Heard the news that International Financial Center opens at Lujiazui (many weeks ago), and it offers free parking, we detoured there on our way to the post office to check out.
Location: It has many the best location in Lujiazui, just between Jinmao tower, and the Super Brand Mall, as shown in the map below (it was not completed yet in the satellite image).
After IFC opens, Shanghai has another top shopping center with the first line brands like Louis Vuitton, Gucci… I just feel I entered the world of "The Devil Wears Prada". Interestingly, I am the dummy who don’t understand the brand. I just cannot keep asking the question, why a bag worth 20K RMB? What is the value the branded product? My guess is, maybe the reason is just like people buying iPhone (I can certainly understand why iPhone justifies its 3x to 4x higher price than average phones).
Look at the list of brands you can find in the building.
I didn’t took a phone of the complex in the International Financial Center. It includes the HSBC Tower, Ritz Carlton, and office towers. Standing from there, you can see the Lujiazui skyscraper area.
Shanghai is very difference in the last few years. 10 years ago, when I walk on the Orchard Road of Singapore, I was completely overwhelmed by the magnificence of the road. Few weeks ago, when I go there, I saw the Orchard Road, and started to wonder if it is the same road as I saw 10 years ago. It turned out that Shanghai changed faster than Singapore’s Orchard road. In the last ten years, Nanjing road completely upgraded in the Nanjing West Road section, and the Huaihai Road also changed its face quietly. New places like the IFC, World Financial Center raised…. I am not actually too happy about the fact that Shanghai turning into a bigger metropolitan with luxurious brands covering the city faster than McDonald’s. It is just a matter of fact…
I provided the information for the people who loves shopping, although I am a confused speculator in this strange place.
Indeed, IFC’s Directory listed a whole spectrum of high-end international brands that sell luxurious goods. Ironically, most of the locals don’t even know how to pronounce the store names (correctly). I’m curious to know what their customers are like here. None of my expat friends would pay the ridiculously priced brand-name-goods here. You asked what are the values of brand-named product. I think the reasons are as follows:
1) Their products do have better quality and are well made.
2) Many Asians like to show off their wealth by wearing or carrying brand-named merchadise to show off. Cities like Shanghai have loads of vain people whose friends are envious of them owning such luxuious foods. Younger women, in particular, adores these goods. Most of them don’t make enough money in one mone to buy even just one bag, but they live with their parents for free room and board and have a good amount of savings. And some managed to have stupid men or suger daddies to pay for them.
3) Thanks to the booming local economy, particularly exponentially hiked property values, many locals have become very wealthy. Some would splurge to buy these horendously priced goods. They say it’s still cheaper to buy them in SH than going to Europe or N. America to buy them because they save the travel expenses.
4) Publicity and advertisement: I live off W. Nanjin Rd and there are hundreds of such kind of shops in my neighborhood. Strange enough, when I pass by them, I rarely see customers inside. I heard that many of these manufacturers use stores in China to advertise their names and images to boost their sales in HK or in Weastern countries when Asians go there. It’s very common to see Chinese tourists buy Louis Vuitton handbags by the dozen. A few are for personal use and the rest to sell for profit. I saw the prices of some goods here are 2-3 times higher than what I can buy in the States. By the same token, if I see things here or goods here that sell for 2-3 times higher in the States, I may buy if I have use of them.
People buy I-phone or I-Pad for their functionality. But a bag is a bag. A Gucci bag may last longer, but certainly won’t serve more purpose than a regular bag.
looks like a soul-less concrete jungle
@TW
“People buy I-phone or I-Pad for their functionality. But a bag is a bag.”
No. To many of these people the function of a bag is to allow them to show off how much money they have…so a bag is not ‘just a bag’.
Their definition of ‘functionality’ for iPhone or iPad might be quite different from yours too…I wonder how many of these people owning the latest iPhone and iPad really make full use of the many wonderful functions available on these gadgets.
It’s also interesting that whenever you step into a high-end mall in Shanghai or Hong Kong everything just suddenly turns into English…it’s not like expats are particularly interested in these high-end brands, which they could have bought from home more cheaply anyway?
All the lonely people
where do they all come from ?
All the lonely people.
Where do they all belong ?
None of these items impress anyone else who can also afford them. At most, it will make your ayi or a laborer gulp when you or your toddler children pull out an iphone or an ipod because clearly that one year warranteed item is more than their family’s annual income. Many people who could afford an overpriced ugly handbag wouldn’t touch one and no one pretty ever looked prettier wearing one of those over their shoulder. No one ugly or fat ever looked like a pretty girl wearing one either.
I’m proud of being able to pronounce most of the brand name correctly, cause majority of them are in Italian, and not sad for being unable to afford any of them. haha.
ever here.
as Oscar Wilde once said “he knows the price of everything but not the value of anything”
I went to IFC today. Very magnificently as if we were in famous shopping mall in New York or Paris.However the price is also impressive. A wallet you shall pay 4,000 RMB to afford.How expensive it is! 4000RMB is equivalent to monthly salary of normal shanghainese. Shanghai is changing that make herself strangely for us.
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