I am not a businessman. I have no idea whether this would work. But my basic theory is that you have to sell things people actually want, at prices they can actually afford.
So I would have sold more affordable imported items, offered samples (note how people line up at Costco for those), and perhaps arranged gourmet cooking classes to teach locals how to use the ingredients and equipment being sold. Just getting locals to use olive oil is step one. Getting them to use the right kind, and a decent grade, is step two. How could you possibly expect them to make the jump to step three, overpriced fancy-assed gourmet versions, overnight? :loco:
Offering side-by-side samples of crappy oil vs. a very fragrant, fruity olive oil on bread and letting customers taste the difference might help. Then push a reasonably priced brand of the latter.
Ah, hell, the place was expensive. That was obvious. But Taiwan has plenty of very wealthy people for whom their prices were no big deal. There’s a Ferrari/Maserati dealer a few blocks from my office. There are plenty of US$100K BMWs and Mercedes. And there are plenty of buildings full of apartments in the tens of millions of $. To those folks, $20 for jar of pickles is no big deal.
But if you never tried their hot deli meals and fresh salads, you missed out. They’ve got lots of really tasty food. Sure it’s pricey, but an occasional, rare splurge won’t kill even the most sensible of persons. I only ate there a couple of times, but I’ll see if I can drag the ol’ lady over there once more before they close.
I saw Dean & Deluca in DC last year. I should have tried it. I wish I had tried it in Taiwan.
Another good idea but bad business and bad planning. Seems it happens so often with these western businesses trying to penetrate the Taiwanese market. Marks & Spencer was one, now this place.
Many western oriented businesse fail in Taiwan because the local public will never be completely ‘in to’ it … but open up a ‘branded’ 1,000NT$/chunk stinky tofu store and you’ll be rich …
[quote=“Mother Theresa”]Ah, hell, the place was expensive. That was obvious. But Taiwan has plenty of very wealthy people for whom their prices were no big deal. There’s a Ferrari/Maserati dealer a few blocks from my office. There are plenty of US$100K BMWs and Mercedes. And there are plenty of buildings full of apartments in the tens of millions of $. To those folks, $20 for jar of pickles is no big deal.
But if you never tried their hot deli meals and fresh salads, you missed out. They’ve got lots of really tasty food. Sure it’s pricey, but an occasional, rare splurge won’t kill even the most sensible of persons. I only ate there a couple of times, but I’ll see if I can drag the ol’ lady over there once more before they close.[/quote]
Lets look at it the other way. Would a very wealthy person go into an Asian good store in the US and buy a 20USD jar of soya sauce? In general they wouldn’t. Plus Taiwanese are not that westernised in comparison to Japanese for example. As my ex-boss who used to complain to me everytime we went on business in western countries used to repeat to me (a son of a wealthy Taiwanese business owner who had started the first coffee chain in Taiwan and who had lived in Canada and the US) said, sandwiches are not real food.
There’s no real satisfaction for them. Doesn’t matter what you would have did, it would fail as it was overpriced compared to their satisfaction factor (they have no problem spending that money on traditional Taiwanese or Japanese stuff if it tastes good to them and they can give as a present).
I went to Eslite bookstore last Monday and walked around in the basement food court to look at what people were eating for lunch … 99% ate Chinese or Japanese food … the rest was waiting in a short line at the ‘crepe’ counter, this because the guy who was making the crepes needed as forever to put some topping on it … the guy at the ‘panini’ counter was painting his old boots … I think this shows perfectly that people are not really keen on western bread lunches …
Well, I bought a piece of cheese there, once. They didn’t wrap the stuff up properly in the deli counter, so it was all dried up on the end and they wanted to cut that piece for me, I said no way. In the end I got a really wonky, mangled piece of cheese, wtf?
Considering how much they wanted for it and the way they had no idea how to cut a square piece of cheese from a block of square cheese makes you wonder.
