China’s fashion brands looked with envy how foreign brands were conquering Chinese consumers, writes Globe and Mail, but they are moving fast to catch up. “We are waiting for China’s Zara,” says retail analyst Paul French.Read More →
Paul French As the sales of luxury goods to Chinese spike, retail analysts try to figure out who is buying what. The profile of the buyers can vary a lot, tells Paul French The Guardian. Many of these new consumers are executives and entrepreneurs, keen to show they have madeRead More →
Kaiser Kuo “No comment.” Few of our speakers have been quoted so often by the mainstream media saying nothing. Kaiser Kuo easily made it into the top-position of most-sought speakers for April as he was – and still is – unable to say anything about a possible cooperation between hisRead More →
Image via Wikipedia What foreign companies, trying to tap into the China market, regularly forget is that there is no need for their services, tells retail analyst Paul French at Marketplace Public Radio. Home Depot is an example. Paul French responds to Raymond Chou, president of Home Depot China: CHOU: The HomeRead More →
The Temple of Apple via Wikipedia The Apple outlet in Pudong, Shanghai is getting mythical proportions and babtized by retail analyst Paul French the ‘Temple of Apple’. In Mercury News he explains why Apple changed from a laggard into a winner in the booming China market, unlike other US brands.Read More →
Image by Zingaro. I am a gipsy too. via Flickr The sudden closure of Mattel‘s Barbie store in Shanghai seems to have nobody apart from Mattel, says retail analyst Paul French in the LA Times, today. He is sceptical about the firm’s announcement they are merely changing plans. The closureRead More →
Former flagship in Xujiahui, Shanghai The decision by US electronics retailer BestBuy to close its outlets in China hardly comes as a surprise, says retail analyst Paul French in USA-Today. “They were ahead of the consumer.” Unlike the warehouse style of top Chinese electronic chains Gome and Suning, where salesRead More →
Old Shanghai via Wikipedia Followers of Paul French’s weblog China Rhyming could have seen the preparatory work for his latest book The Old Shanghai A-Z. The book is out now, just in time for Christmas.Paul French: As to how it was put together – I broke Shanghai down into three areas –Read More →
Kaiser Kuo in 2008 via Wikipedia Huge changes in this month’s list of most-sought speakers, compared to October. Kaiser Kuo gained the top position and certainly made the biggest move this month. As he took his position as director international communication at China’s largest search engine Baidu, we feared heRead More →
Image via Wikipedia Depending on how you look at the figures, retail grew up to 20 percent in China, retail analyst Paul French tells Forbes and compares the fate of foreign retailers like Gap force domestic competition from the Trinity Group and China Lilang. Paul French in Forbes: Take aRead More →
Hurun by Fantake via Flickr It’s October and it might not come as a surprise that Rupert Hoogewerf or Hurun has appeared as the largest mover in our most-sought speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. This years’ Hurun rich list attracted much attention, as it showed how Chinese women areRead More →
Paul French by Fantake via Flickr Some remarkable changes in our monthly top-10 of most-sought speakers. While most of the listed speakers hold on to their position in the list, Paul French has entered the triumvirate of top-3 speakers at number 2, clearly a success related to his latest book FatRead More →