Foreign Retailers Should Adapt

Having spent over 35 years in the retail markets of apparel, food and hardware as a supplier and sales and marketing specialist to firms from “mom and pop” to national chains in size, I read with interest and amusement the Aug. 23 article “A Time for Big Decisions in Little Saigon.”

The article contained both the difficulties and solutions of the Saigon in America dilemma.

The photos of the Vietnamese mall shops showed signs printed in a “chicken-tracks” style font that cannot be read by English-speaking Americans. Any visiting shopper could easily wander into a nail salon, seeking acupuncture treatment.

Should I decide to move my family and all my in-laws to Germany and open any retail business, I would have all signs and advertisements printed in German, speak German and hire German citizens as clerks to assure the success of my venture.

I would be obliged to clearly and legibly mark all merchandise in German with prices. There would be no haggling over price and no argumentative offers would be permitted or allowed.

I would be keenly aware that I was not doing business in Rapid City, S.D., or a rice paddy in Vietnam.

The situation in retailing is called culture adaptation or demographic awareness. Merchants reluctant to offer or provide this basic amity are inviting failure.

While the customer may not always be right, they expect to be treated as a customer, not as an adversary by the store family.

Lastly, a credit-card sale cannot be consummated with a shoe-box cash drawer. The article stated merchant David Du Tran “hired an American to handle customer service.” I would certainly hope so, considering his store is in America.

W.M.L. LAWSON

Costa Mesa