Who will lose out from the trend for cheap chic?

It’s the Primark effect: hard-pressed consumers are turning away from expensive branded goods in favour of cheap alternatives. But this latest consumer trend will have far-reaching consequences.

For those old enough to recall; soon after the second world-war, Japan made copies of well known products. A good example was the then famous RONSON cigarette lighter everybody smoked, so everybody had one similar lighters came on the market made in Japan that were labelled R.ONSON. A young Robin Day (now deceased), but then working for the BBC, interviewed, at London Airport, two visiting diplomats from Japan. At point blank he aggressively and rather rudely asked them to justify the process of making shoddy copies of good quality, western manufactured goods and selling them cheaply and unfairly. The diplomats chose not to answer the question, they simply rose and left the room.

That's how it starts. Emerging nation businesses start by competing at low technical levels, then from there they eventually compete at the highest technical levels. Japan's story attests to that process and it is one that is now repeating itself in Chindia on a massive scale.

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