Market Report — Taiwan
By Caroline Kennedy -- Gifts and Dec, 9/29/2006 6:10:00 AM
September 28, 2006 — The visit to Taiwan’s Taipei City also enabled me to visit within the Taiwan World Trade Center, an extensive modern facility that hosts many trade shows throughout the year (including Giftionery, October 24–26), as well as permanent showrooms for companies across wholesale/export business categories. It’s also the headquarters of TAITRA.
The exhibition space is on the ground floor. The upper floors, arranged around an atrium that looks down on part of the exhibition floor, are devoted to showrooms and offices for manufacturers and exporters of all kinds. While I was there, booths were being set up for a computer trade show.
SHENQ HORNG, POLYLIGHT
My Japanese colleague, Ryoko Mikami of the Japanese gift magazine Select Monthly, and I visited with two very different types of companies at the Trade Center, further illustrating the broader product reach of the Giftionery show. The first was Shenq Horng Ent. Co., designer, manufacturer and exporter of jewelry, and exporter of Taiwanese handicrafts. The second, Star of Madan Co., primarily produces precision grooming essentials (i.e. special scissors, strippers, combs and brushes, and shears) for show dogs, though the company also offers pet accessories for the non-show dog trade.
C.K. Lin, owner of Shenq Horng, gave us some insight into how Taiwanese businesses are changing in response to modern challenges. He founded his company in 1973, as a producer of fashion jewelry, decorative objects and quality souvenir items. But in recent years, challenged by the slow market and knock-offs from China and other countries, he is refocusing his business and concentrating on high quality Chinese cultural handicrafts and art for overseas customers. These quality handicrafts feature jade, coral, and gold — materials that complement his jewelry lines, which are mostly semi-precious stones.
Two other companies that we meet with — Polylight Electronics and Cheerful Fashion Goods — are responding to the changing business climate in a different way. Each is expanding its business by creating and marketing its own brand of product, as well as promoting and emphasizing design and production services.
Polylight’s president Michael Hsu remarked, “To grow our business against the competition from China, we need to promote and emphasize our design and production capabilities. We are not just a factory; our office is a design office. We have hired designers from here in Taiwan, and we have contacts with designers in both Thailand and Italy.”
Known as a producer of high style promotional items, Polylight is also introducing its own Smartek brand, which the company hopes will give it a further competitive advantage and establish a profitable name-brand identity. To start, the line will consist of radio-controlled clocks, pedometers, calculators and other precision small electronics. However, Polylight is looking to expand into other product categories such as eyewear and safety glasses, pens and more. The smart, contemporary line mixes graphic appeal with ergonomic design that makes the item more comfortable to use and in some items incorporate other elements that add a spot of fun for stress relief.
A CHEERFUL GROUP
For our final visit of this trip, we met with Chiel Hou, president of the Cheerful Group. A company that grew out of the premium products area, Cheerful Fashion Goods has established its own branded lines under the C la Vie name. Its fashion line consists of four collections of stationery products — pens, rulers, pads, notebook cases, and gift sets in stylish carrying cases — geared to a younger consumer. The Brilliant line offers pens, organizers, key fobs and other small stylish, leathergoods. Fine writing instruments incorporating a meditative element make up the Blessing line, and a licensed, private label line for Kinloch Anderson of Scotland makes up the last collection. This company also has not abandoned its premium products business, and offers design and production services to customers looking for premium, customized gifts.
One of the common threads among all the companies seen in Taiwan is the emphasis on service, quality and design innovation. In a country that at one time was known for its production of inexpensive, novelty and premium goods, the focus of Made in Taiwan products and manufacturing is evolving into a emphasis on design and customization, high quality, innovation, and local handicrafts, in order to stay competitive and growing in a global economy.
Because China now dominates the low-priced manufacturing arena, many of these companies have moved their production facilities to China to help keep their pricing affordable, but maintain design and development facilities in Taiwan, and are aggressively protective of their intellectual properties and those of their customers.
WARM AND WELCOMING
Everywhere I went in Taipei, I was welcomed with warmth and hospitality — and usually with Oolong tea, which is offered or served without question at each meeting. Courtesy seems to be everywhere, from the hotel and shops to the streets and taxicabs. A passing smile is met with a smile.
But my trip wasn’t all business meetings. I was able to get out and experience what Taipei and Taiwan have to offer a visitor. Taipei, thoroughly cosmopolitan, modern and charming city, is relatively easy to navigate on foot (at least if you have a good map and stay relatively on the main streets), and it’s much easier here to hail a cab there than it is in New York, even in the rain. Like many American cities and suburbs, there is a sprawl of shopping malls, but these malls sprawl more vertically than horizontally, usually in office tower buildings.
As you travel outside of Taipei City proper, the pervasiveness of Western culture falls quickly away. A tour up to the port city of Keelung and along the northern coast of Taiwan shows me more of the flavor of the traditional Taiwan, with older buildings and homes, morning markets, hilly geography, narrower winding streets, local businesses, and beautiful coastline with exotic sandstone geographic formations.
One such formation (known as the “Queen’s Head” because its shape is reminiscent of the bust of the Egyptian queen Nefertiti) will disappear within 20 years or so through the natural process of erosion. Lucky for me I got there in time!
SHOPPING THE SHOPS
And of course, I couldn’t resist investigating a gift shop or two in the course of my wanderings. And wander, I did. Tours are a wonderful way to get a sense of the high points of a city and country. But I find that the best way to get to know a place is to walk around. In the Living Mall, a large vertical mall not far from my hotel, I came upon Be Home, a bright, well-appointed store with gift and home accessories ranging from contemporary porcelain tea accessories and vases to frames, desk accessories and other giftwares.
As I made my way to visit Hsingtien Temple, I rounded the corner of a main road and come upon a surprising storefront. Giftnet presented a familiar merchandise mix including Precious Moments figurines, Reuge Music boxes, Disney character figurines and other collectible gift lines. And right next door to Giftnet was The Teddy Bear Shop, offering the interesting mix of plush, models, and Dr. Marten’s shoes.
The other direction from my hotel, I came across a stylish design showroom named My Life My Style, which offered furniture, decorative accessories and interior design services for the contemporary Taiwanese lifestyle. Even further away, My Wedding My Style was a shop offering wedding planning services and selling favors and other accessories for a beautiful wedding. 
But stores are not the only way to shop in Taipei. The city is famous for its night markets, which are hives of enterprise. The night markets start to come alive around 6 p.m., and are like a flea markets and open air mall all rolled into one, offering everything from Birkenstocks to cocktail dresses and plush to small electronics. Daring souls can choose their dinner from among the many food vendors’ offerings. One of the most dangerous hazards I experienced at the Shinlin night market — one of Taipei’s largest — was avoiding the swarming motor scooters.
All in all, this visit to Taiwan was an enlightening experience that reinforced how truly global we have become. And the gift business is a large part of it, especially in this part of the world. The small to medium sized companies that we met are reaching out to establish themselves in the U.S., Japanese and European markets by exhibiting at Giftionery and showing the world what they have to offer.
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