Hints and tips:
...But we are maintaining our long-term bullishness on Walmart....
...The home improvement superstore’s numbers were weak, but judging by the “meh” response from the stock price, not much worse than expected....
...The group’s US business, in particular, has performed well as shoppers have flocked to its superstores for food and other household essentials....
...Everyone, with the exception of the superstore’s local competitors, will happily oblige....
...“There is no dominant chain in China, no Walmart,” he points out....
...Walmart, the world’s biggest food retailer, poured money into both home delivery and click-and-collect — or “kerbside” as it is known in the US....
...Local chains specialising in fresh produce have gained market share, most notably those run by Yonghui Superstores, a domestic group that has seen revenues increase from Rmb30bn to Rmb70bn in the five years...
...With an acquisition by another international retailer also unlikely, Walmart will continue to run Asda as a useful cash cow....
...Walmart superstores have transformed shopping habits and became a dominant force in American retail. The bricks-and-mortar model, however, has been upended in by the rise of ecommerce....
...Last month Walmart announced a $16bn deal to take over Indian online retailer Flipkart, in an attempt to establish a footprint in the country without having to open physical shops....
...The combination would be able to exploit Walmart’s power with suppliers and Sainsbury’s string of convenience size stores, which are wooing shoppers away from the out-of-town superstores that have been Asda...
...But so complementary are their locations and formats — Sainsbury stronger in the south and in online and convenience, Asda in the north in bigger superstores — that no store closures at all are planned,...
...When I visited last week, I found the flagship superstore more or less unchanged since I last shopped there more than 10 years ago, bar the threat of decapitation by enthusiastic drone demonstrators....
...In the 1990s superstore discounters began undercutting Toys R Us on price, and by 1998 his chain was overtaken by Walmart as the largest American toy retailer....
...True, the company has not gone as far as rivals such as Tesco and Walmart in updating the formula of vast out-of-town superstores that the French group devised in the 1960s....
...The effects of online competition on traditional retailers’ pricing may be no larger than those seen during the rise of “big box” superstore chains like Walmart....
...Walmart has decided to focus on the mid-sized Neighborhood Markets and its superstores instead, which it has been starting to redesign in an attempt to improve the customer experience and better integrate...
...Domestic brand Yonghui Superstores, for example, has enjoyed double-digit revenue and profit growth in recent years by focusing on fresh, local produce, with at least 60 per cent of its meat and vegetables...
...With their slender margins, the superstores cannot afford to slough off too much market share....
...In 1986, Tom Stemberg opened the first Staples superstore in Massachusetts. Stationery retailers have not stood still since....
...There, a vast Walmart superstore opened in 2013 on a formerly crime-ridden lot once owned by a Masonic orphanage....
...Carrefour, Walmart and Tesco all build fewer big box shops, and renovate existing ones. But same-store sales in the shiny superstores are falling nonetheless....
...Supermarkets such as Asda, the British arm of Walmart, the world’s biggest retailer, and Wm Morrison, are cutting back on special offers and lowering the prices of products across the board....
...“The world used to be about supermarkets, then it became superstores . . . now it’s going to be about super-destinations,” Mr Clarke said....
...“This is particularly prominent in the food sector where the growth in convenience and online shopping is having a significant impact on the larger superstores,” he said....
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