ZOL has an article that although sometimes rendered ambiguous in translation is nonetheless a bit scathing when it comes to the sales and marketing model Xiaomi has adopted and clung to [Google Translate].
It opens with a salvo lobbed at Xiaomi by someone who’s apparently prominent in China, accusing Xiaomi of design plagiarism and “hunger marketing” tactics.
What’s interesting here is that for the past two weeks I’ve seen on Weibo some salvos lobbed at Xiaomi — but I’ve seen these salvos only when replied to by Xiaomi on one of their accounts. In other words, had Xiaomi just ignored them, as an outsider I wouldn’t have seen any of this sniping take place. I’ve never seen companies snipe at each other on Twitter. They’ve been playful on Twitter, but never mean. On Weibo, they’re going for blood.
ZOL then goes on to mention the fine Xiaomi had to pay after the Taiwan Fair Trade Commission accused them of miscounting and misrepresenting “sold out” flash sales. The difference was a few hundred units, below five percent of the total; even so, computers are math machines so how can you wind up with a wrong inventory count and casually excuse it? It would have been better for Xiaomi if, when claiming ten thousand units sold, they’d actually sold ten thousand and one hundred units and just claimed ten thousand. Had the Taiwan Fair Trade Commission complained about that, at least customers would have felt delighted instead of cheated.
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Filed under Fraud, Marketing
