Posted on 11/20/2009 4:35:59 PM PST by Mr. Jeeves
(China Daily/Agencies) – Mattel Inc, the world’s biggest toymaker, lowered the sales target for its Barbie store in Shanghai by at least 30 percent after deciding the original marketing concept didn’t work.
“The initial sales targets were astronomical,” said Dann Murphy, who took over as general manager as his predecessor left eight months after the store opened. Targets for the six-story outlet’s restaurant and “retail experience”, which includes designing personalized Barbie dolls, have been revised down three times since its opening in March.
Mattel chose Shanghai for its first dedicated Barbie store as consumer demand slumped in the United States and Europe.
China’s economic growth accelerated to 8.9 percent from a year earlier in the third quarter, while the US economy expanded 3.5 percent from the previous three months. Compared with the previous year, US GDP shrank 2.3 percent in the third quarter.
“Every retail store operates at a loss when it opens, but they’ve been open long enough that it should be working by now,” said Paul French, founder of Shanghai-based market research company Access Asia.
“They overestimated their brand recognition in China. I just think the concept is wrong.”
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