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Monday, September 14, 2015

Metro Group and Alibaba

Visited and analyzed methods of the German Metro Group AG retail chain.  In particular their innovation center in Germany. They are the seventh largest retailer on earth.

Evan Schuman analyzes their recent deal with Alibaba, with good cautions for retail:

" .... Last week, one of the world's largest retailers cut a deal with Alibaba, China's global e-commerce giant. German retail chain Metro Group will turn over its online operation in China to Alibaba. Unfortunately, this is becoming a familiar tale in e-tail, it just about never ends well.

This kind of alliance only makes sense when the retailer doesn't mind surrendering the territory involved forever. Alas, retailers generally use these kind of deals in the opposite way — for extremely important segments, assuming they can move in directly down the road, after their partner has done the dirty work for a while. Gee, what's wrong with this picture?   .... "

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