Here,Come,More,Foreign,Shops:TMore

　　In the coming future, maybe Chinese shopping fans will not need to go to Paris for buying genuine French goods. Galeries Lafayette from Paris, which has left the Chinese market for over 15 years, announced their plan of returning to this country last year. Now, its real estate project in Great Joy City, Xidan, Beijing is completed and going to be ready to welcome fans of French commodities next summer.
　　Early in 1997, Galeries Lafayette tried to get into the market of Beijing with the attempt of setting up a department store in Wangfujing, the most prosperous area of this city. At that time, China was enjoying a high economic growth rate thanks to the reform and opening up started 20 years before. A lot of well-established foreign retailing brands swarmed into the Chinese market and set up stores in first-tier cities of China, even though only a few Chinese local consumers could afford the commodities sold by them.
　　Galeries Lafayette, which was sensitive to every business opportunity, also threw its eyes at the emerging consumption market of China. However, it was forced to close the store in Beijing due to the poor performance and from then on it never stepped into the Asian market until now.
　　Galeries Lafayette found itself a partner which is very familiar with the market in Beijing to make a sound in this return. Hong Kongbased I.T Apparel Group was chosen. At the end of October 2010, Galeries Lafayette signed a contract with I.T Apparel Group, according to which the two parties respectively contributed 50% of the capital to found a joint venture which is responsible for the business of Galeries Lafayette in China. In addition, Galeries Lafayette published the “plan of opening stores” in China. As the plan disclosed, Galeries Lafayette will establish 10-15 department stores in Shanghai, Hangzhou, Macau, Tianjin and Chengdu in the next three to five years.
　　 Macy’s Unites with Jiapin.com
　　Apart from Galeries Lafayette, a lot of foreign retail giants are aiming at the Chinese market too. The U.S. retail tycoon Macy’s announced on May 23 that it had invested into China’s retail website Jiapin.com to earn the right of selling its own products in this website. The two parties reached an agreement and Macy’s helped Jiapin.com to build a special section for Macy’s in its newly-established section “European and American Goods”, which is said to sell high-end foreign commodities. Macy’s invested 15 million U.S. dollars into this Chinese online retailer and acquired a minority of its stake. According to the plan announced by Macy’s, some products of its self-owned brand “I.N.C” will be sold in this website next spring.
　　It is known that most of the products sold in Macy’s are priced at over 100 U.S. dollars.
　　 Yang Peifeng, CEO of Jiapin.com, said: “As the largest department store, Macy’s has been developing for 153 years. This time we reached a series of cooperation with this company including the great amount of fundraising. The fundraising is of great significance for Jiapin.com because we not only get the market experiences and service concepts of the world-class retailers but also provide local fashion buyers with a more diversified category of products. The integrated services of Jiapin.com and users’ shopping experiences will thus be greatly optimized and improved.”
　　Terry J. Lundgren, board chairman and CEO of Macy’s hopes to have a quick understanding of Chinese consumers’ habits and consumption pattern with the cooperation with Jiapin.com so that it could fully understand the features of the Chinese market.
　　Presently Macy’s has no stores in China, but from last year it began to provide online shopping and following delivery services for consumers in over 100 countries (China included). It began to embrace the Chinese consumers though the delivery cost is not low. Then, the new agreement allows Chinese consumers to buy Macy’s goods directly through Jiapin.com and the delivery cost is thus reduced.
　　 Marks & Spencer Set Foot in Shanghai
　　
　　When Galeries Lafayette and Macy’s are actively trying to get a bite of the Chinese market, another world-class retail group is marching forward slowly in China. On June 1, Marks & Spencer from the UK established the new Marks & Spencer flagship store, which is also the largest store of this company in Asia, in West Huaihai Road, Shanghai. It is the second flagship store of Marks & Spencer in Shanghai and the 8th store in China, 4 years after the establishment of its first store in October 2008.
　　Meanwhile, it is the first time that Marks& Spencer moved the new flagship store to China. The previous two new flagship stores are respectively established in Avenue des champselyses in France and the area next to London Olympic site in the UK. The new flagship store in shanghai is a two-storey building that covers 5,680 square meters. Women’s clothing and underwear are sold on the ground floor while men’s and children’s clothes and food are available on the second floor. The new flagship store owns the innovative idea of focusing on speed and convenience, which gives this British retailer the advantages in design, production, delivery and operation. It is good for keeping the “freshness” of fashionable clothes as new products are supplied to the stores twice every week, enabling the latest fashion to reach consumers instantly. Consumers can buy the limited edition of Marks& Spencer’s brands and the SavileRow-branded men’s clothes in the new flagship store.
