Nowadays, a lot of international companies are trying to expand their business to foreign countries. Some these kinds of companies are really successful in other countries because of special global marketing strategies in different culture environments while some companies are totally failed in their new markets. I want to discuss two improper marketing strategies of two companies for their China market.

 As we know, IKEA is one of the largest furniture manufactures in the world, their products are really famous in North America because of their fancy design, low price and convenient. Compare to other same level furniture companies, IKEA’s price of their products are lower than the average level. It is the result of their ready- to – assemble furniture and charged shipping. This model is successful in North American because North America people prefer to pay less and enjoy the process of furniture assembling. However, in China, in customers’ opinion, they never think they should assemble and ship their furniture after they pay for it. Thus, IKEA failed in China because they use the same model they used in North America.

 “Eat fresh” —- the core idea of Subway which also failed in China. In Chinese tradition, the vegetables must cooked in boiling water before eating. They think fresh vegetables are dirty whatever you wash it how many times. Therefore, “eat fresh” did not fit the habits of Chinese and failed.

 In my opinion, culture and marketing research is really important for companies to expand their business to a foreign country. Because customers’ demand are also different countries and these kinds of companies should always follow and understand it