It took China’s biggest retail chain Suning all last year to generate sales of about USD17 billion. Last month, e-commerce giant Alibaba saw sales worth more than half that amount pass through its Tmall website in just one day.
Big retailers like Suning Commerce Group Co Ltd and foreign rivals Wal-Mart Stores Inc and Best Buy Co Inc are struggling to attract customers to their traditional stores in China, where online shopping is booming.
This month, Best Buy sold its Chinese business, which had struggled to fend off local rivals.Other firms have also complained that operating in China has become more challenging. Last week, Wal-Mart said it had found pricing discrepancies on its China books, which reportedly were made to make its retail business look better at a time when transactions were slowing and unsold inventory was piling up.
(Source: CNBC)