full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Angela Wang: How China is changing the future of shopping

Unscramble the Blue Letters


One of the trends I have seen concerns the spnitoeanty of snphiopg. Five years ago, in a fhisaon study, we found that on average, a Chinese ceounmsr would be buying five to eight pairs of sheos. This number tripled to reach about 25 pairs of shoes a year. Who would need so many pairs of shoes? So I asked them, "What are the reasons you buy?" They told me a list of inspirations: blogs, celebrity news, fashion information. But really, for many of them, there was no particular reason to buy. They were just browsing on their mobile site and then buying whatever they saw. We have observed the same level of spontaneity in everything, from grocery shopping to buying insurance products. But it is not very difficult to understand if you think about it. A lot of the cnsheie consumers are still very new in their middle-class or upper-middle-class lytfileses, with a sntorg drsiee to buy everything new, new products, new services. And with this integrated ecosystem, it is so easy for them to buy, one ccilk after another. However, this new shopping behavior is cetnarig a lot of challenges for those once-dominant businesses. The owner of a fashion company told me that he's so frustrated because his customers keep complaining that his products are not new enough. Well, for a fashion company, really bad comment. And he already iracsened the nuebmr of pudtocrs in each collection. It doesn't seem to work. So I told him there's something more important than that. You've got to give your consumer exactly what they want when they still want it. And he can learn something from the online apparel players in China. These cioenamps, they collect real consumer fbedeack from mobile steis, from social media, and then their designers will translate this information into product ideas, and then send them to microstudios for production. These moursiotcids are really key in this overall ecosystem, because they take slmal orders, 30 garments at a time, and they can also make ptllaariy customized pieces. The fact that all these production designs are done locally, the whole process, from transporting to product on shelf or online sometimes takes only three to four days. That is super fast, and that is highly responsive to what is in and hot on the market. And that is giving enormous headaches to traditional retailers who are only tinhikng about a few collections a year.

Open Cloze


One of the trends I have seen concerns the ___________ of ________. Five years ago, in a _______ study, we found that on average, a Chinese ________ would be buying five to eight pairs of _____. This number tripled to reach about 25 pairs of shoes a year. Who would need so many pairs of shoes? So I asked them, "What are the reasons you buy?" They told me a list of inspirations: blogs, celebrity news, fashion information. But really, for many of them, there was no particular reason to buy. They were just browsing on their mobile site and then buying whatever they saw. We have observed the same level of spontaneity in everything, from grocery shopping to buying insurance products. But it is not very difficult to understand if you think about it. A lot of the _______ consumers are still very new in their middle-class or upper-middle-class __________, with a ______ ______ to buy everything new, new products, new services. And with this integrated ecosystem, it is so easy for them to buy, one _____ after another. However, this new shopping behavior is ________ a lot of challenges for those once-dominant businesses. The owner of a fashion company told me that he's so frustrated because his customers keep complaining that his products are not new enough. Well, for a fashion company, really bad comment. And he already _________ the ______ of ________ in each collection. It doesn't seem to work. So I told him there's something more important than that. You've got to give your consumer exactly what they want when they still want it. And he can learn something from the online apparel players in China. These _________, they collect real consumer ________ from mobile _____, from social media, and then their designers will translate this information into product ideas, and then send them to microstudios for production. These ____________ are really key in this overall ecosystem, because they take _____ orders, 30 garments at a time, and they can also make _________ customized pieces. The fact that all these production designs are done locally, the whole process, from transporting to product on shelf or online sometimes takes only three to four days. That is super fast, and that is highly responsive to what is in and hot on the market. And that is giving enormous headaches to traditional retailers who are only ________ about a few collections a year.

Solution


  1. partially
  2. shopping
  3. increased
  4. shoes
  5. number
  6. creating
  7. spontaneity
  8. products
  9. microstudios
  10. desire
  11. sites
  12. consumer
  13. fashion
  14. feedback
  15. click
  16. lifestyles
  17. strong
  18. companies
  19. chinese
  20. small
  21. thinking

Original Text


One of the trends I have seen concerns the spontaneity of shopping. Five years ago, in a fashion study, we found that on average, a Chinese consumer would be buying five to eight pairs of shoes. This number tripled to reach about 25 pairs of shoes a year. Who would need so many pairs of shoes? So I asked them, "What are the reasons you buy?" They told me a list of inspirations: blogs, celebrity news, fashion information. But really, for many of them, there was no particular reason to buy. They were just browsing on their mobile site and then buying whatever they saw. We have observed the same level of spontaneity in everything, from grocery shopping to buying insurance products. But it is not very difficult to understand if you think about it. A lot of the Chinese consumers are still very new in their middle-class or upper-middle-class lifestyles, with a strong desire to buy everything new, new products, new services. And with this integrated ecosystem, it is so easy for them to buy, one click after another. However, this new shopping behavior is creating a lot of challenges for those once-dominant businesses. The owner of a fashion company told me that he's so frustrated because his customers keep complaining that his products are not new enough. Well, for a fashion company, really bad comment. And he already increased the number of products in each collection. It doesn't seem to work. So I told him there's something more important than that. You've got to give your consumer exactly what they want when they still want it. And he can learn something from the online apparel players in China. These companies, they collect real consumer feedback from mobile sites, from social media, and then their designers will translate this information into product ideas, and then send them to microstudios for production. These microstudios are really key in this overall ecosystem, because they take small orders, 30 garments at a time, and they can also make partially customized pieces. The fact that all these production designs are done locally, the whole process, from transporting to product on shelf or online sometimes takes only three to four days. That is super fast, and that is highly responsive to what is in and hot on the market. And that is giving enormous headaches to traditional retailers who are only thinking about a few collections a year.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
mobile phone 2
united states 2
full basket 2
times higher 2
social shopping 2
shopping journey 2
social media 2


Important Words


  1. apparel
  2. asked
  3. average
  4. bad
  5. behavior
  6. blogs
  7. browsing
  8. businesses
  9. buy
  10. buying
  11. celebrity
  12. challenges
  13. china
  14. chinese
  15. click
  16. collect
  17. collection
  18. collections
  19. comment
  20. companies
  21. company
  22. complaining
  23. concerns
  24. consumer
  25. consumers
  26. creating
  27. customers
  28. customized
  29. days
  30. designers
  31. designs
  32. desire
  33. difficult
  34. easy
  35. ecosystem
  36. enormous
  37. fact
  38. fashion
  39. fast
  40. feedback
  41. frustrated
  42. garments
  43. give
  44. giving
  45. grocery
  46. headaches
  47. highly
  48. hot
  49. ideas
  50. important
  51. increased
  52. information
  53. insurance
  54. integrated
  55. key
  56. learn
  57. level
  58. lifestyles
  59. list
  60. locally
  61. lot
  62. market
  63. media
  64. microstudios
  65. mobile
  66. news
  67. number
  68. observed
  69. online
  70. orders
  71. owner
  72. pairs
  73. partially
  74. pieces
  75. players
  76. process
  77. product
  78. production
  79. products
  80. reach
  81. real
  82. reason
  83. reasons
  84. responsive
  85. retailers
  86. send
  87. services
  88. shelf
  89. shoes
  90. shopping
  91. site
  92. sites
  93. small
  94. social
  95. spontaneity
  96. strong
  97. study
  98. super
  99. takes
  100. thinking
  101. time
  102. told
  103. traditional
  104. translate
  105. transporting
  106. trends
  107. tripled
  108. understand
  109. work
  110. year
  111. years