A couple of months ago Dunkin’ Donuts announced that they would open their first store in China in May this year. I love donuts, so I was quite happy to read that there would be an alternative for the Japanese-owned Mister Donut chain. However, so far Dunkin’ Donuts promise did not come true. I have not seen any retail outlet for their donuts in Shanghai, even though it’s July already. Maybe they got cold feet at the last minute? The company already had a bad China experience: As some long-term residents in China might know Dunkin’ Donuts used to have some outlets in Beijing in the late 1990’s, but they closed them down because China was not ready for donuts yet at that time.

Well, if Dunkin’ decides to cancel or postpone its market entry, there might be another competitor that is more willing to take risk: Krispy Kreme. This company already has stores in Hong Kong, but not on the mainland so far. By coincidence I saw a job ad for senior executives for Krispy Kreme in today’s Shanghai Daily. The advertisement says that a Krispy Kreme joint venture will launch Krispy Kream outlets in Shanghai, but it does not state a date.

I wonder, however, if they will be able to attract any serious talents because the English in the ad is terrible. Why don’t they just spend a few dollars to proof read it? Especially when they want to recruit people who are fluent in English!
A few examples of strange sentence structures that I noticed in the ad:
– (Krispy Kreme) offers special tastes of doughnuts and coffee loved by diverse people all over the world such as U.S., England, Australia and others.
– Common facts: No disqualifications for the international business trip
– Year of birth only from 1965 to 1980 required
Furthermore there were spelling mistakes, and instead of fast food they used the word quick service restaurant. Hopefully their donuts will not be as localized as their ads are!