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Ikea: a Long March to the Far East

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From its humble beginning as a small general retail store in a village situated in the south of Sweden, IKEA has grown into the world's largest furniture retailer with 279 stores in 36 countries today. Specialising in furniture and home decoration, IKEA has an annual turnover of 19.8 billion euros (source: IKEA, www.ikea.com, accessed 25/03/2012). The IKEA catalogue is printed in 52 editions with 25 languages, with a global distribution in excess of 160 million copies.
IKEA sees the Far Asia as an emerging market still in its infant stage. Its number of retail outlets in Malaysia,
Singapore, Taiwan, Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong are very small and comprises a mere 3% of the company's total sales. These stores were expected to be more successful in the near future. IKEA's imminent strategic expansion into this region exemplified its ambitions to dominate this emerging market.
This Case Study illustrates how IKEA's ventures into China and Japan are laden with unique marketing challenges which it had not encountered before in other international markets.
Read the attached case (Case Study: "IKEA: A Long March to the Far East" - Source: Oxford University Press) and answer the following questions;
1. Based on your analysis, what are the opportunities and challenges for IKEA in their market operations in (a)
China; and (b) Japan?
2. Describe the market entry strategies that IKEA adopt in China and Japan respectively.
3. What are IKEA product, pricing, marketing communication and distribution decisions in the two Asian markets? To what extent these marketing mixes have been adapted to the preferences and needs of these markets? 4. For each of these markets, discuss and justify what, in your opinion, IKEA's marketing strategy should be in the near future to gain market shares and achieve higher

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