Chinese customers like to touch everything in the store
Soon after B&Q, the British home improvement retailer, opened its first outlet in China in 1999, store managers had to places signs requesting customers not climb the vertical displays of bathroom fixtures.
Chinese customers wanted to touch any products they might buy, said David Wei, B&Q's China president, who solved the problem by building walkthrough show bathrooms instead of tall displays.
Fixing the instore bathroom displays was one small step for the retailer on a steep learning curve in China, a market that is central to B&Q's plans to diversify its earnings away from dependence on its core UK and French businesses.
Already the market leader with 20 stores in China, B&Q plans to consolidate its position by increasing its outlets almost fourfold within three to four years.
“I cannot see any limits to our growth up until my retirement in 15 to 20 years,” said Mr Wei.
B&Q in China was profitable for the first time last year, and executives expect earnings from the mainland will now start to climb significantly.
Ian Cheshire, head of International Development for Kingfisher, said that B&Q's earnings would throw off enough cash in four to five years to fund future expansion without recourse to funds from head office.
Kingfisher has significantly restructured its operations in recent years to help fund its overseas growth. In July 2003 it demerged Kesa, its electrical retailing business for XXX. It also sold off high street chain Woolworths in XXXX to fund, bringing in a further XXXX.
It now has operations in nine overseas markets dotted across Asia and Europe. Gerry Murphy, Kingfisher chief executive, says almost 60 per cent of the company's profits now come from outside the UK. Having rolled out the stores in Tawian and China, Kingfisher is now planning its first store opening in South Korea in 2005.
Kingfisher says the roll-out is going to plan. Kingfisher Asia, the company's regional sourcing divison, shipped goods worth US$450m in 2004-5, up 34 per cent on the previous 12-month period.
Starry-eyed notions of bountiful returns from the "world's largest market" have bought down many a multinational, but a host of factors are aligning positively for companies in China's housing industry.
China's private property revolution, which started in the mid to late seventies in Shanghai, has spread through the relatively wealthy coastal cities and is now heading inland.
On top of existing urban areas, China has plans to build scores of new cities as part of a plan to house tens of millions of farmers and their families expected to leave the land over the next two decades.
In an effort to rid the market of rogue developers who build little more than concrete shells to cash in on demand for housing, the government has ordered that most flats be sold furnished, a windfall for companies like B&Q.
The Chinese market is also being prised further open by the terms of Beijing's accession to the World Trade Organisation.
From December 11, foreign retailers will no longer have the number of stores per city capped; they will be able to have wholly owned businesses rather than joint ventures; and to streamline their sourcing to include factories which were once restricted to exports.
Gerry Murphy, Kingfisher chief executive , says that the WTO-mandated liberalisation will not remove all obstacles to foreigners in a market he describes as still "highly ordered by the central and local governments."
"There will substantial western participation, but foreign companies will not be allowed to dominate," he said, noting the history of colonisation in China.
中国顾客：眼见为虚手碰为实
1999年，英国家居装潢零售商百安居(B&Q)在中国开出第一家门店。刚开张不久，该店的经理们不得不贴出标语，要求顾客不要攀爬竖直堆放的浴室器具陈列品。
百安居中国区总裁卫哲(David Wei)说，中国顾客在购物之前，总是喜欢触摸一下商品。他解决了这个问题，办法是搭建一个浴室展示实景，而不是堆得高高的器具陈列品。
对于这家零售商来说，建立店内模拟浴室是它在中国快速学习过程中的一小步。百安居计划摆脱对核心的英国与法国业务的依赖，让收益来源多样化，而中国市场对于这个计划至关重要。
百安居目前已是市场领军企业，在中国开有20家分店。它计划在3至4年内把门店数量增至目前的4倍，从而巩固自己的领先地位。
“在15到20年后我退休之前，看不出我们的业务增长会有任何局限性，”卫先生说。
去年，百安居在中国首次实现盈利。如今公司高管预期，来自中国大陆的收益将开始大幅攀升。
翠丰集团(Kingfisher)国际开发部门主管伊恩?切希尔(Ian Cheshire)说，在未来4至5年后，百安居在中国的收益将提供足够的现金供未来拓展之需，无须求助于总部的资金。
最近几年，翠丰已对自身业务进行了重大重组，以为其海外发展提供资金。2003年7月，它分拆了电子零售业务部门Kesa。2001年，它又把商业街的综合连锁店Woolworths出售。
目前它在9个海外市场经营业务，这些市场分布在亚洲和欧洲。翠丰首席执行官马杰瑞(Gerry Murphy)说，现在该公司近60%的利润来自英国以外的市场。在台湾和中国大陆推出大量门店后，翠丰现在计划于2005年在韩国开出它的第一家门店。
翠丰表示，开设门店已纳入计划。在2004年至2005年间，该公司地区采购部门翠丰亚洲采购中心(Kingfisher Asia)发送了价值4.5亿美元的货品，较先前12个月上升了34%。
许多跨国公司都沉迷于从“全球最大市场”获得丰厚回报的幻想，但对中国房产业公司来说，许多积极因素正在呈现。
中国的私有财产革命于上世纪70年代中后期从上海起步，现已扩展到许多比较富裕的沿海城市，目前正向内陆地区延伸。
除了现有的城市区域，中国还打算建设大量新城市，作为一项计划的一部分。这个计划就是，为预计将在未来20年中离开农田的数千万农民及其家庭提供住房。
中国一些不道德的开发商为从住房需求中赚钱，建造混凝土外壳后就算完事。为了将这些开发商赶出市场，中国政府下令多数公寓都必须在装修好后出售，这对百安居这样的公司来说真是一笔意外的财富。
中国市场正在根据中国加入世贸组织(WTO)的条款进一步开放，尽管马杰瑞先生表示，外国公司将不会获准主导市场。
从12月11日起，外国零售商在每座城市的门店数量不再有上限，它们将可以拥有独资公司而不是合资企业。它们还可以向原先限于出口的工厂采购，从而精简采购过程。
翠丰首席执行官马杰瑞将中国描述为一个仍由“中央和地方政府高度管制”的市场，他表示，在这个市场上，世贸组织规定的开放不会为外国企业消除所有障碍。
“将有大量西方企业介入，但外国公司不会被允许占据主导地位，”他在提及中国的殖民历史时说
