7th Global Indian Shopping Festival (GISF): An Analysis.

Recently, I surveyed another "expo" at the MVEC (Mid Valley Exhibition Centre). For this round, it was the Indian Global Shopping Festival, which has MATRADE support (in other words, governmental financial support & subsidy). All three halls were taken, and in the Atrium, a make-shift platform constructed, with rows of chairs laid for the audience for this very purpose.

Hall 1- The hall of focus comprising entirely India participants.
It showcased many of the participants who came direct from India, with ware such as

• knitwear
• bangles & accessories
• indian male & females wear (Punjabi suits, sandals, etc).
• idol structures, and worship equipment
• indian sweets

Hall 2- Both Indian & local participants, providing lifestyle & aesthetic products

• a local merchant retailing the premium Indian skincare products- Shahnaz Herbals
• loads of local merchants selling kacang puteh,
• among many, a Jesal Sweet House selling Indian sweets (that I had bought some milk sweets- RM6 for 200gm).
• Wedding & photography package service providers by local merchants: Indian sales personnel dressed up in indian formal wear to target the Indian crowd. There was surprisingly even a chinese provider- with chinese models in their albums…!
• Bizzy Body, a local lifestyle & beauty service provider.
• Henna tattooing services
• Chiill Reflexollogy- a local body message services.
• Grolier- educational & encyclopedias serviced by a local merchant, with Indian sales personnel targeting the many parents and families with young children still in school.

Hall 3- Many local participants, providing lifestyle & aesthetic skincare products.
Among the local merchants being,

• Shake House (utilizing Herbalife products);
• D’Care, & G’Wellness (herbal supplements for regulating & control of diabetes; detoxifying & metabolism- an MLM health supplement company)
• The Cambridge Diet (Neucor)
• Femme Nutri Soup for ladies problems

Market Analysis:
According to my manager, the expo formerly had more participants from India, but due to the current economic recession, the expo may have had difficulties recruiting as many as previously, and may have had to rely on recruitment of local participants.

That said, evidence was shown through the recruitment of some chinese merchants demonstrating the use of chinese cookware in malay language, which barely drew any attention from the Indian crowd.

Price & Target Audience:
Price-wise, the participants would have of high probability had enrolled as there was governmental financial support & subsidy to participate in the show. MATRADE was subsidising 50% of eligible activities, including participation fee paid to the organiser, cost of promotional materials, advertising cost in Show Directory, airfare & accomodation for out-of-town participants.

Published rates (before subsidy) to participate in the expo started from 6,000- 9,000.00 RM depending on booth location & number of booths taken.

Sales Output:
However, in terms of quality purchases, it might be less than desired as there were many participants retailing products of the same nature, creating a price competition. This includes too the factors that although the socio-economic status of the target audience, being the Indians, is rising, many of them who come from the out-of-town areas, and even in the city itself, still many not have the purchasing power as the Indian merchants may desire.

However, if made on the basis that transactions are made in Ringgit will be converted to Rupee, there might be enough to break-even as the cost of participating (which is highly subsidised by MATRADE) was affordable, considering it was over the span of 10 days.

For the international India participants who maybe there for the purpose of utilizing it as a trade show in the intent of soliciting local distributors and creating awareness & publicity for their products, it would be solely for that reason. Good sales, and enquiries of their ware will be a good indicator to the merchants of the kind of merchandise which may draw a good response from among the Malaysian-born-Indian crowd.

Related Links:
Official Website: Global Indian Shopping Festival (GISF)

Other Exhibitions: Surveying & Soliciting Leads

For the last two days, I had made my way to a beauty expo held at KLCC to survey the market. Actually, it's my second day in a row to the Expo. Both times, it was a rushed job, as my staff & I barely had much hours to roam around the place.

On Monday, I headed with my staff to check out the place. The traffic wasn't that bad in Kuala Lumpur during that time (about 3.30pm ish), and I had dragged a friend, Asta along too as well. We managed to procure ourselves some Ayuverdic body skincare products, managed by a Chinese.

One Tuesday, I went with my cousin, Jane to the show. It was not initially in our books to head to the show, but as there were some products on showcase essential to a woman's youthfulness and upkeep, my cousin was all for it. She is about five years my senior, and has about 10 years of salesmanship experience under her belt. So of course, this was pretty much her forte. >.<

Since I was the person managing a new area of interest for our exhibition, and had to solicit new leads, you can imagine the difficulty of the situation for the freshman that I was. Thankfully, Jane was generous in heaping advice and tips in this area of Marketing & Selling.

Some Understanding & Learning to take away from the survey:
1) Companies that are new in the market, and are looking for dealers make good leads as they need to increase public awareness of their range of products. Their managers are and would be more open to the different avenues where they can create awareness for their merchandise, and hence their decision making process to close would be shorter.

2) Companies with established range of products no longer need an expo to create and raise awareness for their products. A range of products like SKII, Kanebo, etc have established their reputation in the skincare market. It would not be to their best interest to participate in an end-user expo, as this would not complement their reputation, and "devalue the image" of their products.

3) Always bring an ample supply of name cards to Expos. You never know when you may find a prospect lead. However, this can be done discreetly, as not to invoke the attention of the Organiser's staff who may not tolerate a competition's misdeameanor at their expense.

4) When giving the name card to the lead, also too telling them the location of a popular place which has good crowd traffic will surely perk up their interest. As the sales person to, say to the prospect that you will "contact them", and DO get in touch with them!!

5) Foreign companies may not bring much resources with them (meaning, a few products here & there, and some pamphlets, and brochures). However, do not think low of their potential, as should they be able to find a dealer, that will mean up to about half a million Dollars/Ringgit worth of merchandise being imported, as I was informed by my Manager during a discussion.

