Best Buy Plans Expansion in China
Among Cultural Hurdles: Telling Customers Apart From Geek Squad Support Staff, Overriding Speilberg-Blocking Software
U.S. electronics retailer Best Buy today announced plans for a major store expansion in China but company officials refused to specify the number of stores targeted under the 5-year plan.
“It’s no accident we decided on a 5-year plan,” said company vice-president Carrie Oakey, “Our research showed that the Chinese were very comfortable with 5-year plans ever since Mao Zedong came to power in 1949.”
Market analysts predicted that Best Buy’s progress would be slower than anticipated due to a number of cultural hurdles the company would be forced to negotiate, especially with regards to the Geek Squad support service.
“It’s been virtually impossible for American store managers to differentiate between customers and Geek Squad support staff in the downtown Shanghai flagship store,” said one company official. “The fact that the average customer is more technically savvy and better at math than most ex-pat managers only complicates the process.”
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Chinese 7th graders explain network configuration to American store manager
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Best Buy also will be forced to negotiate a quirky Chinese legal system whereby any computers the company sells must be configured to prevent customers from accessing porn, Steven Speilberg movies or engaging in free speech.
Despite obstacles, Best Buy expects to be profitable within the first six months of operation, largely as the result of employing children to operate forklifts and other heavy machinery in the company’s 40,000 sq. foot inventory warehouse.
Logistics manager Rick Shaw noted, “At 40 yuan a month (US $5.60), we can afford some breakage and even afford to lose a couple kids and still hit our cost figures.”
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1 opinion for Best Buy Plans Expansion in China
diesel
Feb 22, 2008 at 7:45 pm
I worked on that anti-free speech software. We didn’t mean to block the porn, but it just worked out that way.
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