This report will focus on Marks & Spencer’s first department store in Shanghai, mainland China, which is also the biggest one in Asian area. It is noticed that China has already become hotbed of business investment due to its huge potential market (The Economist, Apr 2010). Meanwhile, it’s imperative for Western multinationals, including M&S, to expand their overseas emerging market to offset the losses in their domestic area1, especially after the economic crisis. [more details in Appendices 1] 1.2 Target product
Clothing will be examined in this study. According to M&S annual report (2010), Clothing is still the most important income resource for them. However, Resent performance of this area in Shanghai is unsatisfied and it need to be strongly improved.
1 External market factors
2.3 Policy
Generally, local government in China eager to attract foreign companies to invest in their city, thereby increasing the tax revenue. Despite that, like other government in developing world, sometime they are meddling and irritating, failing to offer necessary support (The Economist, Apr 2010). 2.4 Social Culture
Philip Kotler (2010) point out that when company analyses a new market in terms of culture, they should carefully distinguish the core values from the secondary beliefs. Like other Asian countries, such as Japan, awareness of hierarchy and teamwork are more prevalent in China compared with its in Europe2 [App 1]. (European Journal of Marketing, 2009) These core values heavily influence customer’s decision-making about choosing clothes.
2.5 Law
The law about intellectual property is not perfect, that increase the risk of company’s invest. In contrast, There has less influence of “Legacy system” which is prevalent in the West.(The Economist, 2010)
2 Product reposition
3.1 Position Map
It is obviously that there has a serious problem about product position of M&S’s
Bibliography: Sin, Leo Y. M. and Yau, Oliver H. M. (2001). Female Role Orientation and Consumption Values: Some Evidence from Mainland China. Journal of International Consumer Marketing, 13(2), pp. 49-75 Tse, Alan C.B., Sin, Leo Y.M., Yau, Oliver H Sin, Leo Y. M., Tse, Alan C. B., Yau, Oliver H. M., and Lee, Jenny S. Y. (2000). Market Orientation and Business Performance – An Empirical Study in Mainland China. Journal of Global Marketing, 14(3), pp. 5-29 Oliver H October 6th, 2008 There are now around 250 million to 350 million “middle class” Chinese, according to Paul French, a retail analyst at Access Asia They’ve made H&M and Zara very successful, and Mothercare has recently opened to try to corner the maternity end of the market. But it’s next to impossible to see them flocking to this store. January 18th, 2009