40 Million Customers

On the streets of Shanghai in the first half of the 20th century, Crowe's billboards could be seen everywhere. The company's founder, Carl Crow, was an early foreign businessman who started to engage in advertising and merchandising business in Shanghai. He regarded all 400 million Chinese as potential customers and studied all aspects related to them. In this book, Crowe describes a series of anecdotes he has experienced with a journalist's unique sharp vision and humorous and precise words: "Hamburg horseshoes" are not all from Hamburg, Germany, and a pack of twelve sewing needles of different specifications are not available in China even as a gift. In the market, the price paid to buy fish from the Qiantang River may not include the cost of tying the fish rope. Chop suey, the "Chinese national dish" in the minds of foreigners, does not exist in China... Some of the Chinese culture and the way of thinking about doing business in China reflected behind it are still not outdated.