A shoe, a song and the promise of the West
I found myself at Selfridges this week, specifically in what the London retailer says is the world’s largest shoe department.
Slightly dazed by cornucopia of women’s shoes on slick display, I was roused only when the haze of muzak wafting over the PA system was suddenly dispersed by the jaunty strains of the Chinese New Year ditty ‘Gongxi Gongxi’.
A 1946 composition from Shanghai, the song has gone from classic to kitsch, evolving to become the most popular festive song in the Chinese-speaking world. Its ubiquity rests on the many — for me at least — teeth-grindingly cloying versions played all over shops and markets in Asia. (Click here for example and don’t say I didn’t warn you)
I was somewhat surprised by the song’s appearance in the British retail icon — not least because it’s still some ways off the Year of the Dragon. But then looking at the shoppers around me it all made sense.
Mainland Chinese travellers spent some £200 million on Bond Street last year. That’s a 155 percent surge from 2009, according to an association of luxury retailers in the London thoroughfare.
Never mind that these products are largely assembled back in their home country, Chinese tourists buy their designer bags on Bond Street and elsewhere in Europe to avoid China’s luxury sales tax. More importantly, these status-conscious buyers have the assurance that they are not being sold knock-offs — a risk rampant in a country notorious for its lack of regard for intellectual property.
Those reasons are similar to those that drive the wealthy elite in many emerging economies to London, a city that Goldman Sach’s Jim O’Neil has dubbed the “BRIC capital of the world“.
Correlations between downturn and long salon queues
Who said cosmetics are recession-proof and would be the last to be hit in the economic downturn? (I, at least, thought so.)
But whoever said so seems to be wrong. The Professional Beauty Association‘s three main tracking indices for the salon and spa industry extended a decline in the third quarter of 2011 to hit their lowest level in two years.
The Salon & Spa Performance Index (SSPI) is a quarterly composite index that tracks the health and outlook of the U.S. salon and spa industry. It fell 1% from the second quarter to 101.9, posting the second consecutive quarterly decline.
However, the SSPI and the two remaining indices (Current and Expectations indices) remain above a base level measurement of 100 (above 100 indicates expansion), so the situation is not that bad.
“While the third quarter is typically slower for many salons and spas due to the summer holiday season, the trend results from the Salon & Spa Performance Index are discouraging,” said Steve Sleeper, Executive Director for the Professional Beauty Association.
The Current Situation Index, which measures current trends in five industry indicators (service sales, retail sales, customer traffic, employees/hours, and capital expenditures) fell to 100.3 in the third quarter — down 1.1% from the second quarter 2011.
The Expectations Index fell to 103.5, down 0.9% from the second quarter 2011 and 1.7% from the third quarter 2010.
