Best Buy in China

Wal-Mart is an American multinational retail corporation and one of the leading discount department retail stores (Wikipedia). It is the highest- grossing company in the United States (Fortune 2008a), and is by far one of the most successful companies worldwide. Wal-Mart offers a place to buy the majority of our goods under one roof like electronics, furniture, clothing, pharmacy, sports, food, books etc. Wal-Mart sells good at lower price than the others and this is even shown by its slogan “save money, live better”.  It drives out smaller and sometimes even the expensive stores out of business due to its lower prices. Wal-Mart provides jobs for thousands of

Wal-Mart is an American multinational retail corporation and one of the leading discount department retail stores (Wikipedia). It is the highest- grossing company in the United States (Fortune 2008a), and is by far one of the most successful companies worldwide. Wal-Mart offers a place to buy the majority of our goods under one roof like electronics, furniture, clothing, pharmacy, sports, food, books etc. Wal-Mart sells good at lower price than the others and this is even shown by its slogan “save money, live better”.  It drives out smaller and sometimes even the expensive stores out of business due to its lower prices. Wal-Mart provides jobs for thousands of

Wal-Mart failed to grasp the consumer and retail environment in Japan. With a population of 127 million, the highest per capita income and the second largest economy in the world, Japan is a very smart market for retailers. The opportunity exists, but there is much more research and planning that needed to be done before expansion began. Instead of adapting business operations to the Japanese culture, the company essentially assumed the Japanese would readily adjust to Wal-Mart’s. For example, in Japan there is a much larger need for local store customization. Consumer buyer behavior is much different than in the United States, with purchasing patterns and product selection varying greatly between regions. They have a trend to buy smaller quantities in regular intervals rather than the more American idea of “stocking up.” Similarly, the concept of large retail stores is foreign. Retailers with the highest growth rate are small specialty stores; quite the opposite of Wal-Mart. The culture tends to buy more fresh produce than pre-packaged goods as well. Lastly, the Japanese view high price as equaling high quality. This mentality causes them to purchase forty percent of the world’s luxury goods annually. Packaging and appearance of goods play a huge role in their purchasing decisions. When looking at Wal-Mart’s product selection, it is obvious they do not usually cater to luxury-brand customers. All of these cultural misunderstandings lead Wal-Mart

Summer was making its picture-perfect debut in New South Wales that day in October 2011, but Mr Greg Foran hardly noticed. Newly hired away from his role as head of Australia’s leading supermarket chain, Woolworth’s Supermarket Division, he was set to work as a senior vice president at Wal-Mart International, the fastest growing division of the world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart Corporation. However, what exactly he would be doing was still open to discussion. It was not until the sudden and somewhat mysterious departure of Mr Ed Chan, the president of Wal-Mart China, that Foran’s new role suddenly emerged. That Australian summer, far from the approaching winter back in

Best Buy is one of the best electronic retailers in the North America and the leading name in the electronics industry. Best Buy has more than 4000 stores within U.S., Mexico, Canada, Turkey and China (Hoffman, 2010). Best Buy practices differentiation strategy by using customer centricity model that provides end-to-end service. Best Buy was first established in 1966. They changed their name from “Sound of Music” to the “Best Buy” in 1983. Globally, Best Buy has made great business by increased market share and acquisitions of companies. They acquired companies like Geek Squad, Magnolia Audio Video, Pacific Sales and most recently The Future shop.

Best Buy is a multinational retailer of consumer electronics, computing and mobile phone products, entertainment products, appliances, and related services. The company operates retail stores and call centers and conducts online retail operations under a variety of brand names such as Best Buy, Best Buy Mobile, The Carphone Warehouse, Five Star, Future Shop, Geek Squad, Magnolia Audio Video, Pacific Sales, and The Phone House (Bestbuy.com, 4). The domestic segment consists of all operations within the United States, while the international segment includes all operations in Canada, Europe, Mexico, and China. The Best Buy 's success is contingent on the market 's demand for electronics. The company 's strategy is to provide good customer service combined with lower prices (news.cnet.com). Best Buy 's success is directly related to economic conditions, the cost of goods, and other things like fuel prices. The company 's strategy depends upon the ability to offer customers a broad selection of name-brand products; therefore, leading its success to depend upon satisfactory supplier relationships (Bestbuy.com, 8). Best Buy, as it is included in the retail segment, is a seasonal store. Their stronger quarter is the fourth quarter, which they can contribute to the holiday season for their success.

