petew

A few days ago I bought some lights for my bike from a chinese todo shop - front and rear 2.50 euros the set. They are the usual cheap rubbish but they are adequate for occasional use. Today I was in a large hypermarket in Gandia and I was browsing in the bike section. My eye lit upon (excuse the pun) a front light absolutely identical to the one I had bought at a cost of, say, 1.25 euros a few days earlier. The price - 15(fifteen) euros! Two things occur to me - first check prices very carefully in said large hypermarket and second - who gets most of the enormous profit on the 15 euro light?

pwwm

I bought one of those lanterns, the large ones for when we get power cuts was 4 euros with batteries and fitted to check it worked from our local chinese shop, saw same thing as Pete did in supermarket at about 17 euros

evamar

I have put this in another thread, but it will explain why it will always be cheaper to buy from the "Chinos" than from a Spanish shop, but what is cheaper for a person is not for the country.

Of course the Spanish shops should reduce the margin, but their price simply has to be more expensive, keeping in mind the more expensive salaries (too many Chinese people working in Chinese shops in Spain work as "voluntarios ocasionales" or supposedly as part-timers even if they work for 12 hours a day), taxes, do subject to the legal opening times, and that the money actually stays in the country...

Chinese Parasitic Model of Economic Expansion... subtitled into English...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbbhN...eature=related

fionamw

It may be an aside, but I had an interesting (!) experience in a Chinese bazar today. Yesterday OH and son bought an 8 euro remote control car in the new ChinoBazar set up in the next-but-one village (Moroccan shop no doubt now facing closure...... ) ... within the daylight hours of yesterday the car didn't work. Took it back today. Much hassle later got the equivalent money in batteries and stationery. Took help from the Spanish assistant to get anywhere, though. Not sure how typical this is, but it was a learning curve for our 9 yo though.

petew

Of course shops such as Carrefour have higher overheads than a todo shop but for an item to cost 12 times the price is surely not justified.

evamar

And I did said that they should reduce their margins... please do read my post.

Chinese people are playing their game from the inside. Latest one... in Spain many shops cannot open on Sundays. Some can, such as those selling newspapers... we all know this.

What have Chinese shops done about this? Simply... let's sell a small number of papers and mags, so that we can open on Sundays too... and of course we are not going to only open a small part of the shop... let's open the whole thing.

How can natives compete against that? Simply, by losing all the rights so hardly won, so they will also have to open 18 hours per day. Too many small shops have only 1-2 people working there...

Again, as I always said, foreigners are the ones to adapt. One can be used to work as a slave in one's country, but when going abroad they have to adapt to the work pattern of the host country. (Yes, before you say that, I think that the stupid midday break, 2-3 hours long in cities and any place where farming is not the main activity is stupid and we should change to normal European business times, I'm not talking about this here).

TBH, I am very scared of all extreme religious people, particularly those whose religion rewards them for killing infidels, just as I'm very scared of the economic maneuvers of the Chinese immigrants, especially as most of the money they get goes directly to China and doesn't stay in the country they live in. A friend of mine working with a Notary tells me that many clients tell her that the normal way of buying houses, flats, locals by Chinese people... is simply giving them a suitcase full of money. Scary!

Fredbargate

Rosemary

I agree with you Fred it seems that it is the same in my area with the Chinese families. They have the same hours, live in accommodation that they rent from a Spanish landlord, the children go to the local school. I understand that it is the same with the Morocan family that have moved into the town and bought an existing a Spanish business.

Rosemary

evamar

The Chinese shops in my area open the same hours as the Spanish ones, they used to open longer but not now
That is not always happening, at least in big cities were controls are more difficult. There are more controls now, mainly because neighbors and local shop owners who do keep the legal times call and complaint. But it's a small fine and they will open again.

They (Spanish) need to adapt or go out of business
They should not have to adapt to illegal practices, to start with. Especially when we are talking of small one-two people shops who simply cannot work all day and cannot afford to contract people. Also many Chinese work as "volunteers" or "part-timers" when they are there most of the day. That is also illegal.

Many foreigners have adopted to the UK work pattern, they come to live on benefits
Your own problem, firstly to give stupid benefit to useless natives and secondly to extend those to useless foreigners. I, for one, am extremely happy that the Spanish system is harder, and it hurst me to pay in such a stupid social system as the British one who creates completely dependant people whose way of living is having lots of children. One thing is needing help now and then, and a totally different one is to make that help as your only way of living on purpose and for always. Strange that honest working paying people put up with this situation.