　　Marks & Spencer is the British largest multinational commercial retail group which is 126 years old. Though it went through a lot of difficulties before setting up its first store in China, Marks & Spencer has been determined to expand in Shanghai. By now, 5 of its 8 stores in mainland China are located in Shanghai, while the rest three are respectively located in Ningbo, Changzhou and Wuhan. Moreover, Marks & Spencer announced the plan of establishing eight new stores in China in the next 12 months, most of which are mainly located in the eastern area centering on Shanghai. Marks & Spencer chose different Chinese property developers in its expansion. Among them Wanda Group from Dalian, Liaoning assisted in the construction of three new sites. As Jan Heere, president of Marks & Spencer’s International Business, the British company gets along well with Wanda Group as the latter can always provide Marks & Spencer with good locations. “We hope to continue this kind of cooperation,” he said.
　　
　　 Faster Reshuffling of Local Department Stores
　　Since the rent for commercial property keeps increasing the central business district becomes a kind of rare resources, the core of commercial area in Beijing is moving from downtown to suburb area. In the next few years, the retail malls in the central business district might also move outward as well. Though it is widely held that there are enough shopping malls and supermarkets in Beijing, the retail market in Beijing
　　still has attachable appeal for those foreign retail giants. When low-end retailers are forced out the central business districts, those large retailers, which can afford the high rents, will swarm into these areas to fill the vacant spaces. This will upgrade the retail industry in the central business districts and the arrival of foreign department stores largely accelerated this upgrade.
　　“We find that Xidan can resume the role of the mainstream high-end retail and consumption area in Beijing. I think it is the right time,”said Paul Delaoutre, CEO of Galeries Lafayette’s Department Store. Maybe this is an opportunity of getting into the market of Beijing that foreign companies are hard to get in a dozen of years. For domestic department store runners, Macy’s, Galeries Lafayette and other world-known giants have over a century’s experience in retail and are very likely to be the dominator in the upgrade of central business districts.
　　As Macy’s CEO Lundgren said, Macy’s cooperates with Jiapin,com to get familiar with the features of Chinese market. Sun Yafei, CEO of the Fifth Avenue Luxury Goods Networkm thought that Macy’s acquisition of Jiapin.com’s stakes for both selling commodities and getting to know the internal sales information. No matter Macy’s plans to get into China with substantial stores or ecommerce, collecting information about Chinese consumers and knowing the Chinese market is its primary task.
　　The entry of foreign department stores is considered a good thing for local retailers by Wang Zhiming, an invited teacher of the Commercial Property Committee of the China Federation of Industry and Commerce. “Matured foreign retail groups bring advanced ideas and operating patterns into China, which will inspire the innovation and upgrade of local enterprises,”Wang Zhiming said. From the entry of Carrefour in 1995, foreign retailers successively stepped into the Chinese market, creating the period of fastest development for the Chinese retail industry. Apart from self improvement, foreign retail giants also make great contributions to the development of the upgrade of Chinese retail industry.
　　But there are still a lot of cases revealing that not all foreign retailers can get used to China. In experts’ opinions, the retail market in China is full of competition and has its own particularity. Therefore foreign retailers’ experiences might be a double-edge sword for them.
　　First it is not easy for foreign department stores to be set up in China. Apart from learning the behaviors and habits of Chinese consumers, the international standard in service and business pattern might not sit well with China. Risks are inevitable for companies initially coming to China. Prior to the intensive participation of this time, many foreign retailers, which enjoyed good development in their home countries, encountered Waterloo in China. For example, the 160-year high-end department store Lane Crawford just ended with a failure in China.
　　Lane Crawford left Shanghai, where it operated for 6 years, in December 2006. In the next spring it closed the stores in Hangzhou and Harbin. Marks & Spencer also admitted that it had made a lot of mistakes in the management of supply chain and apparel size in its first store in China.
　　In spite of previous failures, foreign retailers do not give up the Chinese market. Frustrated but determined, they intensified their investment into this country, believing their activities will be rewarded sooner or later.
　　Local participants have already felt the stress brought by foreign rivals. Their original pattern of applying the same features to all stores needs to be changed. Without enough innovation and advanced operating concepts, many department stores have to suffer the lofty cost and the decreasing competitive power.“Foreign retailers’ involvement accelerated the formation of differentiation of the retail industry in China. The reshuffling of this industry is coming soon and it will be finished in a short while.”

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