Other Countries Still Perceive America as Status Quo
by Tran, Harry ~ May 14th, 2009. Filed under: My Writings, Rants n Raves.
When I was a child my parents owned an older Dodge, back in the 80s, it was a green vehicle and it got us from point A to point B, but eventually that car broke down, and we had to sell it. I was too young to remember much about that car, and while it was not as cool as a Dodge Charger as pictured above, it was a Dodge, and my parents never bought another Dodge ever since. There reason behind not buying another Dodge was because it required a lot of repairs for it to run.
My families perception was forever embedded into our heads, and as a child growing up my impression of Dodges were to avoid them. This impression was further fueled by the fact that the news was always negative in regards to American cars and their quality and reliability. This was not to say that the Japanese manufacturers don’t have recalls and defects but my story is mainly to emphasize that as newly arrived Asians my parents had this belief that American cars were quality. Back in the 80s they held that perception of the American car until their car did not meet their expectations.
Flash forward to today, and I was having a nice conversation with a buddy of mine and it further emphasizes how perception is all relative. As you can tell in the news article above Asians in developing countries such as China are in love with the American brands, enough to help them fuel their otherwise poor sales in America. Case in point, if you were to go to a country such as Vietnam, and had with you products that were made in America regardless of their quality you were actually considered pretty hip. Products that weren’t made in Vietnam or China actually carried a premium to them, and if you were to sell a product to a citizen in one of these developing countries according to by buddy, you would actually be able to rake in a hefty profit from the sale.
While this is not going to be any sustainable business model or anything since you would have to purchase and transport the items to the other country somehow thus eroding some of the premium that you would earn, it goes without a doubt to say that in countries where their own products are sub-par themselves, they look towards American products with admiration. While not everyone can afford to purchase all the products made in the states because of their purchase power parity you would think that with this knowledge in hand, it would be wise to send products back on a ship such as The Emma Maersk rather than sending it back empty.
