Shanghai - Sales Tactics at its Finest

The first two days of our 5D4N trip was good and surprising, since we were not brought to any shops that do hard selling - contrary to what we are expecting.  

Summarizing the highlights of our first two days, these are the major tourist areas we have visited :  The Pearl Tower, Pudong Skyline and the Bund.

Driving 3 hours away from Shanghai City, we passed by the multilevel express ways of Shanghai.

Arriving at HangZhou, we passed by this spherical building: Hangzhou International Convention Center:

 and the famous West Lake greeted us with this lovely sunset:

And now, lets continue to the rest of the itineraries in our trip, which was overall an eye opener to the sales and shopping tactics in China. 

Day 3 - HangZhou - Wuxi

On the way to our first stop, our local guide started to explain the benefits of drinking Green Tea, and as expected we were brought to the green tea plantation - Long Jing Wen Cha Old Town, this is where the 3hrs sales talk transpired.

After a decent lunch in HangZhou, we headed to WuXi on a 2.5hrs road trip.

Arriving Wuxi, we first stopped at Mt. LingShan - The Great Buddha City and watch a water fountain show.

The compound is really big, and its almost have a theme park feeling inside, the Main Temple which has massive and grandiose ornaments and jade walls, almost felt like inside St. Peter's Basilica .  Unfortunately my photos inside were compromised, and I was only able to save this photo of the shoe covering which everybody is mandatory to wear while inside the hall, due to the expensive French marble floorings. (according to our guide)

After almost 3 hours inside the Buddha City, we headed for dinner -

Then we were given our free time in Wanda Square shopping mall, which has the supermarket for us to buy more food items (this is where I bought the Long Jing green tea).

Day 4 - Wuxi - SuZhou 

As usual the whole morning was spent in shops: the Pearl Expo shop , then the Tea Bowl Museum. 

 

After the above 2 shopping stops, we went to this restaurant which has specialty fish dish.
 

However, this fresh water fishes doesn't taste as good as what we have here in Southeast Asia.

After lunch, we went to South River Wuxi - Yun He Gu Yi - along the river we had 2 stops:  Kiln museum, and Chu Da Chun - Heritage house:

After Wuxi, we then went to SuZhou, which is only 1hr away, this for me was the place which has least to see - Couples garden (or no interesting for me) .

We then went to Yuan Rong Times Square (largest LC as ceiling/roof) and previously developed by Singapore Government,

at night we saw Li Gong Causeway (Bird nest and Pants building)

After the short stop for a view of Fuzhou night scenery, we went for dinner:

After dinner we requested our guide to contact a reflexology parlor to pick us from our hotel, 

The reflexology massage costs 140rmb for 90 mins.
 

Day 5 - Suzhou - Shanghai


Our fifth and last day started in 1st Suzhou - Silk Factory, this for me was the most flop sales stunt, since nobody from our group bought anything from this Silk Shop.

After the morning shopping stop, we had lunch at a restaurant beside the Silk shop:

After lunch we head back to Shanghai for 1.5 hrs, in Shanghai we were brought to Tong Ren Yang Sheng chinese medicine shop, 

and last in our itinerary was at this Jade shop.

Inside this Jade shop,  is where I witness a very creative sales tactic, which I only realize after I returned to Singapore and heard the same story from my friends :

Inside a room where tourist visitors are escorted to, this is where the sales personnel gives introduction, and presents their products.

At first a lady went in to give introduction, then the "manager" went in, who acts funny, because he was trembling, since according to him, he is just started in the shop for 2 weeks, and his parents are the distributors of the jades they are selling, so to avoid loosing face, he told us to act naturally outside (in the main shop area) , and he promise to give us a special discount, since he said the price of their displays are too high, and he can give us good price since his parents are the distributors of those jades. He even uses Cantonese since most of our groups are Malaysian Chinese who are conversant in their native dialect.

After 30 minutes amusing talks, we went to the shop area, and in an exclusive shop room, he started to show us the Jade pieces: necklaces, pendants, pearl earrings, necklace. As he shows the item he announces the price to slash it down to 10% of the original value, (some jade bracelets are costs 1million Rmb), the sales personnel present are all looked shocked, and some gives comments that the price are too low to make profit, their facial expressions are really genuine and believable. Then time pass by, almost 2 hrs after, our group have bought 3 items from them. At that time every one was happy, feeling they were lucky to have met the boss son.

After that last shop, we still have 3 hrs left before our flight departure, so our group coordinated to ask the guide to bring us to Luja Zui area (to see Bund at night time, and get up close to the Pearl Tower), our guide is kind enough to charge us only 30 Rmb per head since that place is excluded from out itinerary.

In conclusion, we did enjoyed our tour, because our guide is passionate and a good story teller. So whether your group tour is in budget or not, it is still both enjoyable as long as you have a good guide. 

Hope you enjoyed reading this article and next time you plan a trip, why not consider taking from the coupon shops?  To download this article to your mobile devices, visit this link.