamed Ge is not so optimistic. He put out Christmas items on shelves on Nov 7, 10 days earlier than previous years in a move to counter reduced consumer spending.
Ge said: “Since the exports of Christmas goods have been so drastically influenced by the global financial crisis, I decided to start selling decorations earlier and avoid market competition.”
Ge said he has a customer in the US who used to order as much as 1 million yuan of Christmas decorations every year. This year the customer cut the order in half. – read more at ChinaDaily.com…
One Response to “‘Low’ expectations for Christmas sales in Beijing”
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November 17th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
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