Supermarkets Bring Service to China : Asia: Capitalism offers what shoppers in the West take for granted, including helpful clerks and air conditioning. Prices appear beyond the reach of the masses, however.

On a bustling Canton street, glass doors emblazoned with such slogans as “OUR SERVICE IS NO. 1” lure shoppers into an air-conditioned Aladdin’s cave of plenty.

It’s a supermarket, China’s latest middle-class attraction, where “CUSTOMERS ARE OUR TOP PRIORITY” and Campbell soup and Perrier vie for space with bags of rice and jars of Chinese pickles.

China’s plunge into capitalism has created an enticing alternative to the old Communist-style state stores, infamous for their sullen counter staff snapping, “Mei you” --haven’t got it--even when “it” is stacked up behind them in abundance.

The new stores offer what Western shoppers take for granted, but what is still relatively novel in China: air conditioning, bright lighting and the unimpeded right to choose goodies from the shelves.

Even the old-style stores are being forced to offer better goods and nicer staff. They are setting up self-serve aisles, too, for at least canned and dry goods.

“The fast-growing economy has boosted general purchasing power. People not only buy large quantities but also demand a nice shopping environment,” said Liu Zhanpeng, general manager of the government-owned Tian Mei group, which set up the first of its 10 supermarkets in Canton in 1992.

“Our prices are a bit more expensive,” Liu said. “But we have a better reputation and quality is guaranteed.”

Janny Yang, 35, a shopper emerging from a Tian Mei store laden with plastic bags of groceries, said: “They’ve got almost everything. It saves me having to shop around.”

Cylinders of Pringles potato chips stand beside bottles of locally made soy sauce. Refrigerated counters offer packaged dim sum alongside California ice cream.

Still, Yang complained that the shopping carts were too small and the store assistants too numerous. “It’s as though I’m always under tight surveillance,” she said.

As the hub of the Pearl Delta, China’s fastest-growing region, Canton is an obvious place to be pioneering supermarkets--150 of them so far, of which one-third are less than a year old, according to Survey Research China, a Hong Kong-based group.

A half-dozen Chinese chains--some private, some state-owned--offer up to 5,000 different items per store in the city, and a Hong Kong chain has also moved in.

Xinhua, the official news agency, says more than 60 chains of stores have appeared in Canton’s province of Guangdong, with annual retail sales totaling the equivalent of $120 million. The provincial government has made various moves to encourage chain stores, including loans, Xinhua said.

In many Chinese cities, improved traffic flow means shoppers can travel to supermarkets instead of depending on corner shops, said Stephen Watt of Survey Research China. So “one very likely and natural development will be toward fewer but larger stores.”

Small, private mom-and-pop stores are feeling the pinch. Grocer Huang Wanli complains that her son buys cold drinks at the Tian Mei store across the street, even though she stocks the same brands and sells them for less.

A can of Coke in a supermarket costs 3.8 yuan (46 cents), a half yuan less than in a corner grocery.

A typical supermarket earns about $20,000 a month, according to Survey Research.

Liu expects his Tian Mei group to invest $2.4 million a year in new supermarkets.

His deputy, Mo Xiaoyuan, said the government helped launch the group with a low-interest loan of $1.2 million three years ago, and subsidizes 5% to 10% of the cost of every product it sells.

She said the company, although state-owned, manages its own profits and losses independently.

Canton’s supermarkets seem a lot less busy than their Hong Kong counterparts. This suggests that their prices are still out of reach of the masses, whose average income is just 714 yuan ($86) a month, according to the semi-official China News Service.

Liu said his customers tend to be young and educated, with a small family and little spare time.

Randy Guo, 22, a market researcher, said his parents still shop at street markets. But he prefers the supermarket, where “I can browse around by myself without being bothered by shop assistants.”