A couple of years ago I was telling a friend who lives in Beijing I was going to a local fitness center here in Kansas. I was amazed when she told me she would not join a fitness center there because so many of her friends experienced gym owners running away with membership monies. This phenomenon goes back several years in China. Sad that the CCP has crushed the private economy.
from what I've seen during my time in China is that people are too obsessed with following trends, like the video says for a time gyms we're a big trend so people invested in gyms, but now the trend has changed so gyms are shutting down. Right now the trend is opening coffee shops, there's one mall that has 5 different coffee shops in it, I expect in a couple years we'll see a lot of closures
This same thing happened here in Perth Western Australia 40yrs ago. Laurie Potter fitness studio sold lifetime membership to people for $1500 and then closed and ran away with everyone's money. The government made a law against that happening again but the gyms still rip people off.
Seeing that it's unlikely that a gym will remain in operation for the remainder of a customer's life, "lifetime" membership effectively means for the lifetime of the gym, not for the lifetime of the customer. So, in that sense, customers did indeed get "lifetime" use of the gym.
At that time, $1500 lifetime memberships was actually good (but slightly unethical) business practice. Statistics clearly showed that 4 out 5 people totally failed to attend their health club after about 6-8 weeks, regardless of their membership. It was money for jam. Later, he was charged with selling life memberships when he knew that the business was insolvent. Laurie Potter went broke because he foolishly commenced building a multimillion dollar luxury resort in Geraldton without proper planning or finance. When his finance facilities ran out (he owed huge amounts to TCS), he stupidly invested large chunks of members' funds in the project. The empire collapsed owing about $28M to the R&I bank (who bought TCS). He was simply incompetent and was not even smart enough to run away with everyone's money. He also nearly failed multiple times previously, especially when the idiot tried to expand interstate.
@@cphenshaw4082It would be interesting to know how many of those people bought lifetime memberships on the strength of a soon-evaporated new year's resolution.
Purchased a Gold's Gym membership years ago in Shanghai pre-opening as had faith in the Gold's Gym name. It managed to go broke before opening during fit-out. Luckily another owner picked up the Franchise, finished the gym and very kindly respected the original members by providing memberships per original deal.
Rubbish. Was a Offical Gold's Gym Franchise set up by an American guy in association with Gold's. Lost his money with the contractor and being overextended. Project failed on the 2nd contractor close to completion. Gym was fantastic once it opened.@@luisjimenez9440
@@VCRiderthe west has more then enough bankruptcies of such private businesses with costumers having little to zero chance of getting fees back as banks usually get priority pick on whatever money is left. Sure, that happens not nearly to such drastic extends as in china but still enough to get smart and simply not pay months or even a year in advance for services with an uncertain longterm demand / reliability. Its not just gym membership which is ridiculous to pay under such conditions, plenty of other services have the same silly payment scheme and countless of costumers crying about not getting their money back when the service shuts down or breaks in another way ... thats the risk fools take whenever they try to save a buck in the most naive way.
My gym has been hounding me to renew my contract. They want to give me a one year deal, then a two year deal, and the I said I was not sure if I would be in China for very long, they said ok how about 6 months. My membership does not expire until July. The writing on the wall is there for this place. I have had two gyms close on me in the last 6 years. Membership drives are always a bad sign.
This used to happen a lot in the US during the 90's and early 2000's. Pop-up gyms signing up a lot of members then closing very suddenly and keeping people's money.
It’s amazing how frequently Chinese people buy loyalty cards to get discounts and inevitably lose money when the places close. It happens to my wife dozens of times. I just pay as I go on everything in China. There are tons and of gyms in China and lot of people can afford them but like every sector in China it’s very difficult to make money and the churn is high.
Working out and building muscle requires a lot of protein, which many Chinese can't even afford right now, much less the gym membership fees, transportation fees, and the time it takes out of your daily life. Everyone is working side hustles and have extra jobs to survive 😕
5:39 'less serious' is they haven't paid salaries for several months? Seems pretty serious... Once this pattern is known I don't know why the workers would stay after the first missed paycheck.
Not really related to this video that much, but one thing I've noticed after living here for 9 years is that in the winter time the gender ratio is around 90/10 male to female in gyms, but then in the spring and summer it flips around to around 40/60 male to female. It's because of all the weird superstition about "coldness energy" and stuff in this culture I think.
@@shanghaiffgg Something of the sort- though not bikinis in particular, just the summer wardrobe. Women there more focused on their figure rather than actual fitness, and men probably switch to doing more outdoors activities and sports.
I was part joking regarding the bikinis, Chinese women tend to not wear them. The obsession with shape as opposed to fitness is an Asian thing not just a Chinese thing. I have never met a Chinese woman who cares about their fitness level but most are obsessed with being as thin as possible. @@a.westenholz4032
In 2018 I lived in KL and subscribed to Celebrity Fitness for 1 year because they had a swimming pool which was my main reason. After 3 months they closed it for maintenance which takes over a year. I stopped giving money to gyms since then.
I recently decided to start working out last year in October, they payments options where 300 yuan a month, 900 yuan 6 month and 1200 a year. After starting one month in feeling the progress the gym closed, they said something about renovating and kept postponing the opening date until today. I'm just surprised finding out today that this is what's happening. Little mad right now. Freaking scammers 🤬
@@MNcoquicoqui why would they? Too many cases and the police didn’t lose anything. The police are not there to work on the citizens behalf. That’s not how communism works.
It can't cost that much to join a gym there. Also not being healthy may have a higher cost. That being said, practically all Chinese are thin and only a handful are overweight.
Our Chinese gym closed and boss ran. So sad because was so close and had a poll. Poorly run and bad upkeep. Now we go to 2 rmb gym. It has poor facilities though
I see young people getting away from music and clubbing and becoming fitness obsessives instead - that's healthy food, healthy fitness machines and more facilities for heath (not body building or fighting, just good health).
It's hard to sustain Gym so obviously when times are hard, they cannot survive. In Singapore the only large Gym chainstore closed down a few years ago (a few years before covid19 pandemic started) too.
any business that depends on middle class spending is done. the middle class in china has regressed to the peasant class. you can thank the CCP for that.
since around 2015. Dramatically improved. fro example its 53 now in Beijing as I type. It's almost entirely blue skies now across China. I assume you dont live here otherwise you wouldn't be so clueless on this. @@nitsaastro2162
Ah ..... I'm confused, did keep have any thing they sold? What money did they generate? Who was getting paid money from the ads and investor money? There's nothing behind this product to have invested in.... How was that ever valued at 20 million?
I am a European living in China for the last 16 years. you on the other hand have probably never set foot in the country which is why you make such non sensical comments from a distance.@@psychoaztecs
So another QUICK UP and QUICK CRASH business. It comes in waves after all. Suddenly there is a market/need, poof a lot of these things open. Once that need stabilizes the closures begin and once it begins to crash, well...
@@andreasb3347 the rack is too high for ceiling height and you need to have either a concrete building construction or a reinforcced subfloor. and then theres the fact that it takes up half the room. dumb idea.
@@magi115 i live in chengdu and lived in 5 different apartments in china. i have homegym at home in germany. most apartments can easily have a powerrack and ceiling height is not a problem.
In China, keep ain’t a keeper 😂 and the owner is probably being a Leeper. Take the money and run. I bet you that runner would run faster if you had a whole mob of people chasing after him with baseball bats👊🏻🫵🏻
