Even knockoff trade is stung

Source: Xinhua | January 3, 2009, Saturday |

Print Edition

At a booth in Silk Street, a famous Beijing bazaar known for fake designer goods, a young woman with a red coat and ponytail pressed 8-0-0 on the calculator she was holding.

That was how much she wanted for a pair of Camel brand mountain boots.

Alex Salmond, a tourist from Norway, countered her offer by punching in 6-0. The low number astonished Liu Fang, the saleswoman working in the 4-square-meter stall.

"The passenger flow has dropped drastically since November, and the foreign buyers have been doing more hard bargaining," Liu said.

Salmond said he went to Silk Street because he thought he could find what he wanted at low prices.

"I just graduated from college, and I don't want to spend money on brands," he said. "What I care about is cheap but good-quality goods. That's why I came here."

Liu refused to sell the boots at Salmond's price. But the transaction is one example of how the global financial crisis is affecting the bottom line on Silk Street.

Only 980,000 people visited the market in November, 200,000 less than the previous month, according to Wang Zili, general manager of the market.

Customer flow dropped by 1.6 percent in December.

"Customer levels are half what they were before. I saw the crisis on TV and never expected it would affect my own business," said an assistant at a silk shop.

Wang said the economic crunch has definitely affected the mall's sales, especially recently.

"But overall, we balanced out in 2008 from a huge boost during the Olympics," he said.

The Silk Street Market moved from its previous site to an adjacent five-floor mall as administrators wanted to root out the fake goods and build the place into a market full of Chinese specialties, including silk, pearls, tea, ceramics and handicrafts before the Beijing Olympics.

Currently, more than 60 percent of the goods sold in the street are Chinese specialties, but fake products still exist.

Although he failed to buy a pair of boots, Salmond did bring something back. He bought a 100-yuan (US$14.50) "Silk Street" scarf for his girlfriend. "It's beautiful and pretty Chinese," he said.

Nation

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Even knockoff trade is stung

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