Best Buy (BBY), the No. 1 U.S. consumer electronics retailer, joins the pack of foreign retailers taking advantage of a lifting of limits on foreign competition to woo consumers in the world's biggest potential market.
According to this MSNBC.com article Best Buy has joined with local electronics chain Jiangsu Five Star Appliance Co., China's 14th biggest appliance retailer, to open the store in Shanghai's busy Xujiahui shopping district.
The store's "soft opening" will take place on Thursday. Today journalists were invited for a preview of its 80,000 square feet outlet - the company's biggest store anywhere and its first outside North America.
Best Buy hopes to win over picky Chinese customers with a choice of clean, pleasant outlets with dependabe, helpful service in direct comparison to the current choice of dingy, smoke-filled malls with dusty displays crammed with substandard products.
This should be very interesting to watch as there are already some pretty well run Chinese companies in this space.
Posted by: China Law blog | December 26, 2006 2:33 PM | Permalink to Comment