Selling to expats

Last week I entered clothing shop Jukebox in shopping mall Central in Singapore, looking for pants to wear for informal business meetings. I knew exactly what I was looking: kaki pants, cotton. No jeans. Although I actually saw imediately that this was not the shop to be in, I decided to have a quick look: after all, you never know. The moment I entered the shop, the three sales people who were obviously not too busy at that moment, remembered everything they learned at their sales training and sang “Hello Sir, welcome, can we help you?”. Although I remembered I clearly answered their question with “No, thank you, just looking around”, one of the sales ladies repeated the question another time after 30 seconds and one minute later her male colleague had a blue jeans hanging in front of me. He had apparantly been taught to be proactive, and he was. I made clear that I was not looking for jeans, threw a quick glance at another rack and left the shop slighly irritated because the sales people didn’t ask for my needs and tried to push sales.

Intercultural business does not go without speaking. Thousands of handbooks have been written about how to negotiate with the Chinese, what diner etiquettes to remember in Japan and how to shake hands in Brazil. And this case was a typical example of intercultural business on the floor.

Although a Westernized society, here in Singapore, I can see on a daily basis that differences are big. The original cultures come to the surface in shops and restaurants. And although quite often annoying or even irritating (nobody can help; that’s what cultural differences sometimes cause), you can only respect it. I hope I don’t sound arrogant, but I even feel kind of sorry for them sometimes. They are trying so hard, but it doesn’t work. At least not for me and a lot of other foreigners I know.   

In addition, this is not only a matter of culture, it’s also the stage of development of service. Singapore is doing very well and developing really fast. But there is still a way to go. Service is not yet at  the level we are used to in the US or Europe. But Singapore, and Asia, are catching up very quickly.

However you look at it, it shows once again; one can change the environment in a year, but you can’t change a generation in the same time. Selling to the Chinese in Singapore is something completely different than selling to a foreigner, especially when he or she lives here. Maybe the National University of Singapore (NUS) should start a training program ‘Selling to expats’. They can call me to do some teaching:-) Time will do the rest.