Mr. Wu is a vendor outside the Shanghai Jiao Tong University campus. He bakes corns, and sweet potatoes. That is very typical eatery in north China. Although people generally doubt whether the food is clean, it does not prevent people from lining up to get one.
The interesting stuff is, Mr. Wu, as shown in the photo below, recently moved his business to mobile based.
By request of his customers (typically girls in office buildings), he printed out some name cards, and started to distribute to potential customers.
Photograph by Jian Shuo Wang. Contact information in courtesy of Mr. Wu
On the card, it reads:
Baked Corns, Bakes Sweet Potatoes
Mast Wu
Welcome to try. Quality and quality Guaranteed.
Mobile: 131….
People can call him, and he can provide delivery service.
e Commerce? Phone-Commerce
When we are moving our business online, we sometimes forget the basic principles of business – it is still business, no matter how you conduct it. It is just like Mr. Wu. He just catch up the tide of telephone based commerce. Congratulations!
It also reminds me that the whole society is involving constantly, but slowly.
BTW, his potato is very nice.
Wow! Really a interesting post. I think the corresponding English should be printed on the other side of his name card.
you wrote two quality in the post, I think one of them should be “quantity” :P
everytime when i walk along the street ,i can see many small vendors,they are women ,men,or even old people,they stand in cold winter ,hot summer days.everytime i think they are pitying ,they should have better life .
but the screen before your eyes is actual fact!
hope everybody can have a better life .
haha… this is one of my favorites delicacies in Shanghai. yum… yum…
you only find these vendors starting from late autum to early spring. I am wondering what they sell after that? or what they do? any idea?
there is also one vendor doing the same business downstairs of my office..he appears only when the urban management officers pay no attention to him though. The vendor sells the baked sweet potatos and corns at a high price…once my colleague bought 2 medium sized potatos from him and it cost him 10 yuan..not so cheap for this kind of snack.
I have a problem with my tour guide’s contact. I have his phone number but doesn’t have his email address. Now I am back to Malaysia and i wish to contact him. That’s the problem if you don’t move as fast the way it should be, just like Information Technology. Mast Wu had done an excellent job in his marketing skill.
Can I blog roll you ? My blog is at http://justmeNus.blogspot.com
and http://srikebakat.blogspot.com
Write to me if it’s ok. Thanks.
Another reason (I think) Mr. Wu switch to mobile, is to avoid the “Urban/City street management” people. The other day I saw those people took away the “potato baking” device from another sweet potato guy at Zhongshan park.
wow, baked sweet potatoes! I haven’t eaten them for a long time, really miss it! I can say this is the best street foodstuff in cold Winter, hot and sweet…not only for the North China people, we, the shanghainese, also like it very much!
I read your blog and found that most of your post are entertaining because of it’s simplicity and relates to real life scenario.
BTW, I couldn’t prevent but post a comment on this topic, I’m just curious whether you asked Mr. Wu to take his picture because he’s not facing the camera :)