"Where do Thai people go for shopping?" Part I : The behavior of Thai Consumers

If you stay in a hotel around Sukhumvit areas, you might notice that it is full of foreigners, and most street vendors offer selections mainly for foreigners. Not often that you will see a local Thai walking around and do some shopping around there. Why is that? The answers are simple. First, the things most street vendors sell are expensive. Second, most items street vendors're offering are souvenirs, which frankly, Thai people don't really buy those. And last but not least, Sukhumvit area is a financial district and it's only popular for foreigners, and perhaps for most Thais, they regard to that area as "the sin street" since there are many prostitude activities around the area.

So, "where do Thai people go for shopping?" To answer this question, we might have to step back and take a look at "the behavior of Thai consumers" in order to understand what, where and how Thai people like to shop. First of all, Thai people regardless of how rich or how poor they are like to shop or eat in an open environment. Some people may say it's not true since many people do go to shopping malls which is considered to be a closed environment. That would be true only if you look only at one side of the mirror. Thai people regard the open outdoor shops including street vendors as cheap, and affordable items. Take a look at one example, I specifically know one open-air noodle shop in China town, which is full of customers every single day. The owner drive Mecedez, BMW, and so on. One day, the owner decided that there should be some changing within the shop to make it look more modern, I supposed. So he boarded up the shop with clear glasses, and put air conditioning inside. It look good, and modern just like what they wanted. However, the sale, all the sudden, dropped dramatically in the following 2 or 3 month after renovation. But why? Like I said, for Thais, the first impression toward the shop would be "It must be more expensive since the shop look a lot nicer." Now, what the owners didn't realise is that he has dropped the poors out of his target customer list unintensionally. Now, will the riches go to this open-air noddle places? Oh!! Yes. In fact, many of them like to eat from the street vendors. Because we all do that since we are little. It is a part of our culture. We go to department stores for some brand name things street vendors don't offer, or most of the time we go to big mall to hang out, and get an air conditioning when it's hot outside. Now let look at the second behaivior when it comes to shopping for Thai people which is Thai people love to bargain! And really, the riches do bargain more than the poors. They look at it like a game. The more they can bargain, the more they feel like the winner. I don't know who is the loser in this case, but let's assume it is the owners of the shop. Now move on to the third behavior which would be Thai people like a bit of adventure when they shop. What is that supposed to mean? If you have a chance to go to Chatuchuk Market (we will talk more about the place later), you would notice that people like to go through a mountain of products. The way most shop sell things is to pile up , and mix up products onto a table, and sell it at one price for all. It obviously looks very much like a pile of garbage from far away, but for Thais, we think there must be a real jem within the garbage. So, we must dig through it in order to find one. It's like a spell that will attract all class of people to go through this giant pile of...Let's say Crap! Well, although this is a tactic used on the street shop level, many high profile shops have also adopted this method as their sale tactic as well especially when they offer sale items.
So, now you have it! As parts of Thai culture, shopping is another way to be socialized, and interact with one another. So, what the place they would go for shopping? Find out in my next post, as I will reveal the country main shopping hubs where Thai people like to go shopping no matter where they come from, rich or poor, or anything in between.