B&Q shuts more stores in China

The home supplies retailer B&Q has closed one more store in Nanjing. With this closure, its number of stores in this city within the Yangtze River Delta has been reduced from four to one.

This marks yet another store closure after the company's store closing wave in 2009. Due to the large losses in the Chinese market, Kingfisher Group, the parent company of B&Q China, adjusted its strategy in China and shut down a large number of stores in 2009. The number of its Chinese retail stores was reduced from 63 to 41 during the past two years. In addition, 17 of the remaining 41 stores could face reductions in size.

According to the Kingfisher Group's financial report between 2008 and 2009, by January 31, 2009, the group had lost CNY500 million in China. Its financial report between 2010 and 2011 showed that B&Q was still making large losses in the Chinese market and this was the fourth consecutive year for the company to make losses in the marketplace.

Published files reportedly show that B&Q's Nanjing Daqiao store was opened in 2008 when the company's store number reached 63 in China. Meanwhile, with four B&Q stores, Nanjing at the time became another major market for the company following Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen.

Source: China CSR