Beijing Silk Market
The conference ended on Tuesday — Steve and I saw presentations from a number of companies and met with an interesting, small (~$10MM in annual revenues) Chinese gaming company based in Xi’an — and joined some of the Rodman & Renshaw folks in a trip over to the Beijing Silk Market. Rather than wait 30+ minutes for a cab, we trekked over via subway, which was crowded, but very cheap (~$.29 for a ticket) and efficient.
The market itself was amazing. Wikipedia puts the store-count @ 1700, so we’ll go with that. Floor after floor of vendors in stalls about 10 feet by 10 feet in size selling goods ranging from t-shirts and jeans to scarves, sportswear, handbags and suits. There are amazing deals to be had as long as you’re comfortable haggling — and I mean haggling — with the vendors. Often times in business, I don’t like aspects of hard-core negotiating — I’m more of a lead with a # that’s reasonable kind of guy — but the fun part of buying things at the silk market is fighting with the vendors to reach a deal.
Worth noting is the reckless disregard for Intellectual Property — most of the “brand name” items there are counterfeits. Brands ranging from Polo Ralph Lauren, Dolce & Gabbana, Giorgio Armani, Paul Smith and dozens of other are attached to various products in the stores with the knock-offs selling at a fraction of the regular price. You can read more about that here, if you’re interested.
I did some shopping! I picked up a couple of suits, 2 dress shirts, 3 ties, a bunch of other stuff, and a “Swiss Army” luggage set — a large bag and a matching one in carry-on size.
Exiting the market, we were approached by a kid selling pirated DVDs — name the film, and you could buy a DVD for about $2. I was also chased into the taxi by a woman on the street selling socks — offering 15 pairs for about $7 for various black dress socks (with the “Boss” logo) and white work-out socks emblazoned with the Nike logo. I literally had to get the cab driver to pull away with the door open to get away from this woman!
Most countries in the third world never respect intellectual property rights. Piracy is so rampant in asian countries. ;-,