The center of middle class consumption and life style is shifting from West to East, principally to China and India. This is driven by urbanization and global market economics. The West has been the primary home of urban middle class life for over a hundred years. This has shaped their Western identity and confidence, and is inculcated in national self-consciousness. [read more]
(Foreword: We have asked Tom Osenton to contribute a blog to Kotler on Growth because of his scholarship and provocative strategic insights on economic growth. We were very impressed by his book The Death of Demand, 2004, FT Prentice Hall. He traces the historic decline of U.S. consumer decline and challenges us to find a way to live in a permanently low growth [read more]
Wal-Mart faces a daunting business challenge. When Wal-Mart started its high growth strategy in 1969, it followed the movement of American middle class families from declining cities to new suburbs. Wal-Mart built thousands of stores to service this massive migration of growing household income, along with distribution centers to link these suburban and exurban stores into the largest retail chain [read more]
Chinese consumers can buy fresh Washington State Sweet Bing Cherries on Alibaba’s consumer website Tail.com for $6.56 a pound. It costs an American eComerce consumer $14.42 a pound on Packitrite.com. Unbelievable, but it is happening and here is how it works. For a small deposit, Chinese consumer can place a TMail order at a place marker price. Depending on the volume of [read more]
The U.S. economy relies heavily on retail for consumption and jobs. In 2012 total retail sales (including eCommerce) amounted to $4.4 trillion. Retail supports 1 in 4 American jobs. It is directly and indirectly responsible for 18% of the U.S. GDP, and it directly and indirectly generates 17% of the U.S. labor income. Retail supports 41,620,604 jobs in the United [read more]