Word: costco
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...Hypermarkets have already changed the retail landscape in their homelands by being brutally efficient, selling a mind-boggling range of products?from groceries to pharmaceuticals to clothes to big-screen TVs?at cut-rate prices. U.S.-based Costco operates spartan warehouses where bulk goods are stacked on pallets and sold to the public wholesale. The mammoth Wal-Mart chain?annual revenues of $218 billion made it the largest company on this year's FORTUNE 500 list?emphasizes customer service to bring in the crowds while keeping prices in check with high-tech inventory management?and by using its clout...
...Local retailers are not the only ones displaced when the superstore comes to town. Because of their high turnover, hypermarkets can throw their weight around with local suppliers by demanding lower prices. Costco buys directly from manufacturers to stock its two stores in Japan?a practice that disrupts the country's entrenched but inefficient distribution networks, which have multiple layers of middlemen. Security expert John Muller, president of McFadden Protection Agency Thailand, theorizes that Tesco's Thai stores may have been attacked by Mafia-like cartels he says control the flow of goods in the country. (Thai police have made...
...Mike Sinegal, head of Costco's Japan operations, agrees that stores must trim their sails according to prevailing winds, but dismisses the notion that Asian consumers are very different from shoppers in, say, Los Angeles. When Costco entered Japan, he says, local suppliers insisted American shampoos wouldn't sell because Japanese hair is different. But Costco's private-label brand quickly became one of its top-selling products. "The bottom line is that the uniqueness of these markets is overrated," says Sinegal...
...Costco is not yet turning a profit on its Japanese operation, but still plans to build up to 70 stores there. Wal-Mart is edging into this market too, having recently taken a stake in ailing, 400-store food-and-clothing chain Seiyu. In fact, hypermarkets have aggressive expansion plans throughout Asia. Superstores face slowing growth in saturated home markets. They need to expand their territory to maintain growth rates. Wal-Mart intends to boost its international sales?now less than 20% of its total revenue?to a third of total revenue within five years. That means building new stores...
...Samsung's new devices, these combine cutting-edge technology with award-winning design--at premium prices. That's something new for a company that only a few years ago was known as a mass marketer of cheap TVs and VCRs--the kind you bought off a shipping pallet at Costco if you couldn't afford a Sony or Mitsubishi. Since 1997, however, Samsung has begun rubbing shoulders with the market leaders in high-end cell phones, DVD players, elegant flat plasma TVs and a wide range of other consumer products. These gadgets are sometimes less expensive than those of Japanese...