Frugality bites into hampers

Gift shops feel the crunch (信貨危機) as customers tighten Mid-Autumn belts (勒緊褲頭)

Cost-conscious companies and a middle class hit by the stock market slump (股市暴跌) are cutting back on their Mid-Autumn Festival spending (減省開支) this year, gift shops say.

Customers of Far East Flora, which targets the upper-class market, have cut their spending by around 20 percent, according to senior manager Kelly Lau Ching-mei, while customer numbers have fallen about 10 percent.

"This year, more customers are choosing hampers in the mid-price range of HK$500 to HK$600 rather than something costing over HK$1,000, which they did last year," Lau said.

Mid-Autumn hampers usually comprise a box of mooncakes, Chinese tea leaves, seasonal fruits and, at the upper end (高檔貨), bottles of wine to go with decorations and bouquets to make the gift more appealing.

The prices of such hampers range from around HK$300 to more than HK$4,000.

Hong Kong Flower Shop, which also provides Mid-Autumn hampers to an elite clientele, said most customers were opting for items priced at around HK$700 this year compared with more than HK$1,000 last year.

Along with poor economic conditions, shops also have to deal with inflation with higher costs for hamper contents, higher wages and increased delivery charges.

"For example, even the rattan baskets we use have gone up by about 20 percent, as has the price of fruit. However, we try not to pass these additional costs to our customers, which means our profit margins are down by around 10 percent," Lau said.

To save money, some customers are going instead for basic gift items such as mooncakes without the trimmings. This has boosted sales of major bakeries. Peter Tse Hing-chi, director of Tai Tung Bakery, one of the city's oldest bakeries, said more customers were buying directly from his outlet even though the retail price had gone up 7 to 10 percent.

A box of four basic mooncakes is now selling for around HK$170, up HK$20 from last year. "Buying mooncakes on their own is a lot cheaper than ordering the hampers. But sending mooncakes to business partners and relatives is a tradition which cannot be skipped no matter how poor the economy is," Tse said.

Patsy Moy
The Standard, 8 September, 2008