Perspectives
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. WMT, the world’s biggest retailer, inked a contract to buy into Chinese online grocery store Yihaodian.com earlier this year.
It was a strategic move the US-based retail giant took after launching Samsclub.cn for trial operation for a period of time. Thus it has become a focal point why it chose to buy into an online retailer rather than operating one by itself in the Chinese market. According to industry observers, China is quite a different market from the US and in addition to Wal-Mart, other leading global retailers meet difficulties in operating an online shop by themselves there.