Posts tagged ‘Wal-Mart’

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19/12/2014

Forget Wal-Mart: China Cuts Out the Middleman – China Real Time Report – WSJ

Wal-Mart and Amazon have become America’s main conduits for cheap, mass-produced goods from China’s factory floors. But who needs them anymore? As the WSJ’s Dennis K. Berman reports:

I am holding in my hands a men’s down jacket with fur trim, sent four days ago direct from a warehouse 67 miles west of Shanghai.

The $52.19 jacket won’t be confused for Prada. The fur appears to be “fur.” It came out of the box smelling like plastic and solvent.

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What the jacket represents is far more interesting: It’s the final and direct link between China’s manufacturers and the global consumer. In the same way Chinese companies took over the production of goods, they are now increasingly capable of merchandizing those goods, using the Web and modern freight transport. Bentonville, you are being outsourced to China, too.

This is in part why China’s Alibaba has a $268 billion market capitalization. And it’s why United Parcel Service Inc. recently bought a company called i-parcel, to help U.S. suppliers penetrate the thickets of customs, fraud and language that still exist.

…

The jacket came via LightInTheBox , a Beijing company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Run by Chinese with deep experience in America, the site can shapeshift into 27 different languages, from Arabic to Bahasa to Swedish, and ship goods piecemeal all over the world. For the 12 months ending in September, LightInTheBox sold $349 million of merchandise, a 25% increase from the year earlier. It is still far from profitable, posting significant operating and net losses. Its stock has fallen 23% this year.

LightInTheBox got its start selling wedding dresses, and it’s now selling about 800 different designs for under $200. It sells 400,000 a year. For wedding dresses, “the manufacture price in China is less than $100, but the store price in the U.S. or Europe was thousands of dollars,” company co-founder and CEO Quji “Alan” Guo said in an interview. “That was a category where there should have been better availability, but it was not there.”

via Forget Wal-Mart: China Cuts Out the Middleman – China Real Time Report – WSJ.

Posted in China alert, distribution, Economics | Leave a Comment »

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26/10/2014

Wal-Mart Struggles to Crack Retail Market in India – Businessweek

As Indians celebrate the Hindu festival of Diwali, executives at Wal-Mart India don’t have much reason to cheer. The company is still waiting for its big breakthrough in India, a market it has been trying to crack at least since 2007. That’s when the American retailer teamed up with one of the top businessmen in the country, Sunil Mittal, to open wholesale stores in India. If all had gone well, that partnership with Bharti Enterprises was supposed to have led to consumer-facing stores, too.

A Wal-Mart store on the outskirts of Chandigarh, Punjab, India, on June 10

When then-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2012 eased restrictions on foreign ownership in retail, Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) executives saw an opportunity in the world’s second-largest country. In September 2012, a Wal-Mart executive told Bloomberg News the two sides were in talks and retail stores were less than two years away.

Those discussions didn’t end well. Wal-Mart and Bharti Enterprises went their separate ways last year, dissolving the joint venture in October 2013. Wal-Mart bought out Bharti and took full control of the 20 members-only, cash-and-carry stores in India. After that, the company largely kept its India plans on hold: It’s been two years since Wal-Mart added new wholesale stores in India.

via Wal-Mart Struggles to Crack Retail Market in India – Businessweek.

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23/05/2014

Wal-Mart to open 110 stores in China as part of $100 million expansion bringing 19,000 jobs to world’s second-largest economy | Mail Online

Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, has announced plans to accelerate its expansion into China by adding as many as 110 stores over the next three years, resulting in an almost $100 million investment.

Re-adjustment: Wal-Mart Stores Inc is changing its approach, closing some big-box stores that never quite caught on with locals

The Bentonville, Arkansas-based firm wants to open the new stores in the world’s second-largest economy at the same time as closing 30 under-performing outlets over the next 18 months.

China is key to Wal-Mart’s international ambitions but it has stumbled in a market where consumers value safe and authentic food over the low prices for which the retailer is known.

The U.S. retailer, which operates about 400 units in China, said last October that it would open up to 110 facilities in the country between 2014 and 2016 and was looking to close 15-30 others over the next 18 months as part of a rationalization process in the country.

Its local rival, Sun Art Retail Group Ltd, said in March it would continue to maintain steady new store expansion after China’s top hypermarket operator posted a 15.2 percent rise in 2013 net profit with an expanding store network helping it shrug off an economic slowdown.

‘China presents one of the biggest opportunities for us around the world to grow our stores and clubs, so its really important,’ Doug McMillon, president of Wal-Mart’s international business, said today in an interview with Bloomberg Television.

Wal-Mart already has 400 outlets across China and Wal-Mart is looking to develop a larger presence in the country’s largest center’s while building bigger stores in third- and fourth-tier cities.

via Wal-Mart to open 110 stores in China as part of $100 million expansion bringing 19,000 jobs to world’s second-largest economy | Mail Online.

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24/10/2013

Wal-Mart to open up to 110 new China stores by 2016 | Reuters

Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N), the world\’s biggest retailer, is expanding its China business as it seeks to raise profitability in a slowing retail sector.

