My earlier blog, Bye Bye Best Buy (achinadiary.blogspot.com/2011/02/bye-bye-best-buy.html) suggested some of the mistakes that Best Buy may have made. Barbie's misjudgment was more simple: Value.
The Chinese seek value in everything they do. They are happy to spend three months salary on a Louis Vuitton bag because of how it make them look to others, and the consequential benefit that this will therefore give them in the future. The price of a Barbie doll, whilst affordable to China's rapidly growing middle class, provides no value to their child, and in fact could actually do harm. The time the child is playing with their doll could be better spend studying. And the parent may feel that the value of money may be undermined in the eyes of the child by spending time in a shop where everything is so expensive.
In the simple value comparison that a Chinese parent will make, Barbie does not stack up. It costs more than double the price of a similar local-brand doll that, to the parent, appears the same. And it nearly costs as much as the larger dolls that walk and talk.
Whilst a major selling point in the West, the Barbie "eco-system" that surrounds the core product holds little interest (or value) to the parent and so adds nothing to their purchase consideration. It may actually even frighten the parent that this purchase is just the first of many.
So, whilst there may be a small number of Chinese consumers who are happy to buy the range of Barbie dolls and accessories for their child, Barbie will always be a niche product or one-off purchase in China. The mass-adoption levels that might have justified a pink, six story palace in the most expensive shopping street in China are as much a dream as Ken.
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