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Q: Having shopping disappointments?
Every time the shops sell something I really like, it seems that they take it off the shelves. I experienced it in Holland often, but there I could enjoy the product for months before some marketing wiz figures out that people will spend more money on less interesting products if it's removed.
Here in China, I get the feeling that people look at my grocery choices even more. I buy bread after work finishes, 9pm. Usually, the bread is offered at half price because it's the end of the day. But now they cancelled it. Maybe I'm paranoid, thinking it's all about me. But in China, there's more reason to believe my habits are monitored with unhealthy interest.
I was into Snickers for a while, and very quickly the supermarket raised the price a bit. I stop buying, and compensate with some *really* cheap chocolate cookies instead, and then they return to original price!
There was a nice chocolate milk that I enjoyed, 3.8yuan and tasted good. White with brown swirls, octagonal shape, maybe it sounds familiar. Now it's off the shelves in every supermarket I go to. The mango version of the same brand is still there, and all the crappy expensive chocolate milk is still there, too.
I feel they even changed the bicycle parking system because of my behaviour, too. I used to lift my bike over the fence instead of go through the busy entrance, until some guard tried to approach me and I ignored. Now, they have a card system. Feels like a justification for close contact. I lock my bike across the road, now.
I'm just a single consumer, and there are perhaps two dozen foreigners in my little city. Is it wise to adjust prices to a single consumer's purchasing habits? Is there some motivation to inconvenience the foreigner in a subtle way? Do you guys have similar impressions of supermarket selections, or am I just letting paranoia get to me?
I feel for you. My local convenience store carries lemon juice (which me and my sons love and I purchase at least a dozen bottles per week) and pink grapefruit juice (which tastes like gasoline smells and no one buys).
This week, no lemon juice but the pink formaldehyde has increased to at least 72 bottles on the shelf.
I believe what I was told once: don't buy the last unit of anything at a store, otherwise, they will claim that they've never had it and cannot get it.
Local wine store only carries two brands of wine: Chilean and French. Both brands are marked up to over 300% of what they'd sell for elsewhere (and are not that appealing at any rate). Store is always empty. Solution? Renovate. After renovations: same two lines, same over-priced plonk.
Local restaurant is always empty. Bad food, worse service and overpriced. Solution? Renovate! After renovations: same bad service, poor food quality and over-priced.
Solution? Start your own store/service provider/restaurant. Within a week, you'll have so many competitors that will undercut you that you'll be forced to close. The week after that, return to status quo two weeks' previously.
coineineagh:
You think it would be possible for a business to outlast those competitors? If they're there with the purpose of driving you out, they're operating at no profit in order to undercut you. If you don't go away, won't competitiors be forced to give up? Or are they subsidised by some xenophobic government forces?
Sinobear:
Usually, they can outlast you. The wine store that I used as an example is only a hobby for someone with more money than brains (MMTB). They get "face" for having the store, give away case upon case of gulch to their rich friends, but they actually know nothing of wines, marketing, quality (they have red wines right in the window...in direct sunlight).
Customer service and repeat customers are not part of the equation.
expatlife26:
pffft. don't act like your some sophisticated bear with a hat. Prolly just that CC Lemon stuff.
Sinobear:
"You're" not "your".
And I am a hoity-toity Bear with a chapeau to boot who, along with the fruits of my loins (I don't know what the hell prompted people to call their kids that) enjoys the true artificial flavoring of C-100 lemon juice.
We should start a scavenger hunt (no Taobao!) for such things as Future Floor Wax (for non-wax floors), Javex, Kleenex, or other known-by-namebrand stuff we're used to in the west.
You're both welcome to come to my Fuk. We don't have Supermarket, but loads of small convenience stores, which I never go in.
We have big (two rows) open market, some 100 m long. So, here you just need juice maker and glass to drink pristine fruit or veggy juice.
More 'serious' members (me) of my city engage in monthly groceries shopping at some 40km away Urumqi Carrefour.
I got 10 packs of 'gnocchi', classic Italian potato dumplings in my last week's shopping trip. Finally, I can eat dumplings every day.
icnif77:
'Gnocchi' (Ital.) in English means 'dumplings', however food reciepe is different than Chinese dumplings: @ 'gnocchi' sauce is the the base of the food, as variety of the tomato sauces (with pesto, cheese, olives, black and red pepper, chopped garlic, red wine). They are made in combination of flour and boiled potato. Gnocchi aren't stuffed with anything. Just sauceeeeeee
e vino….
I am a sucker for crisps.
My local supermarket had some great cheese flavoured cheetos and doritos.
I go on holiday back home and when I return, gone. I was devastated.
Now I trawl the other supermarkets' import sections for the marked down products.
I managed to get four huge bags of ruffles (american crisps) for 10 kuai each a couple of weeks ago.
This is how my life has turned out. lol
coineineagh:
Crisps are way WAY overpriced here, as if volume determines price instead of weight. I could pig out on a 300gram bag of tasty crisps back in Holland; here I can nibble on a 35gram bag of funky fake-exotic flavours for the same price. Italian red meat or Mexican chicken tomato. No thank you. I'm glad I can resist my crisp-snacking urges here, or at least redirect them towards the more palatable savoury food choices on offer. It's Strange-Taste Horsebeans for me! ;)
I am on the same boat bro. Everything tasty dissapeared slowly, and kept the ....
Butter : there is no unsalted in Carefour abut 25 kinds of salted butter. I never saw that in my life until in china. they got nice prosciuto ? ok, lets try. hmmm, holy shit, lets get other one for toms breakfest. oh noooo, only yurum chemicals :(
Ballantines, one of the few stores which carry the real stuff. okay, its saturday, lets get a bottle. oh, where is it ? only bottles with tin cap ? no plastic with protector ? come next time ?
