Interview Summaries

I have posted the summary of relevant answers or insights from the interviews.

Name: Michael Wang
Age: 25
Number of Siblings: 0
City/Province: Canton, ZhuHai
Marital Status: Single
Social Class: Middle
Years in N.Z: 4 .5 years
Been back to china often, recently: 2 times 2004,2006
N.Z Accommodation: House
Accommodation in china: Apartment
If apartments/high rise: what level? 4

Name: Kevin Ren
Age: 24
Number of Siblings: 0
City/Province: Canton
Marital Status: Single
Social Class: Middle class
Years in N.Z: 4
Been back to china often, recently: every year
N.Z Accommodation: Apartment
If apartments/hostels: what level? 2nd
Accommodation in china: Apartment
If apartments/high rise: what level? 19th

Name: Marko Shi
Age: 24
Number of Sibling(s): 1
City/Province: ShenZhen
Marital Status: Single
Social Class: middle class
Years in N.Z: 6
Been back to china often, recently: every year
N.Z Accommodation: House
Accommodation in china: Apartment
If apartments/high rise: what level? 3



Name: Kent Gao
Age: 31
Number of Siblings: 1
City/Province: SunDe
Marital Status: Married
Social Class: lower middle class
Years in N.Z: 4.5years
Been back to china often, recently: 2007
N.Z Accommodation: House
Accommodation in china: Apartment
If apartments/high rise: what level? 4

Name: Kailin Huang
Age: 22
Number of Siblings: 0
City/Province: ShiChuan, ChengDu
Marital Status: Single
Social Class: Middle Class
Years in N.Z: 4.5years
Been back to china often, recently: 3 times
N.Z Accommodation: House
Accommodation in china: Apartment
If apartments/high rise: what level? 4 and 6 (2 apartments)

Summary:

• N.Z has great views – green, garden everywhere, park everywhere, we have gardens in china but not very good.



• N.Z Air is clean, not polluted like Guangzhou, you can't see the sky.



• You can see stars in china but not as clear as New Zealand.



• Most people likes nature rather than man made buildings.



• Interior walls are mostly white.



• Windows are generally closed, because it gets really dusty.



• Most apartment are not open planned.



• Most curtains and blinds are closed because neighbouring apartments are too close; no privacy, no view and for security reasons.



• Usually 3 people live in a apartment.



• Good views from apartment are expensive.



• Having a beautiful scenery can help them relax, feel more comfortable; or more of a lifestyle than just living.

IKEA - Similar Philosophy "a better everyday life"

The IKEA business idea is to offer a wide range of home furnishings with good design and function at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them. And still have money left!

Most of the time, beautifully designed home furnishings are created for a small part of the population — the few who can afford them. From the beginning, IKEA has taken a different path. That means responding to the home furnishing needs of people throughout the world. People with many different needs, tastes, dreams, aspirations...and wallets. People who want to improve their homes and create better everyday lives.

For more information visit: www.ikea.com/ms/en_CN/

Route To Market - Do It Yourselves!

Orient Home, Home Depot, B&Q and more

The home improvement market on the mainland is the most promising in the world: $50 billion in sales in 2005 and growing at 12% a year. Homeownership has skyrocketed, from near zero two decades ago, when there was virtually no private property, to 70% of all housing today.

Even though that these stores sell Do It Yourself goods, they provide the service of installing all the furniture/goods at the purchasers home.

For more information visit: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_18/b3982066.htm

History of Blinds

Say the word "blinds" and some of us picture the two inch wide Venetian blinds of the 50's. They were two inch wide metal slats that were hung together with fabric strips to allow raising, lowering or tilting. They were, generally, noisy and by most standards did little to spruce up a room. But you can go a lot farther back in history to find the first application of blinds to windows. The early Egyptians strung together reeds from the mighty Nile for their version and the ancient Chinese cultures used bamboo. Hop on up to the eighteenth century and blinds were used as a modernization over bulky wooden shutters. Today those metal blinds of the 50's were replaced in the 80's by one inch vinyl mini blinds you can still use to decorate your windows, plus a wide variety of applications. Why are blinds so popular today?

• Blinds can be pleasing to the eye, with regular horizontal lines to make each window uniform, when viewed from either inside or outside your home.
  


• Blinds offer a wide selection of colors and style.
  


• When carefully designed, blinds can give you privacy from neighbors as well as almost complete blockage of light for the daytime sleeper or those long summer days.
  


• Some blinds will help keep the heat in your house in the winter and the sunlight out in the summer, making them a great energy saver.
  


• While fabric window treatments are difficult to clean themselves and if puddled on the floor, difficult to clean around, blinds don't interfere with vacuuming, and with some newer applications of paint, can actually discourage dust from settling on them.

