Is this another huge rivalry? Wal-Mart Vs. Target

As everyone here must know, Target has started to locate in Canada. Zellers was bought out and Target is now expanding its business opportunities. Wal-Mart Canada is currently preparing for yet another battle in competitive retail space. Already operating a chain of more than 375 locations across the country with around 94,000 people, they are making plans for a $450-million expansion program that will include the completion of at least 37 supercentre stores over the next fiscal year. This period would be from Feb. 1, 2013 to Jan. 31, 2014, and this isn't just constructing new stores, they will be remodelling or relocating many existing stores. This is expected to create 7,000 store, trade and construction jobs, and for someone who doesn't have a job, Ism definitely looking into that in the future.

 Even without Target, there were many direct competitors such as Sears Canada, Loblaw Cos. and Canadian Tire. But adding to this already crowded market, now Wal-Mart Canada has to deal with its U.S rival as well! While Wal-Mart was able to get leasehold rights to 39 of the stores, Target is planning to open up to 135 stores in former Zellers locations by this spring. Wal-Mart is going to without a doubt take a big hit and notice a drop in sales. 

Other than expanding, Wal-Mart’s other plan of attack is to lower their prices and continuing their supercentre format which Target doesn’t provide. According to the chief executive officer of Wal-Mart Canada, Shelley Broader: "This year, we are ramping up our focus on lowering prices and helping customers lower their cost of living, as we continue to bring our supercentre format to more Canadians.”

I don’t know about you guys, but I'm actually a bit happy about this new rivalry. It is causing these stores to expand (creating more jobs) AND reduce their prices in hopes of attracting more customers. This year it seems that we as consumers are gaining a lot, and we should take advantage while it lasts!

To read the exact article and watch a video on this topic click here

RIM making a comeback while Apple falls from the top?

After a third straight negative quarter, it seems that Apple has an urgent need to improve their technology. Within this time their stocks (Apple Inc.) has dropped 10% while RIM has been constantly increasing. Is it possible that RIM is making a comeback while apple is falling behind? After getting these results, analysts say "Apple needs to get it right in the world's most populous country, where it ranks only sixth in annual smartphone sales and Samsung Electronics remains the runaway leader". Can you guess which country their talking about? It is the most vast growing country this century, China. If they do not secure a deal with China's top mobile seller "China Mobile LTD" it is possible that this decreasing trend might continue. While Samsung continues to expand a make a name in other countries, Apple seems to be focused too much on their few older customers. Sure it's working right now, but in the future Samsung will dominate, even RIM is showing their progress and increasing their stock value. China is a country where smartphones are dominating everyday lives and to have a relationship with them is a major business opportunity. And it's not just the fact that Apple doesn't really have ties to China (phone wise), there are many things other phones provide that the IPhone doesn't have. For instance, the IPhone is losing out in customers because of its limited selection on screen sizes. Many people, especially in China like to watch soap operas on their phones for convenience and the IPhone just can't provide a large enough screen. Based on IDC's latest figure: "around half of the more than 60 million smartphones shipped in China in the third quarter last year had screens that were bigger than 4 inches." 

Apple Inc. lacks in both range of customers AND price. When comparing the prices of the newest android or blackberry phone, the iPhone seems unnecessarily expensive given that they are all new smart phones. If this company does not decide to act on business opportunities in other countries, another option is to lower their prices. Even though iPhone sales have increased 60 percent last quarter, the company may be pricing itself out of a golden opportunity while Samsung and local rivals from take advantage with cheaper phones that rival the iPhone in quality and usability. If the Apple Company doesn't act fast, they might just be leaving investors at a major loss because it no longer compares to the Samsung smart phones. However in contrast to this RIM and Samsung are taking a huge advantage and their stocks are increasing! Anyone holding shares right now should hang on to them, there is no doubt that its value will increase based on the companies' success.

For the exact article you can read it here; http://www.bnn.ca/News/2013/1/25/Apples-China-dilemma-market-share-or-cachet.aspx 

Another End to a Series

      Every here has heard of the Twilight Saga, even if you're not a fan there is no doubt that this series was a major hit around the world. From books, movies, jewellery and even prom dresses this series was able to have a huge economic impact that goes beyond just booksellers and movie theatres. From the day the first movie came out, ticket sales soared! Roughly $397, 923, 934 was the worldwide gross and when the second movie came out, almost DOUBLE was made! Now that's a lot of money. This doesn't even include the sales in clothes, books, jewellery and anything else with the "twilight" name.

      And it wasn't just the twilight franchise that made a profit; the success of fantasy films such as Twilight has even led to a huge surge in the popularity of science fiction and fantasy novels among older children and teenagers. According to Patrick Sawer and Robert Mendick: "Sales of sci-fi and fantasy have grown by almost 20 per cent in the past five years with industry analysts identifying the 'Twilight Effect' as the main reason.... Researchers at Mintel found that almost one in three older children and teenagers enjoy sci-fi/fantasy books, up from 18 per cent in 2005" One writer whose sales have seemed to increase as a result of the popularity of Twilight is Neil Gaiman. He is an English fantasy writer most notable for writing The Sandman graphic novel and Stardust. Even though this may be a pure coincidence there are many other authors who have seen an increase in sales after the Twilight. So love it or hate it, the Twilight series is so popular, it even affects the sales of other books, and there is no doubt it has had a major impact on our economy.

