Chinese New Year and Valentine's Day

This post is really a little reflection on some marketing issues I had been observing yesterday. Unfortunately I did not take pictures in Cold Storage itself, so I had to make use of these pictures I found on the net.

Basically this year, Chinese New Year and Valentine's day fell on the same day. Yesterday when I went to Cold Storage to do some Steamboat shopping, I noted that there were chocolates and new year goodies that were sold all over the place.

Somehow, I felt that something better could have been done. In fact I had been noticing this for a while, that the Cold Storage in Great World City did not have a section allocated for special events such as this. I thought what might have been good was if they had set up one section, specially for Valentine's chocolates, and one section, specially for new year goodies.

That way, shoppers would find it easier to find what they want and with the right decorations, it would make shopping a happier occassion. :p

Then perhaps this begs a little creative thinking. Let's say I've decided to make use of this combined festivities to make money, how would I go about doing it?

Let's think about the online way first. Ghost Trappers is doing a fantastic job on facebook by exploiting special occassions such as christmas to create new ghosts, new hunting grounds and more excitement. What if let's say I were to launch a social networking site and connect thousands of people seeking to do extreme networking.

Then on this day, I launch a new system within the site which allows chinese corporate networkers to state their new year wishes (that are related to business), and we find them people with the same new year wishes. Of course, this is already being done throughout the year, but CNY is a great occassion to renew wishes and so we provide the chinese customers more value-added service.

Then since it's also valentine's day, there would be quite a number of corporate networkers who have been working so hard to live their dreams that they have not had time to find a girl or guy. Well, great opportunity! In the spirit of valentine's day, an additional dating service can go on for a few weeks!

So now, let's say I don't want to use online services and instead be like those school kids who try so hard to raise money. Well, since I study in a university, there would be more freedom for me to try crazy new things. For valentine's day, I can set up a booth with a few of my friends and we can sell chocolates and those of my friends with enough savvy advice can advise guys who're chasing girls on what to do, and where to take her.

So it's a kind of a 'valentine advisory booth'. So rather than just touting people over to buy our chocolates, we can give them advice on good dating locations and techniques as well. Again, value-added service.

As for the chinese new year aspect of it, well, I think it would be a great opportunity to combine it with valentine's day as well and sell lanterns to couples! Then we can organise a couple lantern procession. My goodness, what a spill that would be.

Ok, I'm not an experienced entrepreneur so I don't know how feasible those ideas probably are, perhaps some of you would like to comment on this? Just drop it in the cbox somewhere on the lower left.

Thank you! :)