[kschua]

Not necessary. Though it is quoted "an umbrella costs the company 60 yuan ($8.82 USD) each to replace"

It doesn't mean they are going to replace it. The 60 yuan probably factor in cost like manpower etc rather than just the cost of the umbrella.

So like some of the readers pointed out, it could possibly be a good way to sell umbrellas whilst crying out wolf that they are losing money as a way to prevent copycats

[CPLX]

If they raised only $1.5M then it stands to reason that either the umbrellas didn't cost $8.82 or they didn't acquire 300,000 of them.