Your Business In Thailand

[simon43]

Following on from another thread concerning starting your own business in Thailand, it was interesting to read comments (from ThaiPauly I think), that his business primarily has non-Thai customers and previous experience has taught him not to seek out Thai customers.

Although most of my business interests are not in Thailand, I have run some bars, and am currently building villas and a small hotel in Phuket. In all cases, our target customers were/are non-Thai. For my part, this was primarily because of their perceived 'wealth', ability to afford the 'product'/be interested in the product. But my Thai wife's point of view was simply not to deal with any Thais because they 'would be more trouble than they are worth'. Eg - She said if Thais rented a room in our hotel then they would put 10 family members in the same room! Or if they bought a drink in our bar then they would make it last all night (just like English teachers . . oops sorry guys, just joking!)

So I'm interested to know if any non-Thai TV members have successful businesses here in Thailand where the majority of their customers are Thai, as opposed to non-Thai.

I can imagine that most bars/restaurants/hotels will cater mostly to non-Thais, but maybe I'm wrong.

If your customers are mostly non-Thai, why is that? Is it because you had your fingers burnt when dealing with Thai customers?

Please note that I'm not Thai-bashing here. But I'm interested to hear of successful businesses with a mostly-Thai customer base.

Simon

[Sunbelt Asia]

Simon,

I can remember several cases where the MD stated he always works with foreigners and found that trying to get Thai clients was a pain.

A Very Large Dive Company felt Thais always complained about the food on the ship while foreigners raved about the food. They always were nit picking on price while foreigners thought the price was fair.

Pool Construction Co... Never had one Thai client but many quotations were given. They now are not rude when Thais come in but would refuse to meet them themselves. Give them to the secretary to give the quotes.

Business that had lots of choices. Felt the Thais were holding up the line and with long lines, meant fewer customers. " Thais are not used to lots of choices" was the main quote I remember.

Most Bars in the Adult areas..Patpong, Nana, Soi Cowboy have a policy to not let Thai men inside.

Businesses that do

Dolphin Bay Resort in Hua Hin Around 50% Thai

http://www.dolphinbayresort.com

Leelawadee Restaurant around 95 % Thai

http://www.leelawadeerestaurant.com/home_en.html

Glass Home Around 95% Thai

http://www.glasshomestudio80.com/home.html

Bourbon Street Around 35 % Thais

http://www.bourbonstbkk.com

Tony Romas Around 65% Thais

http://www.tonyromas-mms.com/Restaurants%2...er/bangkok.html

Great American Rib Around 50% Thai

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/weekend/20...n_15403255.html

www.sunbeltasia.com

[Indo-Siam]

Running a business in Thailand, you have choices of pursuing sales to the following customer segments:

1) Thai government (remember, they PRINT money!)

2) Large multinational companies or NGO's

3) Large Thai companies or organizations

4) Small and Medium Businesses

4a) Those that are Thai owned/operated

4b) Those that are foreign owned/operated

5) Thai consumers

6) Foreign residents of Thailand

7) Foreign tourists

8) Customers outside Thailand

A small business can generally afford to pursue only two - or possibly three of these segments - it is just too difficult and expensive to achieve the "critical mass" of marketing impact to gain name recognition among many diverse groups.

There very specific - and very different - marketing approaches and strategies needed for each of the above segments. What I have noticed is that many inexperienced foreign businessman - particularly first-time entrepreneurs - fail to systematically analyze the possible segments, pick a couple to pursue, and devote all their efforts to achieving name recognition (identity for their business) in just those segments. The common mistake is to go after all the segments at once - and by diluting effort across such a wide spectrum, you end up not achieving "critical mass" in any segment - and you die of neglect/indifference by the "cruel marketplace."

Each of the above-listed segments has very specific characteristics - length of sales cycle, method of marketing/advertising, need for business partnerships, opportunities for repeat business, etc.

My comments don't directly address the original post, but may be useful.

Cheers!

Steve Sykes

Managing Dircector

Indo-Siam Group

Bangkok

[email protected]

www.thaistartup.com

www.bangkokstaff.com

[~G~]

Following on from another thread concerning starting your own business in Thailand, it was interesting to read comments (from ThaiPauly I think), that his business primarily has non-Thai customers and previous experience has taught him not to seek out Thai customers.

I believe it was my post you refer to, among others.

If your customers are mostly non-Thai, why is that? Is it because you had your fingers burnt when dealing with Thai customers?

A few brief points:

- Language barrier (If you are not 100% fluent in Thai, you will generally need someone to do the important work for you. What if you prefer to negotiate and close deals by yourself?). This means harder access to those you want to reach.

- Thai Decision making system. It goes in another pace to what I am used to when working with most foreign bodies.

- Greater importance of price over quality in the Thai market, and resulting price wars at many levels. Take for example the redicilous prices of cellular air time, that do little good to the participants in this game, as big as they are.

- Higher overhead if you compete with small operators, who do not need the visa-wp-company procedure. If you are competing with larger Thai companies, this is less meaningful.

Note that I am not talking here about food/beverages retail in which I have no experience whatsoever.

The Bottom line is that I do not overull working with Thai customers completely, but prefer to focus on others. It's just more effective return on my efforts and investments. And it might be different for someone else.

To relate to Steve's post, I found I can be most successful with -

- Small/medium foreign owned businesses in Thailand

- Businesses outside Thailand (my main focus)

[sting01]

Very special case here, I do not do business with thai (2 500 bht in 2005 of income from thai people) nor local foreigners (1 000 bht in 2005 I think, or maybe 1 500 bht).

In IT field, Thailand is well know to have skilled Java programmers, and good Flash designers, so appart working for peanuts, or work for a company (not eveident because there is skilled thai students who also look for job), you can hardly enter in the thai market. For Local foreigners, the problem is different, let say it's more related to liquidity avalaible when compared to the work asked ( mean if the person who order a work is a company they will look for a company to do it, and if it's an individual, you can get the work, but hardly be paid).

So my solution was to contact directly some firm well know to outsource IT work, and work for them on work made/work paid basis. I can offer an 'indian coder'price with the expertise of a western IT specialist. They like and I am glad to got my money (around 1.300 us$ a month).

But my case is special, it have take time to start, understand things, and how life is here. Let say also, without some help it would have been hard to success (here is a huge thanks to IndoSiam).