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Same Shirt, Different Location

I’ve heard of product differentiation by location, and of differentiation arising from slight differences in physical product, but never one obviously based on a combination of these two. Honolua Surf Company is a clothing line, selling in its own and other stores. It originated in Maui, as the name implies, and is really popular on the island.
Its stores sell other clothing lines, including Billabong; indeed, for the past five years, Honolua has been a subsidiary of Billabong (unsurprisingly, originally an Australian company). I wouldn’t buy a Billabong shirt in the Honolua store here, and I wonder why the stores even stock them. The Honolua shirts are slightly different, but most important, they carry the cachet of being local.
A “made in China” souvenir is generally not as attractive as one made locally, even if they are otherwise physically identical.


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