Oh, where is the best milk ever for good price ? 3 weeks without ...
But, sometimes, I can find something new and good. but it is rare.
Scandinavian:
you can't bake with unsalted butter, and how would you ever fry stuff in unsalted butter, do you not want your food to have taste ?
Nessquick:
I never used salted. I love fish on butter only. I slightly spread salt on the fish only. And baking ? same, or getting the "baking butter". don't know, salty butter is just weird, I tried once while I bought by mistake :(
Guys, you really need to start looking into internet stores to get your stuff.
I only ever had happy experiences until now, on everything including local, imported and even refrigerated stuff. I'm not setting a foot in local stores anymore. Even/especially big name supermarkets, where you either get overpriced crap or ludicrously super-overpriced decent stuff.
The downside is that they obviously don't have English versions and often require online payement, which I know is not a granted thing by default. Oh yeah, and you probably must live in a big enough city.
MY choices are Yihaodian 一号店 (huuuge choice) or SFbest 顺丰优先 (I've heard they even deliver fresh vegetables/fruits in Shanghai or Beijing). I'm not advertising, so I'm not linking. They're not the only good ones, just the ones I use.
Enjoy your life free of crappy markets.
mike695ca:
Agreed. Although most i have found have english and pay on delivery. If you live in a smaller city say in sichuan. A larger city nearby . say chengdu will for sure have an english website or on taobao that will deliver to you and not too pricey. I found an amazing place in shenzhen. Much cheaper as they dont have a store front. Free delivery in the city center and u can go to the warehouse to browse if you like. And they have Everything.like corn dogs. And mint ice cream. Just random stuff you forgot you ate like pop tarts. Pay on delivery. No need to go anywhere else.
coineineagh:
my wife can order stuff on internet, though not necessarily imported; just affordable groceries. we checked the sites you mentioned, but they're not really an option in sichuan province
Toly bread. I suppose many of us know it. It reminds me of French croissants but it says something like 'Danish Pastries' on the wrap and they come with yellow, red and green printing. The red ones have a red bean filling and I don't like them, but yellow is apple and green is something I've never identified, but it's good just the same. So yellow and green left the building and red is ubiquitous. Yellow had a short revival about two months ago but it didn't last. I felt more or less the same, paranoia-wise... only foreigners like it so let's just not sell it anymore... Aaah, there are not enough of us!
I have this problem too. If I go to the store for orange juice, there will only be apple and some unrecognizable flavors, and I am pretty sure if I leave the store, change my mind and go back in for apple, it will be gone too.
I do think, in line with what Vyborg writes, that us westerners fancy different things, so the red bean flavor which is coveted by the locals sells in big numbers where the one with something "normal" inside doesn't.
@OP. I ran into the canceled bread on half price as late as last night. This is me being tought that I should not have been too lazy to bake bread myself, I had even shopped some decent whole wheat flour and some high gluten flour for making some southern European style bread.
Scandinavian:
maybe this is the same problem as being stuck in a queue on a highway, you know the other lanes will be moving faster, but if you change lane.....
I have seen this happen often enough. My theory is the supermarkets get rejected or overstocked stuff from the foreign distributors. When that's gone, they move to the next available stock. They don't have a steady supply chain and they probably don't know what the stuff is because they don't eat it anyway. That's just my guess based on what I've been observing.
Most supermarkets here don't have an open to buy system. Most of the stock replenishment is done on pure gut feel and also on what the suppliers tell them. I have a friend working as a fruits and vegetable buyer in 大润发. He tells me that if an item sell well in a supermarket in Beijing then it will sell well in Guangzhou. So all he does is fill out the order to his maximum quota and have the item delivered. If it doesn't sell well, then they put it up for promotion to clear it, usually very close to the expiry date. That's why some items we love so much are gone for months on end.
Scandinavian:
sounds like a foolproof system. Those warm hats that people in Beijing just love must fly off the shelves in tropical Guangzhou :)
a thing that struck me is that
1. Supermarkets are part of a chain, but do a lot of the sourcing of products themsleves.
2. Supermarkets don't actually stock all products, some of the shelves are rented out to producers (or distributors or what not) and then they employ the annoying person who is trying to sell you detergent every time you walk past.
louischuahm:
Some products can be bought by their central buying office but many products like perishables tend to be procured locally. Then there are those that only local people will buy. End of the day, it's a big job but a lot of local buyers screw up plus the guanxi thing with suppliers almost guarantees that some items will never find themselves on the shelves.
2014 New arrivals from diybrands.co
anyone need replicas handbags, sunglasses, bikinis and all brand name, please here:
new arrivals:
http://www.diybrands.co/index.php?main_page=new_cateogry
coineineagh:
oh, fake designer crap? thanks for linking, in case any of us cant find this in CHINA. we're expats; we have no use for these trinkets unless we're serial-dating chinese women.
Here you go. A place in chengdu called sabrina. English on the taobao site. They speak english and may have a store u can visit if your in chengdu. If not you can place an order and they will send it to you.
I used this store a few years ago when i was in CQ and i couldnt find cranberry sauce. They sent it to me happily. Im sure theyll have hings you need or want.
Enjoy
http://shop.m.taobao.com/shop/shopIndex.htm?spm=0.0.0.0&shop_id=61703119
might I suggest.....Made in Canada ,,,,, said I'd never do this ..but these things are quality and loved my all my Chinese women that have them. (both of them)
https://www.facebook.com/AllysBags
and a Canadian jet is good too ... bombardier.com
