"[BEIJING] Home Depot Inc., the U.S.-based home improvement retailer, said Friday it will close its remaining seven big box outlets in China and focus on Internet-based sales and specialty stores."
So when these affluent Chinese home and appartment dwellers hire someone to perform some work, install some new fixture, etc -> where do the hired contractors buy the materials / fixtures / tools ???
Large contractors have traditionally had enough contacts on the wholesale side that they didn't need to buy stuff at retail outlets, but Home Despot (and other similar big-box building stores) have enabled more people to get into the contracting business on a smaller scale. I would have thought the same would apply in China too.
I=92m guessing that they have little mom and pop operations that manufacture their own doors, windows etc.=20 Since they don=92t have to worry about environmental and labor regulations or quality control like we do=20 they can do it very cheap and they don=92t even have to pay a middle-man like Home Depot.
Walmart? Harbor Freight?
Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus
So when these affluent Chinese home and appartment dwellers hire someone to perform some work, install some new fixture, etc -> where do the hired contractors buy the materials / fixtures / tools ???
Most Chinese people live in tiny little company owned dormitories. They have nothing to remodel.
Most Chinese people live in tiny little company owned dormitories. They have nothing to remodel.
So now you're bottom posting, since one of your top-posts screwed up an attribution? Did you bump your head or something?
A friend of mine just spent 7 years living in Beijing. He and his wife bought 3 apartments there, and "remodeled" all of them. I put remodeled in quotes, because brand new apartments there are unfinished. Basically just roughed-in structures. Plumbing, electrical, drywall, flooring, interior doors, lighting, is primitive to non-existent when you move in. At one place, there wasn't even a bathroom door when they bought it. He insisted the seller install one, and when he came back, the new bathroom door was clear glass.
The Chinese people, by and large, have never seen plumbing and wiring concealed inside walls. Bathrooms are wet rooms, with a shower head in one corner and a drain in the middle of the floor. No tub or shower enclosure at all. The toilet *is* the hole in the floor.
Virtually every time my friend hired a "tradesman," the work was done wrong, and he made them rip it out and start over, under his supervision. They've never heard of levels. They don't know you're supposed to use a wye instead of a T in drain pipes. Etcetera ad infinitum. So, I guess they don't need Home Depots, because everything is so primitive, and they seem fine with it like that. Even paint is rare to unheard of.
They metamorphose into the king and queen of England=20 when they buy a home here in the U.S. though. =20 If anything is even just a little bit off=20 you don=92t get paid until it=92s completely right.
HD didn't build the stores, they bought out a copycat chain The Home Way. My first thought was that closing them was all part of the plan.
mGo back and read that. There was nothing bottom posted, I corrected the attribution.
Sounds like the Chinese use the same quality as they do when making products for Walmart? The clear door to the bathroom is comical, in its tragedy.
Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus
So now you're bottom posting, since one of your top-posts screwed up an attribution? Did you bump your head or something?
A friend of mine just spent 7 years living in Beijing. He and his wife bought 3 apartments there, and "remodeled" all of them. I put remodeled in quotes, because brand new apartments there are unfinished. Basically just roughed-in structures. Plumbing, electrical, drywall, flooring, interior doors, lighting, is primitive to non-existent when you move in. At one place, there wasn't even a bathroom door when they bought it. He insisted the seller install one, and when he came back, the new bathroom door was clear glass.
The Chinese people, by and large, have never seen plumbing and wiring concealed inside walls. Bathrooms are wet rooms, with a shower head in one corner and a drain in the middle of the floor. No tub or shower enclosure at all. The toilet *is* the hole in the floor.
Virtually every time my friend hired a "tradesman," the work was done wrong, and he made them rip it out and start over, under his supervision. They've never heard of levels. They don't know you're supposed to use a wye instead of a T in drain pipes. Etcetera ad infinitum. So, I guess they don't need Home Depots, because everything is so primitive, and they seem fine with it like that. Even paint is rare to unheard of.
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