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Strategies & Market Trends : China Warehouse- More Than Crockery -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RealMuLan who wrote (2342)	1/1/2004 4:17:25 PM
From: RealMuLan	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 6370

Revolutionizing Shopping Habits Wal-mart Changing Tastes In China January 1, 2004 By TYLER MARSHALL, Los Angeles Times SHENZHEN, China -- Lau Man-ching has a new habit: Three times a week, she shops at Wal-Mart. Like a growing number of middle-class Chinese consumers, the 30-year-old real estate agent is drawn by the dazzling array of goods offered under one roof. Lau buys most of her produce at a Wal-Mart Supercenter near the Hong Kong border, occasionally venturing upstairs to browse through the aisles of clothing, appliances and sporting goods. The fact that sales and checkout clerks smile and try to help is a bonus. For China's long-suffering consumers, weaned on long lines and patient waits for shoddy merchandise, the change is almost revolutionary. "It's fast, it's convenient and it's clean," Lau said. "And it's all right here." After more than eight years of treading cautiously, Wal-Mart is pulling out the stops in China, one of the latest additions to a fast-growing overseas retail empire that includes more than 1,200 stores in 10 countries. After stumbling badly in Germany, where it met fierce resistance from competitors and labor unions, Wal-Mart started doing its homework. In Britain, it purchased the ASDA department store chain, acquiring not only one of that country's largest retailers, but also picking up the popular George fashion line that it is importing into the United States. Wal-Mart entered Japan's notoriously closed market by purchasing a 34 percent share of Seiyu, a troubled department store chain. Along the way, Wal-Mart has not only introduced discount shopping but transformed buying habits. In Mexico, where Wal-Mart opened its first foreign outlet in 1991, the company's Walmex division accounts for more than half of all supermarket sales. Consumers accustomed to getting their meat from neighborhood "carnicerias" are buying beef wrapped in plastic. They've also developed a taste for bagels. In China, the spectacle of shoppers crowding to buy Max Factor beauty products, Johnson & Johnson lotion and Sony TV sets is a powerful sign of how consumer tastes are changing in the world's most populous country. Exotic foreign goods that would have been hard to come by a decade ago - from potato chips to feminine hygiene products -- are brisk sellers today. Many customers here treat Wal-Mart in much the same way an American might venture into Harrods in London. Families dress up and go for the day. Young people visit on dates. The store is a must-see for out-of-town visitors. One Shenzhen shopper said she took her four grandchildren to Wal-Mart just to look around. "I don't have any plans to buy anything today," she said. Still, business is robust. A Wal-Mart's Sam's Club membership store in Shenzhen set a single-day sales record for the company two years ago, taking in $1.7 million during the Chinese new year holidays. Because of such volume, Wal-Mart is about to embark on an ambitious expansion in China, including its first outlets in the consumer strongholds of Beijing and Shanghai. The company, which employs 15,000 people in China, will have more than 30 stores open in the nation by year's end, up from 25 last year. .. ctnow.com