Wal-Mart Stores Chief Executive Officer Mike Duke attends a news conference in Beijing, October 24, 2013. REUTERS-Kim Kyung-Hoon

Wal-Mart will open up to 110 facilities in China between 2014 and 2016, in addition to the 30 it has already opened this year, it said at a press event in Beijing on Thursday.

Wal-Mart has closed 11 stores and is looking to close 15-30 others over the next 18 months, said Greg Foran, chief executive of Wal-Mart China, in what he called part of a rationalization process.

The U.S. company is tackling tough global economic conditions and a fundamental change in China\’s retail sector, as annual sales growth slows and consumers move towards shopping online.

Wal-Mart wants to profit from China\’s changing retail landscape by embracing e-commerce, which is expected to record 32 percent composite annual growth between 2012 and 2015, according to Bain & Co.

via Wal-Mart to open up to 110 new China stores by 2016 | Reuters.

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05/05/2013

* ‘Speed money’ puts the brakes on India’s retail growth

Reuters: “Hong-Kong entrepreneur Ramesh Tainwala spent 18 months operating branded clothing retail stores in India before deciding it was impossible to succeed without paying bribes.

Customers exit a V-Mart retail store in New Delhi April 6, 2013. Picture taken April 6, 2013. REUTERS-Adnan Abidi

Tainwala, a 55-year-old expatriate Indian, owns Planet Retail, which held the India franchise rights for U.S. fashion labels Guess and Nautica as well as UK retailers Next and Debenhams. He sold the brands last September to various Indian businesses.

“Right now it’s not possible to do business in India without greasing palms, without paying bribes,” said Tainwala, who is also luggage maker Samsonite’s president for Asia Pacific and West Asia. Tainwala said he himself refused to pay bribes to licensing officials, though that could not be independently confirmed.

India is the next great frontier for global retailers, a $500 billion market growing at 20 percent a year. For now, small shops dominate the sector. Giants from Wal-Mart Stores Inc to IKEA AB have struggled merely for the right to enter, which they finally won last year.

But a daunting array of permits – more than 40 are required for a typical supermarket selling a range of products – force retailers to pay so-called “speed money” through middlemen or local partners to set up shop.

In interviews with middlemen and several retailers, Reuters found the official cost for key licenses is typically accompanied by significant expenses in the form of bribes. The added cost erodes profitability in an industry where margins tend to be razor-thin. It also creates risk for companies by making them complicit in activity that, while commonplace in India and other emerging markets, is nonetheless illegal.

That creates a handicap for foreign operators such as U.S.-based Wal-Mart, the world’s biggest retailer, and Britain’s Tesco Plc and Marks and Spencer Plc, which must comply with anti-bribery laws in their home countries even while operating abroad.

A Wal-Mart spokesperson said the company is strengthening its compliance programs, part of a global compliance review that has cost more than $35 million over the last 18 months. IKEA, which is awaiting final approval to enter India, has started assessing the market, a spokeswoman said, adding the group has “zero tolerance” for corruption in any form.”

via Insight: ‘Speed money’ puts the brakes on India’s retail growth | Reuters.

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10/12/2012

* Uproar in Rajya Sabha over Wal-Mart lobbying disclosure; opposition seeks probe

Retail entry into India; two steps forward, one step back?

Times of India: “The issue of FDI in retail came to haunt the government again in Parliament with a united opposition demanding an inquiry and reply from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on reports of Wal-Mart spending huge money to lobby for entry into the Indian market.

Forcing two adjournments in the Rajya Sabha before lunch, members from BJP, CPM, CPI, SP, JD-U, Trinamool Congress, AGP and AIADMK said the measure should be withdrawn as “corruption” has come to fore now because lobbying is illegal in India.

Raising the issue during Zero Hour, Ravishankar Prasad (BJP) said apprehensions were raised earlier also about Wal-Mart spending huge money to lobby for entering the Indian market, which has now been proved true.

“Wal-Mart has in its lobbying disclosure report to the US Senate said it has spent Rs 125 crore on lobbying and $ 3 million have been spent in 2012 itself for entering the Indian market.

“Lobbying is illegal in India. Lobbying is a kind of bribe. If Wal-Mart has said that hundreds of crores of rupees were spent in India, then it is a kind of bribe. Government should tell who was given this bribe. This raises a question mark on the implementation of FDI in retail,” Prasad said.

He was supported by members from other opposition parties with TMC leader D Bandopadhyay waving a newspaper report and CPM member P Rajeeve asking for an “independent inquiry” into the whole episode alleging that there are some reports saying Wal-Mart invested money even before FEMA was amended.

“This is bribery,” he said as the opposition members shouted slogans in favour of withdrawing FDI.

The opposition was reacting to media report that global retail giant Wal-Mart — waiting for years to open its supermarkets in India — had been lobbying with the US lawmakers since 2008 to facilitate its entry into the highly lucrative Indian market.

via Uproar in Rajya Sabha over Wal-Mart lobbying disclosure; opposition seeks probe – The Times of India.

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