Spy plane standoff has Kmart customers up in arms-NYT
NEW YORK, April 11 (Reuters) - Kmart Corp. (NYSE:KM - news), the No. 3 U.S. retailer, has received thousands of calls and e-mail messages from customers urging it to stop buying so many goods from China, the New York Times reported in its online edition Wednesday.
The outcry, stemming from an incident in which a Chinese fighter plane and a
U.S. spy plane collided earlier this month, has prompted the company to
warn Chinese diplomats that it will seek new suppliers unless the crew of the
American surveillance aircraft is released promptly, company executives
were reported as saying on Tuesday.
The complaints that have streamed into Kmart's customer service line in
Troy, Mich., in recent days were an unprecedented and apparently
spontaneous response to the overseas crisis, the executives were reported as
saying.
Store managers have also telephoned headquarters to relay concerns that
customers were annoyed that the stores stocked so many ``made in China''
goods when American military personnel were being held in that country
against their will, they were reported as saying.
``Our customers are telling us to quit doing business in China -- that they're not going to buy things made there anymore,'' Dale Apley, vice president for public policy, was quoted as saying. ``These are just the people taking time out of their schedule to contact us. How many other people out there are thinking the same thing?''
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