While tough economic times are making many Taiwanese more price conscious, most still like to hunt down a good bargain, according to a consumer behavior survey reveled last week.
"Over the last year, or especially since the Sept. 21 earthquake in 2000, Taiwanese seem to be more interested in buying good quality products at reduced prices. That is, they prefer to make purchases when stores hold sales or offer rebates," said Tsai Hung-hsien (
Eastern is a local marketing research company that focuses on consumer behavior in the "greater China" market.
Comparing data from 1997 and this year, the report said price has become the first priority for the public, while the importance of quality is increasing as well.
"Consumer demand for cheaper brand-name products is high."
Tsai also said shoppers seem increasingly willing to make short-term purchases.
"Consumers appear to be unwilling to make a long-term investment on a house or a car. They seem to be waiting for the economy to improve," he said
As a result, "super discount" and "one-dollar product stores" are now popular.
"Our best selling commodities are in the medium and low price ranges, while the really high-end products are just for show," said Albert Loh (
The group is hosting the Taipei International Audio and Video Show at Taipei World Trade Center. The show runs until 6pm today.
Visitors have been willing to purchase discounted items, such as a home theater systems priced below NT$10,000 and NT$5,000 DVD players. Solid brand names are not overlooked though.
"Even though international brand electronics products are slightly more expensive than products made in Taiwan or China, the public still tends to select imported products," Loh said.
The same phenomenon can be seen in the garment sector as well.
Early this month, Taipei's first outlet shopping center opened to the public in Neihu, featuring out-of-season, brand-name attire. The outlet's management says sales of brand-name products remains promising.
"Brand-name lovers won't give up their preferences, but they will try their best to find a good bargain on their favorite brand," said Wang Wan-cheng (
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day