Although, it doesn’t beat the lady in the deli counter in Jason’s that tried to slice up some ham for me. I asked for thin slices, I ended up with little slivers of ham in a tray that looked like someone had put a ham in a blender. She was pretty much attacking the slicer with the ham and she must’ve wasted like half of the ham as loads of chunks of it fell down underneath the machine… :loco:
In the end I said I don’t want that, I wanted slices of ham, not shreds of ham…
[quote=“headhonchoII”][quote=“Mother Theresa”]Ah, hell, the place was expensive. That was obvious. But Taiwan has plenty of very wealthy people for whom their prices were no big deal. There’s a Ferrari/Maserati dealer a few blocks from my office. There are plenty of US$100K BMWs and Mercedes. And there are plenty of buildings full of apartments in the tens of millions of $. To those folks, $20 for jar of pickles is no big deal.
But if you never tried their hot deli meals and fresh salads, you missed out. They’ve got lots of really tasty food. Sure it’s pricey, but an occasional, rare splurge won’t kill even the most sensible of persons. I only ate there a couple of times, but I’ll see if I can drag the ol’ lady over there once more before they close.[/quote]
Lets look at it the other way. Would a very wealthy person go into an Asian good store in the US and buy a 20USD jar of soya sauce? In general they wouldn’t. Plus Taiwanese are not that westernised in comparison to Japanese for example. As my ex-boss who used to complain to me everytime we went on business in western countries used to repeat to me (a son of a wealthy Taiwanese business owner who had started the first coffee chain in Taiwan and who had lived in Canada and the US) said, sandwiches are not real food.
There’s no real satisfaction for them. Doesn’t matter what you would have did, it would fail as it was overpriced compared to their satisfaction factor (they have no problem spending that money on traditional Taiwanese or Japanese stuff if it tastes good to them and they can give as a present).[/quote]
Yup, I grew up in Taiwan and to most Taiwanese a meal without rice is not a meal, its a snack.
I would close shop and cut my losses but then I am no business man.
Doesn’t mean they will though. And everyone knows the value of a Ferrari or Mercedes, but not of pickles in a jar - if the quality of those can be that much better than what they cost more compared to the cheaper pickles in a jar.
It’s actually interesting and makes me partly mad to see what people in Taiwan will buy and call famous food … frigging worthless white toast sandwiches with fake cheese, cream cheese and an egg … packed with six in a tasteless designed box … but hey, the ‘inventor’ off this crap food makes more money than D&D ever did in Taiwan …
Heh - my sister-in-law bought us a box of those sandwiches - shipped to us from Taichung or something like that. You’re right, absolute crap. The funny thing is, my sister kept telling us how “famous” the sandwiches were, not how much she liked them. :loco:
Well, that’s the thing here though, it seems like a famous place draws more customers than a place with good food. Makes no sense at all to me, but I guess it does to the locals…
It’s about time I cut down on that stuff anyway. Walking past the Cartier and Louis Vui-watchamacallit handbags makes me want to throw up before I reach the basement-stink that taints the delicious looking, but bland at best and disgusting at worst food. The last half-eaten sandwich I over-paid for at D&D tasted like paint.
The Japanese supermarket is the real lure into that dismal dungeon of decadent lunches. But the oyster noodle man a few doors up will be the one who fares the best. He is the alpha and omega of that location, as his meals are the most nutritious, tasty, and cheap. He doesn’t need to pay any staff either.
Yeah, you’re not far wrong there
The most popular dish in Chinese restaurants in Sweden is four little dishes…
You get a big plate split in four which comes with…
Two prawns dipped in batter and deep fried, deep fried pork balls, both with sweet and sour sauce, some kind of chicken curry with peas and some other veggies in it and finally beef with bamboo shoots.
Fancy huh? How many of the people in this part of the world would call that Chinese food?
Guess we’re way off topic again… sorry…
Oh, and I was actually talking about local places as well, not just western food in Taiwan. There’s this beef noodle place near my GF’s parents place and it has a regular queue outside and this is some little back-alley place and my GF says it’s nothing special, but it’s famous, so people queue… :loco:
Heh - my sister-in-law bought us a box of those sandwiches - shipped to us from Taichung or something like that. You’re right, absolute crap. The funny thing is, my sister kept telling us how “famous” the sandwiches were, not how much she liked them. :loco:[/quote]
Lucky us - we got some more!
