(Fighting New Coronary Pneumonia) Difficulties and breakthroughs of overseas Chinese businessmen on the path of "epidemic"
China News Service, Beijing, December 22 (Reporter Wu Kan) Pearl River Department Store, a 50-year-old American Chinese department store, recently announced that it will close its flagship store on Broadway in New York in early 2021, because its revenue has shrunk sharply and cannot afford to pay high prices. Rent.
The current overseas epidemic continues to spread. Overseas Chinese businessmen and enterprises are facing urban blockades, market shrinkage, cash shortages, labor shortages, and logistics stagnation. At the same time, they are also bearing a heavy burden of rent, loans, employee salaries, and epidemic prevention materials.
Under many difficulties, some Chinese businessmen had to close their stores.
According to local Chinese media reports, Chinese supermarkets in Argentina have been closed recently, and many small supermarkets have closed down; in Chinatowns in New York, Los Angeles and other places in the United States, long-established Chinese restaurants such as Fuchunlou, Sanhe Roasted Meat have closed their doors in recent times. ; Chinese restaurants and bars in Barcelona, Spain, were closed in mid-October in accordance with epidemic prevention requirements, and have not been open normally.
In the face of tremendous pressure to survive, Chinese businessmen tried to break through adversity through transformation and upgrading.
For example, some Chinese businessmen who were originally active in import and export trade, physical supermarkets, catering and tourism and other industries have turned to the front and have emerged in the fields of cross-border e-commerce, online retail, and live streaming.
Wenzhou Mall, a veteran Chinese supermarket chain that has been operating in Spain for 22 years, launched its online platform "Kebao Mall" in early December.
Zhang Di, general manager of the mall, said that the platform integrates supply, logistics, and sales. The product category is very rich. In addition to food and kitchen supplies, it also adds digital and beauty products that are not available in offline malls.
Zhang Di told reporters that in terms of logistics, online shopping malls have achieved delivery within 24 hours after delivery in Spain, and delivery in other European countries around 48 hours after delivery.
"At present, online shopping has just started in Spain, and our platform has been welcomed by customers as soon as it was launched."
In Prato, Italy, there are more than 5,000 Chinese clothing companies of all sizes.
"Now most companies have realized the online transformation." Li Xiaofeng, president of the Italian Chinese Apparel Industry Association, said that customers used to come to the factory to order on-site, but now they choose products on the APP, and the product details can be clearly displayed on the top. Customers place orders directly.
During the epidemic, 3DTrade, a well-known Chinese cross-border e-commerce company in France, changed its business model based on the export of European cosmetics, established cooperation with many Chinese commercial platforms, and introduced high-quality Chinese products to France.
The EU-China Cross-Border E-Commerce Association established a cross-border e-commerce live broadcast base in The Hague, the Netherlands in October, and promoted the good things of the two countries to consumers in China and the Netherlands through live broadcast of goods.
Some Chinese businessmen not only did not recover from the pandemic, but bucked the trend and opened new stores, bringing new opportunities for business development, while also bringing hope and confidence to people who have been plagued by the epidemic for a long time.
Canada’s largest Chinese supermarket chain T&T Calgary opened its doors at the end of November.
Talking about why we chose to open during the epidemic, Tatung Hua CEO Li Peiting said, “Expanding the market is only one aspect. The epidemic has made many people feel depressed. We also want to open new stores in the hope that more Chinese can buy the familiar taste of China at home. , Accompany everyone through the'darkest' moment."
The first large-scale shopping mall in Argentina invested by Chinese businessmen opened in Buenos Aires Ezeiza in August. The mall has a business area of 10,000 square meters. Originally, local residents had to drive to the city dozens of kilometers away for shopping and entertainment. Now they are at home. It can be achieved at the door.
Lin Ping, owner of the mall and an Argentine Chinese businessman, told reporters that the mall's business has not been ideal since it opened for a few months, but he is very optimistic about its development prospects.
"We Chinese businessmen grew up in ups and downs. There are always business opportunities in great crises. I believe we can turn crises into opportunities this time." (End)