P.S. on a side note, I just watched breaking dawn part 2 recently and it was surprisingly really good! If you haven't yet, you guys should watch it :)

Hurricane Sandy Still Causing Damage

       If you guys don't already know, Hurricane Sandy was a storm in the United States last month that cause a huge uproar because of it's strength.  The main reason it was recognized was because it was the largest recorded Atlantic hurricane. It was estimated to have caused $30 billion dollars in damage and killed more than 200 people before it was over.

       You would think that a hurricane only leaves short term effects like the destruction of buildings, however even after Hurricane Sandy is long gone, people are still being affected in the United States. According to the Labour Department, after the hurricane hit initial claims for state unemployment benefits rose from 78,000 to roughly 439,000 within a week of the storm! This is the highest level of unemployment since April 2011 and the highest change in one week since 2005. Can you believe that? One storm left thousands without jobs! This could potentially hold back economic growth at a whole... Right now the economic growth in the United States is about 2%, but economists expect that the storm reduced it by half a percent. Saying it like this it doesn't seem like much of a change, "only half a percent?" but if you look at it as a whole, 0.5/2 is a decrease by 25%. , now that's a lot. With that being said, it is pretty obvious how this horrible storm is connected to international business. There is no doubt that with the slowdown in the United States’ economy many other countries will be affected as well. The whole world is interdependent on trade, there are rarely any countries rely 100% on themselves the world just can't work like that and every country needs to do trade. With this interdependence a domino effect will appear between partnering countries. When one country does well, their wealth will continue onto the countries that have ties to them; however the same applies when one economy does poorly. The United States has a lot of influence on Canada's economy since we are each other’s major trading partners. If the economy is slowing down in the United States, our economy will slow down as well. As Pierre Trudeau once said “Canada is like a mouse sleeping with an elephant. Everything is fine until the elephant twitches". This was referring to our relationship to the United States, if something bad happens in the United States, we're basically at a loss as well. Even though it may take a while to notice the effect on us, but after a while we should notice it. Despite saying this, economists also predict that this slowdown in the economy will be made up early next year if everything goes right. Overall, this has yet to turn into a huge problem but it is still something to consider when making any business plans any time soon. We should simply stay clear of any huge investments right now, and wait for the storm to pass. :)
Read the article here

Apple Wins Again.....or Not?

OR

       When the Samsung Galaxy III came out, there was an immediate demand for the product. The glitches from the previous model have been said to have been fixed, so many people were anticipating it's release. However  upon inspection the Apple company noticed that many of the features and additional functions were very similar to the iPhone 5. Eventually the Galaxy S III caused Samsung's cellphone sales exceed those of Apple's. (32.6 % of the market sales of phones, compared to 16.9 %). Obviously after seeing such a difference in sales, knowing Apple, they will come up with something to increase their revenue, and that's what they did! Apple Inc. filed a lawsuit against Samsung  Electronics Co. for using ideas or features from 6 of their 7 patents for mobile devices. One of which was the home button, everyone knows that the iPhone is not a complicated phone to use because of it's versatile home button. In fact it is actually the only other button besides the power and volume, and that makes it a very organized phone. It was a feature that everyone liked because it was so simple. So of course when the Samsung S III was said to have that feature many people wanted to get that phone. It had all the features of the Android but included the one main thing that made the iPhone .. well the iPhone  However all good things come with a price and the Samsung Electronics Company had to pay it. Near the end of August a nine-member jury decided that all Apple's arguments were valid and that The Samsung Company did in fact copy their patents! Apple sought $2.5-billion US to $2.75-billion US for damages and even pushed for a ban on Samsung smart phones, however the ban was not permitted as it was seen as too extreme and the fine was reduced. Imagine if that had went through, everyone who had bought a phone from Samsung would have to buy a new one! (Talk about a waste of money.) Luckily that didn't go through or many people would have been liable. However, the conflict didn't end here! After this lawsuit there was a rumour going around saying that Samsung paid this fee with NICKELS! This is still a speculation  but the story says that the company sent over 30 trucks filled with coins totally over 1 billion dollars to pay Apple. Hundreds of Apple employees were said to spend hours on end counting the coins because well, there's no law saying you can't pay with coins. Even though this is simple a speculation, it is just fun to know that Apple can lose a fight even when they're always on top. I guess in this case, "they won the battle, but lost the war" Samsung got the last laugh.

       So what does this have to do with international business? Well it's simple. Both companies in this were major international distributors of phones. It wasn't just people in the United States that could buy these phones, different people around the world could buy these phones. With the rivalry between two different companies from different countries, it puts many consumers in a good place. Both companies will strive to be the best, and as a result, they will constantly come up with better products. Without international business, companies like this would never really try to beat what they already have because there are no foreign competitors. But now, we are constantly getting new faster and better products. Do you ever wonder why a new iPhone is constantly being released? What about a new Android?  I always wondered why new models were constantly being released and now I know. The competition international business creates causes companies to constantly strive to make a better product than everyone else, and "beat the best".


To read an article on this you can click here but the story is basically summarized by now.

A Bit About Amy

Hey guys, my name is Amy! To start off this blog I'll say a bit about myself and my likes/ dislikes. My favourite subjects are math and physics (I know, nerd much!), but well it's mostly because I'm good at them. I usually hate everything we have to memorize, that's why I like those classes. Anyways, I love kittens and pandas, so on that note.......

It's a KITTEN IN A PANDA SUIT

I'm also really into clothes and shopping! (but what girl isn't?), so sad to say, I go shopping a lot. Maybe my business issue blog with be about something that affects shopping in the states jk. Well that's all about me, so I'll leave you guys with a really creative video :)

This is one of the best mash up covers for maroon 5 in my opinion, and I just think it's a cool concept :)