"It's difficult to predict when the financial crisis's impact on Zhongguancun's electronics market will come to the end," said Xia Wenjun, vice president of Hilon Capital Management Corp. Ltd., a company that manages the Hilon Plaza -- one of the most popular malls here.

Most shop owners expect the worst in 2009. Wu Linguo said his company would probably make no profit in 2008, and he thought an upturn would come next year. Huang hoped the sales would take a favorable turn at the end of this year.

In order to spur the ever-shrinking market and lower the overhead, most of the malls are cutting rent. Xia said that the rent of storefronts in Hilon Plaza would be cut down by 5 to 10 percent. After the thriving period of 2006 and 2007, the rent surged by as much as 40 percent since 2005.

Shop owners have also found ways to cope with financial challenges. Wu's company began to cut all unnecessary costs. He had to cut the spending on comfort in office, corporate image building and advertisement. In the meantime, Wu's employees have had to work overtime without premium pay, another form of salary cut. But there were little complaints. Instead, his 200-plus employees felt lucky as their boss promised not to cut staff.

Various sales channels have been employed. Wu found he couldn't just wait for customers to visit his storefronts. He began to visit his regular corporate customers in an effort to find new orders.

E-commerce is another way dealers have been coping. Thanks to e-commerce, Huang Ping's shop was not as deeply affected by the crisis as other shops with same size. Huang's team built an online forum about the basic tips of choosing and utilizing computers, and answered visitors' various questions. In time, visitors began to trust the company and choose her as their supplier of IT products.

Huang estimated that about 80 percent of her sales volume came via Internet. While many dealers face a lack of customers, Huang's e-commerce tactics have brought customers nationwide.

Han Wei, media and public manager of the Hong Kong-listed Alibaba, the leading e-commerce company in China, said more enterprises turned to e-commerce to cut costs and expand their ever-shrinking customer base Alibaba is now taking this advantage to expand its reach.

Wu, who continues to maintain traditional storefronts, began e-commerce two months ago, just after the crisis broke out. Online sales now account for 10 percent of Wu's total sales volume.

"It does help me," said Wu referring to his cost-cutting measures and foray into e-commerce, "I hope the loss can be limited to 15 to 20 percent of the total assets."

Xia said dealers in his plaza showed great interest in online business. With their support, Hilon is now building a business-to-customer trade platform with Zhongsou, a Chinese-language online search engine.

"Under the present situation, e-commerce is a way to expand sales and survive the economic winter," said Xia.

(Xinhua News Agency January 6, 2009)