The Chinese in my area are investing in the country, they are buying property which to me seems to be a long term investment
And with the crisis they pay a pitiful, whilst all the main money brought from their business is still going to China. And yes, their strategy is long term...

"A friend of mine working with a Notary tells me that many clients tell her that the normal way of buying houses, flats, locals by Chinese people... is simply giving them a suitcase full of money. Scary!"
Not my experience, all done legally, bank mortgage etc.
For what she tells me, up to 40% of the times, everything is done in cash, and many new buyers are brought by old buyers who also go to the meeting and deal with the same person they dealt with the first time.

In my own experience... maybe 15 years ago, when the "Chinos" started to open and I was still living in Valencia city, there was one in my street with a couple in their late 20's-early 30's. They were open easily 15 hours a day, sometimes they had opening controls and paid many fines. I remember going there to buy some stuff and also saw a top I quite liked. I never buy anything without trying it on first, so I was going to leave without the top. The Chinese woman was desperate and opened some curtains at the end of the shop (which now has extended till the end of the ground floor as they have bought the local at the back). They lived there; there was a mattress on the floor, a small wardrobe and another curtain covering a small corner where I guess they had a basin and a loo. Nothing to cook with but a microwave, no fridge. They were living illegally inside the shop, in a non adapted place without windows. And there were only those 2 in the shop. The man put a face as they had lost their face.
Now they have 3 kids who are always in the shop after school, they have bought 2 flats nearby, extended the shop, there are at least 10 Chinese people working there and one Spanish, the shop is still open too many hours and any change is extremely difficult as they will always blame the customer for bad use rather than accepting how poor quality their products are.

I am happy they can live in better conditions, but at the same time I worry how they managed to do so.

cricketman

Who are you to say what price is or is not justified?

Capitalism works on how much someone is willing to pay, not a "fair price"

Fredbargate

I am stating my personal experiences and not gossip

The whole world has to adapt to changing conditions, Europe in particular.
What are these illegal practices? in my twenties I was working 32 hour shifts in the construction industry in UK , they were known as ghosters, start at 8am and finish at 4 pm the next day.

I'm in agreement here that is one of the reasons I left UK 36 years ago.

They paid me what I wanted for my property.

I believe this is the way many Spaniards have sold their property in the past to all nationalities. This is the way Spaniards avoid taxes. The Spanish lawyers and the Spanish notaries have to be party to it.

The Chinese who bought my property owned a shop that they had paid €1.3 million for and had a mortgage in excess of €700,000. The bank was still willing to loan them 70% on my property which took them to over €1 million on mortgage. I cannot see a bank loaning that much to the operators of one business unless that business is viable on paper which it is unlikely to prove if it is syphoning money off to send abroad.
Or we have another bent Spanish bank manager.

JLFS

I am surprised that someone who is not part of the family or Chinese has so much personal and financial information about a chinese persons business.

They are not known to be open about their affairs, as in discussing property, financial, business or personal matters.

Even ones that have been in Spain ages, do not let any outsiders know what is going on, and it is one of the reasons that Chinese people do not often employ locals.

jackytoo

A friend of mine working with a Notary tells me that many clients tell her that the normal way of buying houses, flats, locals by Chinese people... is simply giving them a suitcase full of money. Scary!"


Times have changed...how long since you lived in Spain! This is now illegal as it comes under the money laundering laws. If any crooked Notary is risking their livelihood doing this, they wouldn't be talking about it

Fredbargate

I too was surprised but the man was very open and forthcoming.

Then again it may have been all bullshit. However I do know his shop and it's a fair size ( added at edit )

Mind you I have had Chinese tenants and found them to be honest and straight forward.

evamar

If you have a NIE, and a proof of your means (they have their businesses: shops, bars, hairdressers, beauty salons ...) you can buy cash and pay the fees. There are no fiscal benefits, but you own the place.

You can even see banks such as the CAM trying to get rid of all the flats they have got from evictions, and they offer an discount for cash payments!

Pago al contado. Sólo en el caso de que la finca esté totalmente libre de cargas en el Registro (sin hipotecas, ni afecciones fiscales, ni embargos, etc), debe pagarse íntegramente el precio convenido al firmar el contrato, pues en caso de existir tales cargas debe descontarse su importe del precio. Incluso sólo es aconsejable ese pago íntegro cuando la firma del contrato se hace directamente en escritura pública, pues el comprador podrá gozar de una protección inmediata mediante la remisión telemática por parte del Notario al Registrador de la Propiedad de una comunicación de haber autorizado la escritura.