103.06.22高档杂货店在移动中

Grocery stores on the move upscaleBySu Phyo Win |Sunday, 22 June 2014The United States is notorious for its big-box store culture, where huge supermarkets with ample parking drawing customers on a weekly basis. The traditional Myanmar shopping experience could not be more different, with consumers visiting their local small shops and markets nearly every day.Yet the rising middle class in Myanmar is driving changes in the way people shop and the products they want. Local supermarket chain City Mart has expanded to about 16 mainly Yangon stores, according to its website, including its higher-end Marketplace variants, and the number of competitors such as Capital is picking up.Whether the Myanmar grocery shopping experience trends toward an American model, or follows a different path, is an open question. However, interest in higher-end products is likely to keep growing as more people enter the middle and upper classes.The number of high-quality goods already available to Myanmar consumers is often a surprise to many foreign visitors, who say they did not expect to come across Romano cheese or top-quality chocolate during their stay in a UN-designed least-developed country.Taylor Dawson, an MBA student from the United States Indiana University Kelley online program, who came to Myanmar as part of a supermarket consulting project organised by the university, said he was amazed to see the upscale offerings of supermarkets such as City Mart Marketplace.“The thing that surprised us most in our meetings with Capital and with City Mart is that theyve actually expanded into higher-end products,” he said.Yet getting these products on the shelves is not always a simple process.Daw May Oo Khaing, managing director of Ocean Crown, which imports products particularly from the United States, works to bring higher-end goods to the Myanmar market.Making agreements with foreign firms and receiving government and Food and Drug Administration approval is an ongoing process for the firm, which is now aiming to bring in cookies from “a famous American company”.“As America has started lifting sanctions, importers and exporters are much more interested in entering Myanmar,” she said.Lowered sanctions may make it easier to import these high-end goods, but it has also made the importing business more competitive. Daw May Oo Khaing said many challenges remain with logistics and distribution of products as well.Myanmar consumers are also high-frequency shoppers, often buying food on a daily basis, while Americans tend to buy in bulk relatively infrequently and then store it in their homes for a long time, said Quazi Fawad, another MBA student.Given recent technological changes, Myanmar could be set to leap-frog right past the American experience of large box-store shopping.Although supermarkets are positioned throughout Yangon, the logistics of visiting can be difficult. Access to cars to assist can be a problem, and domestic stores are looking at alternate ways to sell their products, said Mr Dawson.He pointed to smartphone shopping for groceries as a possible next wave.“Cars are an old technology and they arent really here yet, but smartphones are here and theyre going to be even more pervasive in a few months when the new telecom companies come in,” he said.高檔雜貨店在移動中蘇Phyo贏|星期日，2014年6月22日3美國是臭名昭著的大盒子店的文化，其中巨大的超市有充足的停車位繪圖客戶每週的基礎。在緬甸傳統的購物體驗不能更不同，消費者參觀當地的小商店和市場幾乎每天都有。然而，中產階級在緬甸上漲是推動人們的購物方式和改變他們想要的產品。當地連鎖超市沃爾瑪城已擴大到約16主要仰光店，根據其網站，包括其高端市場的變種，和競爭對手如資本的數量正逐步回升。無論是緬甸買菜經驗的趨勢朝著美國模式，還是遵循一條不同的道路，是一個懸而未決的問題。然而，在高端產品的興趣很可能會繼續增長，因為更多人進入中產階級和上層階級。已經提供給緬甸消費者高品質的商品數量往往是一個驚喜，許多外國遊客說，他們誰沒想到遇到羅馬諾乾酪或高品質的巧克力，它們在聯合國設計的最不發達國家的逗留期間。泰勒道森，來自美國印第安納大學凱利在線程序，誰是緬甸由大學舉辦的超市諮詢項目的一部分，一個MBA學生說，他很驚訝地看到了高檔產品的超市，如沃爾瑪城賣場。“大多數我們與首都和城市集市的會議讓我們感到吃驚的事情是，他們實際上已經擴展到更高端的產品，”他說。然而，在貨架上獲得這些產品並不總是一個簡單的過程。昂五月吳Khaing，海之冠，其中出口產品特別是來自美國的總經理，工作帶來更高端的貨物運至緬甸市場。製作與外國公司的協議，並接受政府和食品藥品監督管理局的批准是一個持續的過程的公司，它現在的目標是要在cookie從“一個著名的美國公司”帶來的。“由於美國已經開始解除制裁，進口商和出口商更感興趣的是進入緬甸，”她說。降低制裁可能更容易地導入這些高檔商品，但它也使進口業務更具有競爭力。昂五月吳Khaing說，許多挑戰仍然存在物流和經銷的產品為好。緬甸消費者也高頻率的購物者，經常買菜，每天，而美國人則傾向於購買散裝相對較少，然後將它保存在自己家中很長一段時