The recent entry of some of the UK’s largest retailers into China and India has underlined growing interest in emerging markets as a means of achieving growth. This year’s World Retail Congress in Barcelona saw retail specialists Chris Wormald and Andrew Halper of international law firm Eversheds discussing some of the hottest issues in global retailing.
Andrew Halper, head of Eversheds’ China Business Group, chaired the panel on China, which featured prominent business leaders from a number of major multinational businesses. He said “China is currently the largest of the emerging markets and looks set to eventually become the biggest consumer market in the world. However, to date, even after two decades of impressive growth, only some 200 or 250 million Chinese are able to participate in a modern consumer lifestyle, and therefore, a vast under-developed market of another billion or so people remains. This is an enormous retail opportunity.
“The rapid rate of ongoing economic development in China, combined with the high level of consumer aspiration amongst the population, highlights the potential for businesses, both domestic and international, to exploit the vast range of retail opportunities.
FranchiseBrief.com on April 18th, 2007 at 7:38 pm
The problem with franchising in China is that you need to have a company owned location for at least 2 years before franchising. The franchise rules are so not developped it makes it very unsafe for franchise companies to go to China (ie. weak trademark law)