Sales promotion in Asia: successful strategies for Singapore and Malaysia

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to address the globalisation/culture issue by comparing two Asian countries in which there has been limited prior research regarding their respective supermarket industries, namely, Singapore and Malaysia. Design/methodology/approach – The research design adopted a case-study approach, with two general cases (the New Singaporean and Malaysian supermarket retail industries), made up of two embedded cases each (retailers and manufacturers operating within each country). Findings – The overall finding is that despite prior assumptions that suitability is reliant on product type or country choice, there are a number of sales promotion techniques that are inherently suited to the supermarket industry as a whole. The majority of these “inherently suitable” techniques are price-based and the conclusion is then that these techniques can be used globally. Value-added techniques, on the other hand, should be localised to fit with the market in which they are being applied. Pra...

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