Chinanews, Hangzhou, Jan. 5 – In many Asian countries, 2007 is considered not only as the Year of the Pig, but a year of golden pig which falls once in every 60 years according to folk legends. In China, shops, supermarkets and department stores follow a tradition that at the end of the year, they usually place a small, pretty piggy-bank inside the shop to help promote sales. In November last year, as many Chinese businesspeople rushed to buy these golden piggy-banks in Yiwu, the world’s largest market for retailed goods, they suddenly found that these piggy-banks were already out of sale. They had been bought up by Korean and Japanese businesspeople several months before the Chinese New Year arrives.
In China, the piggy-bank is usually made of porcelain and painted in a golden color. Mr. Zhong, a man who sells porcelain products in the Yiwu International Trade Center, said that he had sold porcelain products for more than ten years and usually, the business booming season would begin in November.
However, for this year, many Korean businesspeople moved one step ahead of their Chinese counterparts when the golden pig year is just around the corner. Starting from last August, businesspeople from Korea and Japan came to Yiwu to place orders for products related with the golden pig year and many of them bought a large number of golden porcelain piggy-banks. Each order contained the production of at least 6,000 products. At that time, many Chinese businesspeople had not placed their orders yet, said Zhong.
When Chinese businesspeople started to place their orders for piggy-banks at the end of 2006, about 70-80% of these products had already been sold out in Yiwu retail market. A piggy-bank manufacturer said that the hot sale was unprecedented in ten years.
In Mr. Zhong's store, the reporter happened to meet a salesman, Mr. Li, who came to Yiwu from Nanjing Jinqiao Market. He told the reporter that he started to come to Yiwu way back in last November ordering for piggy-banks. The sales were extremely good. This was the third time for him to come to Yiwu to place extra orders. In his previous two deals, he bought 1,000 golden porcelain piggy-banks each time. This time, he took his friends with him and they wanted to buy more. However, they didn’t see any sample product in the store, since Mr. Zhong had sold his sample two days ago.
Mr. Zhong explained that generally even in the most difficult situation, he wouldn’t sell his sample product. If he sold it, it meant that he wouldn’t accept any new orders. For him, he had already received too many orders from his previous customers asking him to produce more products for them. So, even if he accepted any new orders, he might not be able to produce enough products as customers required.
