Tag Archives: B&Q

RETAIL: Britain’s Asos Crushed by China E-Commerce

Bottom line: Asos’ China retreat is due to the country’s extremely competitive e-commerce landscape, and shows that western retailers need to devote significant resources to succeed in the market.

Asos bows from China

In what looks like a first for a major western retailer, British fashion seller Asos (London: ASC) has officially pulled the plug on its China operations. Some might say that’s nothing new, since much bigger names like supermarket operator Tesco (London: TSCO) and electronics seller Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) have made similar moves in the last 5 years after failing to find a big enough audience among Chinese consumers.

But Asos is a different case, since it’s one of a growing number of western retailers that are choosing to come to China as a pure e-commerce plays, in a bid to save the huge costs involved with traditional stores and also take advantage of the nation’s online shopping craze. The problem is that China’s e-commerce craze has also attracted thousands of other retailers, and Asos couldn’t find a way to differentiate itself from the crowd. Read Full Post…

RETAIL: Wal-Mart Dumped by China Partner As Landscape Changes

Bottom line: Wal-Mart’s loss of China Resources as one of its major Chinese partners reflects rapid changes in the traditional retailing market, and could prompt Wal-Mart to accelerate an overhaul of its broader China strategy to focus more on e-commerce.

China Resources dumps Wal-Mart JV stake
China Resources dumps Wal-Mart JV stake

Just 3 months after sacking the founders of its China e-commerce site, US retailing giant Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) has suffered yet another blow in the huge but difficult market with the loss of a major local partner for its traditional brick-and-mortar stores. That move is seeing China Resources, one of the country’s biggest and oldest consumer names, dump shares worth $515 million in a number of Wal-Mart stores that it jointly owns with the US retailing giant.

The move isn’t all that surprising for a number of reasons, but still doesn’t look too good for Wal-Mart in the fast-changing Chinese retailing market. For starters, China Resources is already a major owner of smaller supermarket chain called Vanguard. It also moved into the hypermarket business 2 years ago when it effectively took over the China-based operations of British giant Tesco (London: TSCO) through a joint venture. (previous post) Read Full Post…

Home Depot Packs Up China Toolkit 家得宝关闭在华所有大卖场

Just 6 years after coming to China, US home improvement giant Home Depot (NYSE: HD) is shuttering most of its China shops, becoming the latest major foreign retailer to discover that China’s 1.3 billion consumers aren’t quite the same as their peers in the West. Home Depot’s departure follows the equally high-profile closure of US electronics retailing giant Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) stores last year (previous post), and I suspect that the reasons for both companies’ failures are similar. Put simply, both Best Buy and now Home Depot discovered that price is by far the most important factor for Chinese consumers, who are always looking for the best bargains. Brand loyalty and customer service — 2 important elements that attract consumers to Best Buy and Home Depot stores in the West — are far less important to the Chinese.

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