Retailing In Emergent Markets:
Strategic Foundations & Best Practices
By The Coca-Cola Retailing Research Council
This report may change the way you think about retailing in emergent markets.
Based on rigorous research into leading retailers in six emergent country markets in Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America and South Africa, this report examines the dynamics and subtleties of each market and then “connects the dots” to form an original global perspective and yield useful insights.
This report is a companion to a definitive multimedia presentation. The research was conducted for the Coca-Cola Retailing Research Council of Latin America and took place from over the course of 2009. Our work was informed by two assumptions:
- Useful knowledge of emergent markets requires learning both what they share in common and also how they differ; and
- There is no single “right” way to succeed commercially in an emergent market. But there are certain attitudes, knowledge and capabilities that form the foundation of any successful engagement
Preliminary Comments1. There is no one definition of an emergent market.
While complicated econometrics can help define what is meant by an emergent market, the most succinct and useful description is this: An emergent market is a place where people who thought their daily existence could never improve now believe that the future will be better than the past. Emergent market retailers contribute to— and benefit from—this sense of hope.
Each of the markets studied for this report—Brazil, China, Peru, Poland, South Africa and Turkey—are changing at a different speed and in different ways. Each country sits along a continuum of cultural, social and economic development. How these characteristics fit together makes each market a singular place.
2. There is no definitive emergent market retailing model.Yet all successful retailers share some combination of attitude and culture that enables them to grow in these challenging business environments and to draw customers from all income levels. In most emergent markets, the majority of the population shops both in the organized and fragmented trades, often during the same day.
Each of the six retailers studied is a home-grown leader: Magazine Luiza (Brazil), Beijing Hualian Group (China), Supermercados Peruanos (Peru), Biedronka (Poland), Pick n Pay (South Africa), and BIM (Turkey).
Each has profoundly understood the defining characteristics of its local market. Each faces a similar challenge: attracting and retaining consumers who historically have shopped in the small shops of the traditional trade and are generally unfamiliar with the expansive shopping venues of developed markets.
While each company is shaped by local particularities, they share a core strategy: Each retailer has a clear retail proposition to its respective market, providing consumers with high-value products and services delivered at low cost.
Some of the retailers have cultures that empower employees and emphasize a social responsibility connection with the communities they serve. Other retailers focus on more basic commercial formulas for delivering a limited product assortment at the lowest possible price.
To read the full report, download Retailing In Emergent Markets. (pdf, 3.67 Mb)