Window Blinds

Pleated Blind

Vertical Blind

Venetian blind details

Details of Blind Stick (turning rod)

Horizontal Blinds

A window blind or door blind is a covering for a window or door, usually attached to the interior side of a window. Blinds hide from sight (thus "blinding" a viewer of the window) or to reduce sunlight. Blinds have varying thermal effects: they can block unwanted heat of the summer sun and they can keep in heat in cold weather. But in both of these applications, they also reduce light to varying degrees, depending on the design. Many kinds of blinds attempt varying balances of blinding external viewers and allowing sunlight.

All kinds of blinds can also be motorised and, because of this, automated. Some motorised door blinds are transpassables (one can cross them). Motorized shades can be controlled from a wall switch or keypad, remote control, or a personal computer. This eliminates the hazard of dangling cords

For more information visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window_blind

China's Bobo

Bobo is often used in place of the word yuppie, which has usually negative connotations.

Often of the corporate upper-middle to upper class, they rarely oppose mainstream society, claim highly tolerant views of others, buy lots of expensive and exotic items, and believe American society to be meritocratic.

The term BoBo, short for bourgeois Bohemian, has caught on in China since David Brooks's book "BoBos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There" was translated into Chinese and published in separate editions in Taiwan and China.
.In cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, the word is on everyone's lips — especially young executives and other members of the nouveau riche, known in Chinese as "xiaozi" or "petit bourgeoisie" — a group that was once a target of ideological campaigns.

For more information visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourgeois_bohemian, http://www.iht.com/articles/2003/11/26/edlee_ed3_.php, http://www.forbes.com/businesswire/feeds/businesswire/2007/04/02/businesswire20070402005197r1.html
and http://www.chinatoday.com.cn/English/e20038/8p44.htm

China's Illusary Middle Class

Everyone has a different definition of the "middle class" that is supposed to be behind this growth in consumer spending.

"There's no real definition of middle class," said Jonathan Anderson, chief Asia economist at investment bank UBS. "If you want to identify the number of people who can afford a mobile handset, the answer would run to nearly the entire population. If your definition is how many people have 'significant discretionary power', [it's] 100-125 million."

For more information visit: http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/may2007/gb20070509_866451.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_global+business

Disecting Middle Class

Who is considered middle class? This is a subject of debate for most people.

It suggests that "middle class" is no longer an abstract concept in sociology but a strong force that could help reshape society as a whole. Political sensitiveness in China means that "middle class" can be termed in many other ways - such as "middle-income stratum," "middle-income group" or just "middle stratum." But it usually refers to a group of people with stable incomes who are capable of purchasing private houses and cars, and can afford the costs of education and holidays. In fact, the emerging "middle class" in China carries special meaning for multinationals that are counting on the huge Chinese market to boost their growth.

Based on an annual growth of one percentage point, the "middle class" people in China is expected to make up for 40 per cent of the total population in 2020, the academy report said.
According to the academy's standard, families with assets valued from 150,000 (US$18,137) to 300,000 yuan (US$36,275) can be classified as middle class.

For more information visit: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-10/27/content_386060.htm

Product Opportunity Gap

This graph shows the existing competitors on the market for 'Looking Out' and the market positioning comparing Cost and Technology.

1. Cheap Rag Curtain
2. Polyester/Cotton Curtains on railing
3. Painted Bamboo Curtain
4. Curtains on pulley track
5. Painted Vertical and Roman blinds
6. Screen Printed Blinds
7. UV Protected Blinds
8. SPD, Electrochromatic, Photochromatic, Smart Glass

The X represents where 'Looking Out' is going to placed within the market. It is high in technology as I am designing for the near future market and foresee the demand for such product at an affordable cost to the middle class sector. It is a matter of Demand and Supply to drive down the technology, and manufacturing cost.

Single Minded Proposition

“外看(looking out) - Improve lifestyle through visual stimulation”

Target Market

Who am I targeting?

• Emerging Middle Class Sector from the 1.4 billion population of China


• 13 per cent of the country's urban households, or 24.5 million household with a total of 75 million people, will become middle stratum families in 2005.


• The number is expected to amount to 25 per cent in 2010, indicating 57 million households with 170 million people will be classified as middle stratum.


• Five categories of people are expected to represent the new middle stratum:

1. entrepreneurs in high-tech companies


2. managerial staff working in foreign firms in China


3. middle and high-level managerial staff in State-owned financial institutions


4. professional technicians in various fields especially in intermediary firms


5. some self-employed private entrepreneurs.

Age Bracket:

• Take-Care-By-Government – 50+


• Xiao Kang – 40+


• Astronaut – 30+


• Bobo (Bourgeois Bohemian) – 20+

I have chosen the 3 highlighted age bracket groups as my potential markets. Even though Xiao Kang groups are the most well off out of the 4 groups, it is the Astronaut and Bobo groups which are more inclined to accept changes and western influences. In saying so they still feel cut adrift somewhere between Chinese traditional and modern culture. The Take-Care-By-Government groups are mostly all for Chinese traditional culture and nothing else.