International Strategy

When Sarah Labowitz arrived in Bangladesh's capital city of Dhaka this past February, it certainly didn't look like nine months had passed since the factory collapse that claimed 1,129 lives. Outside the ruin of the eight-story Rana Plaza building, the streets remained covered in mountains of twisted metal and rubble. Bright bolts of fabric still sat where they'd landed on April 24, 2013, among the bricks and rags. "Rana Plaza is still overwhelming in the magnitude of its tragedy," said Labowitz this week, having returned from Bangladesh.

QVC is planning to expand into France, betting that the television-shopping network can thrive even in a heavily regulated country with a stagnant economy. France may seem like an odd pick for a company whose most recent foray overseas came about 18 months ago in faster-growing China, but that's not stopping QVC CEO Mike George from pressing ahead. The company will begin broadcasting from Paris in the second quarter of next year. George said he couldn't care less about sluggish economic growth or high unemployment. He's done it before when QVC entered Italy during a steep recession three-plus years ago.

Brazilian e-commerce is growing at a rapid pace. In 2011, online sales reached a volume of $11 billion, which was up 26 percent from the previous year, and in 2012, Brazilian online merchants generated $17 billion in revenue. According to some projections, the Brazilian e-commerce market will be worth $29 billion by the end of 2017, and Brazil should continue to lead growth in Latin America. Given the promise it holds, how can retailers break into this market and be successful selling online? 

Wal-Mart Stores on Tuesday announced plans to open 50 more wholesale outlets in India and start online operations to sell to small shopkeepers, several months after it decided against opening its own retail stores there. The world's largest retailer said it would open the stores over four years to five years. The company already has 20 Indian wholesale outlets. They sell goods to small shopkeepers, who dominate the nation's $500 billion retail market, rather than directly to consumers. Wal-Mart has no retail stores in India.

eBay is expanding its global shipping program (GSP) yet again, this time to nine additional countries, including some located in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. eBay is pushing sellers to use the GSP to make their items available to buyers in 44 countries — soon to be 53 — but without having to ship internationally. eBay will add the following nine countries to the GSP program beginning April 8: Saudi Arabia, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Croatia, Malaysia and Turkey. 

The pressure is on for apparel retailers, as two new competitors are planning their entry into the U.S. discount space. Swedish fast-fashion retailer H&M said on Thursday it will bring two of its secondary retail brands, & Other Stories and COS, to the U.S. this year. Last week, General Growth Properties CEO Sandeep Mathrani told CNBC the retailer was looking to bring these concepts to the U.S. The higher-priced COS brand will open two domestic locations, in

As our world continues to become a much smaller place, the ability to buy goods online from other countries is on the rise. One valuable target group for U.K. online retailers are U.S. customers. We've used our own data to explore the shopping behavior of this particular customer group to help U.K. e-commerce companies maximize the revenue opportunity these shoppers bring.

The Commerce Secretary of the United States met with eBay executives and merchants and announced a partnership between the government and the e-commerce company. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker said the partnership would promote U.S. trade and investment expansion. The partnership advances the Obama Administration's National Export Initiative, an ambitious plan to sell more American goods and services into foreign markets. eBay said the joint effort would focus on increasing awareness of the economic benefits of trade, specifically the important role that small and midsized enterprises (SMEs) can play in growing America's export economy.

For some retailers, the grass is greener on the other side … of the pond, that is. Emaciated traffic and extreme price competition have left the industry in a slugfest just to achieve positive domestic same-store sales. As a result, many retailers have been looking to plant their flags overseas, scouring Europe and emerging markets in search of growth. While the strategy has proven successful for some U.S. firms going abroad — as well as international companies gaining entry in the United States — some within the industry say the globalization of retail has brought with it a new challenge.

When Canadians crossed the border into the United States on shopping excursions, Target was a prime destination. But when Target crossed the border last year and brought its stores to Canada, the magic somehow vanished. Lost in the turmoil over the immense theft of Target's customer information in the U.S. has been the remarkable failure of its Canadian expansion. Instead of reaching profitability by the end of the year, as Target had hoped, analysts expect that the company will report this week that the Canadian operations produced an $8 billion to $9 billion loss.