The United States and China may be involved in a trade war, but the Chinese shoppers at an American wholesaler were at war with one another this week in a pitched battle that forced the warehouse store to close early.To get more shanghai china news, you can visit shine news official website.
The opening of the first Costco store in China, in the commercial capital of Shanghai, was a scene of chaos. Shoppers lined up for hours to get into the store upon opening, ducking under the roller door as it inched up from the ground.
They fought over Birkin bags and Moutai liquor. They wrestled for detergent and grabbed at a piece of pork with their bare hands, even as the butcher was trying to cut it. There was a three-hour wait for a space in the parking lot — and sometimes longer in checkout lines.
By the afternoon, the discount retail store was in such chaos that it had to close early. “Please don’t come,” Costco said in an alert sent to members, who paid $28 to join for a year.Even for veterans of Black Friday in the United States, the scenes would have been extraordinary.
Beyond the chaos, they illustrated an important political point. The Chinese and American economies are inextricably intertwined. Chinese shoppers want American products, especially at bargain prices, and American companies want Chinese shoppers.
President Trump a week ago ordered — without the authority or the ability to do so — American companies to leave China.
Chinese state media outlets responded by gleefully pointing out some of the big-name American companies, including Costco, that are doing just the opposite.
The Global Times, a nationalist newspaper that often reflects the foreign policy thinking of the ruling Communist Party, noted that Starbucks and Walmart were expanding, Tesla was set to produce Model 3 cars at its Shanghai factory by the end of the year, and the local head of Coca-Cola said it “must not give up” on China.
“It’s just one beautiful daydream of U.S. President Donald Trump that U.S. companies will give up China,” Liang Ming, a research fellow of the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, told the paper.If the American retail landscape has created winners and losers, the rifts are even more stark between companies that make it in China — and those that don’t.
Home Depot closed its last stores in 2012. Best Buy bought a majority stake in a Chinese electronics chain in 2006 and then withdrew from China altogether eight years later.
Retail analysts pointed to Costco as a retail darling that has bested the competition, when it comes to international expansion, as a result of the company’s measured and thoughtful approach to every country it enters — and the long-game it plays before officially opening a new store.
