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Bernard English

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Thursday, August 23, 2007

Indebted Taipei bakery shuttered

Wecare was my favorite bakery in the Gongguan (Tiida) area. It was the only bakery that sold good Western style bread.

The Taipei times article generated some of these question about Wecare's closure:

  1. Which was a bigger factor in their closure, higher commodity prices or competition from lower priced cafes?
  2. How much of a factor was the increase in rents?
  3. Wecare sold many breads unavailable elsewhere, especially not at lower priced cafes. So were such cafes able to take away so much of Wecare's business?
  4. Even if this was the case, was it impossible for Wecare to become even more specialized and concentrate only on baked goods not sold by other bakeries?
  5. Were all eleven Wecare bakeries doing badly or only some?
  6. I've noticed other bakeries have been raising their prices, could Wecare not compensate for higher commodity prices by also raising its prices?
  7. How have low priced cafes been able to survive the higher costs of dairy products and flour?
  8. Can Wecare reorganize and then reopen some of its bakeries (especially the Gonnguan one) again?
  9. The article indicates that Wecare had debt. But most companies have debt. Was Wecare's debt larger than that of other bakeries?
  10. What is the value of the voucher's held by consumers?
  11. Governments often want to interfere in markets by bailing out businesses. For those who believe this is an appropriate response to badly run businesses, why not bailout Wecare instead of urging consumers to call The Consumer Protection Commission's hotline and complain about unusable vouchers. In fact Wecare's closure would be a good opportunity to come up with a litmus test for which kind of businesses should receive government assistance.

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