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China Sets The World Record for the Biggest Sales Online in One Day

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Singles Day China

This was the doorway of an express company in Guangzhou on November 12th 2012. Its warehouse could not accommodate all the packages received from Taobao on “11.11 Singles’ Day – Online Shopping Festival”. Never heard of it?  On that single day, 72 million online-shopping-packages were sent out. This amounted to RMB19.1 billion transactions which is equivalent to about US$3 billion. The Singles’ Day promotion was created by Taoba and targets single men and women of China. It is neither traditional nor official  but for this one special day, Taobao’s Tmall  offered huge discounts to online shoppers. [Read more…]

Christmas Wish: Better Trade Terms Next Year

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Mr. W. Thorpe
Acme Inc.
909 Neverland Road
Hopewell, USA

2nd December 2012

Christmas Wish: Better Trade Terms Next Year

Dear Santa,

I have one Christmas wish: that my trade terms with leading retailers would work better for me. I’d like to feel that I’m investing in my retail partners and not subsidizing them. I wish that the money we spent could be focused on activities that really drive sales rather than buying more of the same activities that seem to deliver little or nothing. And Santa, above all, I wish that when I invest in in retail, I would actually get what I pay for 100% of the time rather than just 80% of the time.

Hopefully  yours,

Billy Thorpe

Sales Director (Acme Inc.) [Read more…]

What Carrefour’s Exit from SE Asia Means for CPG Profits in Asia

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This month Carrefour completed its exit from South East Asia. Following the 2010 sale of its Thai business and the closure of Singapore earlier this year; the transfer of the Malaysian business to Japan’s Aeon group and the sale of its remaining holdings in Indonesia last week closes a chapter in South East Asia retail.  [Read more…]

Reducing Trade Expenditure – Think ‘Consumer First’ Not ‘Store First’

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In 1995 POPAI told the world that 70% of purchase decisions were made in-store and in May this year they announced their latest research showing that this number had climbed to 76%. Manufacturers around the world have seized on these figures to justify progressively higher levels of expenditure in retail. [Read more…]

Want better execution? Learn from Convenience stores

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Just a few weeks ago I was at my favorite beach resort in Thailand for a well-earned break. On my first afternoon I realized I’d left my travel adapter at home so I headed out to find a replacement. Anyone visiting Thailand will know that convenience stores are now a feature of almost every street in every built up area of the country. My beach resort was no exception, with two 7-Elevens and two Family Marts within close walking distance of my hotel. So when my first stop (7-Eleven) yielded no luck, I continued down the road the Family Mart. Having no joy in the second store I thought I’d try my luck in the third and sure enough, they had what I was looking for, albeit in a part of the store I hadn’t searched in before. [Read more…]