Malaysia: Hard-sellling Outlet Managers

The Bad Experience I had Today:

Today I had an experience with this Chinese manager, Christine who had replaced the current beauty salon manager of the Outlet that I am currently patronizing. It's the time of the month, where I presume that perhaps the HeadQuarters are pushing their outlet managers to reach their sales quota but this is no excuse for such behaviour from a Salon Manager.

Christine kept insisting that I convert my current service package that I am using to the one she had in mind., which was a "so-called" promotion by their company. Guess how much is that amount?

Amount To Convert:

RM3,000.00! WHAT? Does she think that money grows on trees?

She was hounding me from the second week I started with her (I've only done only 5 days out of the 25 days that I was eligible to). So I've got a total of 20 more days my treament credits to go. Plus two more facial credits.

Christine's Faux Paux:

Christine had the gall to say that whatever in "black & white" that Kelly (the previous manager who is a Chinese) has written for me will be the one that Christine will continue prescribing to me. Whereby, what Kelly had done was, that was for the recording purposes "in black & white" for the HeadQuarters to see, but she as Manager could do as she deemed fit to help me achieve my outcomes.

There are some key areas where she had done wrong whereby,
1) She critisized the past work of past staff when they had not done anything wrong, is just really wrong. It gives a bad impression to clients of her as a Manager.

2) Taking the reassurance out of customers for a past purchase will only deter them from patronizing the service provider in future. It makes them feel that they have made an unwise decision in making that transaction.

3) Not honouring the promises that were given by the previous Outlet Manager. Does that mean that your company's representatives can't deliver its promises?

Further, she stated that in order for "results to show" from the services that I had purchased, I will have to "top-up" on it, so that it will be GUARANTEED. RIGHT.

From previous experience, according to Kelly, she had said that the terms "Guaranteed Assurance" means that the client must be willing to "listen to the beauty consultant's recommendations", in which according to this blog author's translation means:

"to further invest financially" in paying more for "further expensive un-necessary so-called-complementary-merchandise-which-may-or-may-not work". Which could cost the customer a freaking few more Grand in Ringgit Malaysia.

What Christine Should Have Done:

The biblical words of " A House that is Divided Will Not Stand" comes to mind.

1) Christine should have been more FLEXIBLE & "looked further to the BIG PICTURE", by playing along with what Kelly had done, stating that what Kelly had decided was the best option during that time, but they had come up with a better alternative scheme "along the way" to help the customers.

2) She should have taken the path of converting my "unused credits" to more "viable options" that would help me achieve what I had set out to do sooner, rather than "threatening" the client. By doing so, it would have left the client with a more satisfying solution.

As they say, a "satisfied customer" will bring in more leads (which will translate to more sales).

My Best Solution to Manage this Scenario:
I had a good mind to report her to the HeadQuarters. But what did I finally do?

I wanted to see what she will do next. So, I just IGNORED her and told her she can do whatever she wants to do, gave her a nice smile, & walked out of the salon.

In future, I will just ignore her suggestions, since Christine has just lost my trust as a "trustworthy Manager". Yes, and I might drop a word with the HQ after all. I want to see what else the company would do from now.

Cash vs Card Charges: Ask for a Discount!

Did you ever know that when we pay by cash at a lot of stores these days, we can negotiate with the merchant to get a further discount?

Many customers do not realise that many of the merchants absorb "inter-change fees" that is charged by the card Issuer Bank for the transactions that is made. The rate charged can be as low as 1.3%, to an exorbitant 2.5% of the amount charged. Rates charged depends on the type of card used, or whether the card is the Issuer Bank's range of cards as well.

According to my understanding, the charges from the bank for using the terminals are:
- monthly charge for terminal used.
- phone line rental charge for terminal.
- Inter-change Fees (per transaction!)
- Discount rate (processing fee per transaction!)
- Address Verification Charge (for mail/telephone order)
- Annual Fee to MasterCard & Visa.

Hence, in reality, we are saving the merchant a lot of transaction fees & charges when we do not use a card. Take that knowledge and ask the merchant for a discount. Most times, the merchant will rather give you an discount when the customer offers to pay in cash than to have to pay the exorbitant fee when the card is used.

We might not get any reward points that way, but the freebies and other services that are probably thrown in will cost more than the reward points any day.

Related Links:
The Independent: What, No Cash Discount?
Blag A Deal: Getting a Discount for Cash.
Blog: Ideal rates & fees:

Debate: Cash vs Credit Card vs Debit Card in Malaysia.

Today I finally made the decision to return all the credit cards belonging to my parents back to them. One is a Gold HSBC Gold, and the other is a Citibank Gold. I will ask them to return it when I head my bottoms back to Australia.... but that is another story.....

The only cards I have to use now is the Maybank Bankcard (Yellow ATM card), and a Maybank Visa Debit Card. However, after the atrocious experience of having someone swiping my Maybank Visa Debit Card, I decided that it was most unwise to place too much money in the latter. Hence, it will be treated more like an emergency "prepaid" card.

Many of the staff handling credit card terminals in Malaysia are really ignorant on safeguarding their customer's interest, for simple things like ensuring that the signature of the card matches the one on the invoice chit. Managers may feel it is time consuming to provide proper training for their staff, nor ensure that their staff are accountable for their dealings.

Fortunately in my case, Maybank decided to absorb the theft and refunded the unauthorized amount swiped from my account. In summary, it is useless to have a chip enabled card Visa/Mastercard Debit card, and all the high flung security features, IF the people handling the terminals do not execute their roles to protect the interest of their customers.

Related Links:
1. Which one? : Debit or Credit
2. Cash or Credit Card Experiment.
3. Using Credit Card to buy a car.