When I saw the headline to this article, all I knew was that once I read the part that said “China’s First Ever Costco…” I knew that there was going to be some ironic gold, even before I got to the part about the fights over rotisserie chickens. Because let’s be real here, China isn’t just their own country, they occasionally act as if they’re an entirely different civilization from the rest of world, based on the shit they pull.
I mean, if the whole debacle with Ikea Shanghai weren’t any indication, where people routinely go into the store in order to take naps or just have a relaxing, air-conditioned venue in which to hang out or do chores like picking beansprouts, and Disney Shanghai, where guests would defecate in public places didn’t convince you, then it shouldn’t be a surprise that a Costco opening in Shanghai would also turn into a mammoth clusterfuck of a scenario.
Asians in general are notoriously cheap, so putting a known successful wholesale retailer in the mix with an entire Asian culture is an easy recipe for pretty much every Chinese person within the region to come and try to capitalize on those sweet, sweet savings.
I don’t think I could be paid enough money to go inside of a Costco in China, especially during its grand opening. Asian businesses are often encouraged to offer deals and discounts and prizes during grand openings to help entice shoppers and new customers to come in, but companies like Costco whose reputation precedes them, then clearly just the idea of them arriving was enough to get pretty much all of Shanghai to show up.
Reportedly, nobody could move once they got inside, because there were just that many people clogging the insides of the store. I couldn’t imagine being in a situation where I couldn’t wheel my cart, at all, and I’d probably just say fuck it and abandon ship and just get out of dodge if it turned out that I wasn’t even capable of moving to make my purchases, much less get out of the way.
But naturally, the biggest nugget of ironic humor was the reported fighting that occurred over the infamous Costco rotisserie chickens, which the company already knows are barely hanging on by a thread as profitable, but in order to not tarnish the goodwill of customers, won’t increase the prices. So if they’re barely like $5-6 in America and fly off the shelves here, I guess it’s not a surprise that they probably run about as cheap out in China, leading to near fisticuffs for those who want to get in on that cheap chicken.
Eventually, this will stabilize, as no matter where in the world, when a major and welcomed business comes to town, they’ll often start a house on fire. But for the time being, let’s pour one out for Costco Shanghai for their raucous and ironically humorous and chaotic grand opening, that the rest of the world can point and laugh at for a few weeks, and wait for the next global brand to fall flat on their face when they decide that opening in China seems like a great idea.