Best Buy’s mission statement is “our formula is simple: we’re a growth company focused on better solving the unmet needs of our customers – and we rely on our employees to solve those puzzles” (bestbuy.com). The company has an objective to to provide the best technological products and service solutions to customers throughout its markets. Best also has as an objective to provide expert services to customers at prices that are described as unbeatable. The objectives also include the company having sustainable growth and earnings. The company marketing the products that is based on an operating model that is considered as customer centricity achieves the sustained growth and earnings. Best Buy uses a strategy that focuses on helping customers to be able to realize what they needed to stay connected with technology and the products that are desired. The company also spends time monitoring the needs of its customers, which

These changes were necessary with the growing instability in Europe and with the ever changing economy in China so in the meantime “Best Buy has decided to explore more profitable growth options for the Best Buy brand in these markets, including the option to reopen two of the closed stores in China at a later date”.()

Running Head: DOLLAR GENERAL 1Dollar General StrategiesGlenda ReeseManagerial Marketing BUS 620Professor Mary WrightJuly 8, 2012

One of Best Buy’s weaknesses is Customer Service. This is show from the high percentage of customer service complaints written to Best Buy. According to PlanetFeedback Radio Shack and even Circuit City have a better customer

Another challenge is that despite the ability to manufacture products cheaper in China, there is a flip side to this situation and that is that sometimes, that “made in America” sign on the back of a product could mean more than the few dollars more it costs to buy that product. Some Americans, in their spirit of patriotism, care more about supporting the American economy than saving a little bit here and there buying products that were manufactured outside of the United States. Balancing the stigma sometimes associated with making a product in a foreign country with the lower costs that usually comes along with that is important in doing business in China as well.

Wal-Mart’s business strategy relies on low production costs which it can pass on to its customers. If Wal-Mart were a country then it would be China’s eighth largest trading partner ahead of Russia, Australia, and Canada. Wal-Mart’s non-Chinese owned suppliers operating in China number nearly 5,000 and all of them benefit from a low valued yuan compared to the dollar. The 176 million worldwide customers of Wal-Mart also benefit from the low valued yuan. With nearly 70% of Wal-Mart’s products coming from China a sharp increase in the value of the yuan against the dollar can be devastating for the company as the increased costs for

It makes sense for Best Buy to worry more about Wal-Mart, which is getting more involved in electronics retailing, and less about Circuit City. The competitors are a diverse lot today, and for them to continue to grow they're going to have to get much better at everything they do and define themselves in clear ways. Best Buy's plan is to revamp its stores according to the types of customers they serve. A strategy previously mentioned, customer centricity, focuses on targeting five prototypical customers, all of whom have been given names: "Jill," a busy suburban mom; "Buzz," a focused, active younger male; "Ray," a family man who likes his technology practical; "BB4B" (short for Best Buy for Business), a small professional employer; and "Barry," an affluent professional male who's likely to drop tens of thousands of dollars on a home theater system. Their most current focus is on a "Jill" based store, the soccer mom who has money to spend but typically hasn't a clue of where or how to find products in the store. According to the data Best Buy has collected, Jill shops a few times a year, usually twice at an electronics store, but she usually spends a significant amount.

A. Wal-Mart realized through third party studies and internal research that the Chinese customer were significantly more cost-sensitive than those in other countries and that there existed a strong, established culture of frequently shopping around to find the absolute lowest prices. Through these studies, Wal-Mart also realized that customer satisfaction level greatly influenced customer loyalty in China. The greatest determinant of this satisfaction was made up of perceived value. The perceived value is composed of three sub factors: (1) Product price, (2) Relative price and (3) Promotion. The other factors for customer satisfaction in descending order of its importance are Image,

The buying situation differs in Canada from china, by several reasons. Best Buy Company had an entry strategy for each country, but the environment in china didn’t was as they were expecting. The Chinese were not familiar to the concept of credit, as in United States and Canada, this fact made the paying system more complex than what they were expecting.