Starbucks brews first China blend to perk up business.

U.S. coffee chain Starbucks, keen to boost business in China, is brewing ahead of the Lunar New Year a limited-edition blend that includes, for the first time, Chinese beans. The “South of the Clouds” blend, named after the Mandarin meaning of the semi-tropical, southwestern Yunnan Province, was unveiled in Singapore on Monday, a week after its Greater China debut.

The coffee blends arabica beans from Latin America, Asia Pacific and the western Baoshan region of Yunnan, the main coffee-growing province in China, the ancient homeland of tea. Coffee grown in Yunnan, which borders Asia’s top coffee producer Vietnam, has been available in China for over a decade. It is often sold as a cheaper alternative to imported beans.

The blend offers an opportunity for Starbucks to expand further in one of the world’s biggest economies. Starbucks opened its first outlet in mainland China in 1999 and its president, Martin Coles, told Reuters last week the company sees China as one of its fastest growing markets, even as it closes down stores in other markets racked by recession source

Wal-Mart Joins a Retail Trade Group

The Russian retail association, a lobbying organization, said Wal-Mart Stores had joined the group in the latest in a series of moves indicating its interest in expanding into Russia.

“Wal-Mart is working on the Russian market,” Ilya Belonovskiy, the executive director of the industry group, said. In April, Wal-Mart appointed an executive to head its efforts to explore business opportunities in Russia and neighboring markets. The discount chain, started by Sam Walton in 1962, has become a central figure in scores of social, economic and political debates, from health care to immigration to gun control.

Supporters contend that the chain’s legendary low prices have democratized consumption, allowing low-income households to afford flat-screen televisions and nine-layer lasagna. Critics say those low prices have depressed domestic wages and exported manufacturing jobs to foreign countries, hurting Americans more than helping them.

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Multi Level Marketing is a bad business?

Multi level marketing is known as network marketing. This is a kind of business where franchising and direct selling are combined. This business makes a person associated to a company in an independent transaction approach. It is an approach where the company creates a contactor relationship to the person who wants to expand his business.

The members make their earnings based on the sales they have reached in that particular product or service. It also includes the sales of the person that they have recruited to join the business. Most of the time the individual who has recruited more members and provided a good sales output on the product compensate higher because of the effort to transact in two different fields.

There are “pyramid schemes” or Ponzi schemes, which are considered illegal. Most people associate multi level marketing to these kind of schemes because they also recognize themselves to be a legitimate networking business. Because of the bad image brought up by these schemes, many prefer to use their names for their businesses as “home based business franchising” or “affiliate marketing”.
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