Canadian auto supplier seeks to buy Checker Motors

Checker Motors Corp. is asking a bankruptcy court to approve its sale to a Canadian automotive supplier for $1.6 million.

Documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court say Windsor, Ontario-based Narmco Group LLC proposes buying Kalamazoo-based Checker, which has operated under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection since Jan. 16.

The Kalamazoo Gazette says Judge James D. Gregg will hold a hearing on the sale June 9 in Grand Rapids.

Checker produced taxicabs in Kalamazoo until 1984 before becoming a supplier of stamped metal parts to automakers, primarily General Motors Corp. Narmco also supplies GM and more than a dozen other automakers and suppliers.

The court documents do not mention the fate of Checker's Kalamazoo operations or its approximately 250 employees, should the sale be approved.

Source: http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D98HJBNO0.htm

'Cotton carryover stocks may not decline in 2009-10' – Mr Butler, Cotlook

The cotton sector has had a very tough time in the just completed cotton season. At just about the time harvesting for the new cotton crop had begun, the economic turmoil broke out, bringing down with it prices of all commodities including cotton to new lows.

Prices of cotton in the New York Futures markets had the misfortune of touching four year lows. This has made a lot of farmers across many major cotton producing countries like China jittery and acreage of cotton is expected to fall substantially.

To understand the actual condition of cotton market, in the previous few months and the current scenario, Fibre2fashion spoke to few proficient people from the cotton sector like Mr. Ray Butler, Chief editor of Cotton Outlook and Managing Director of Cotlook Limited, which provides market summaries, industry related and general news stories on the cotton industry.

We started by asking his views about cotton production in the next cotton season vis-à-vis the just completed season, to which he said, “Cotton Outlook’s initial estimate of 2009/2010 production was released in February, since when it has increased slightly, thanks mainly to USDA’s slightly higher projection of US plantings than suggested by the National Cotton Council’s earlier survey of farmers’ planting intentions”.

He continued by saying “Global cotton output is currently projected at close to 23.2 million tons, barely one percent less than estimated production during the 2008-2009 season”.

Further we tried to know the consumption pattern against production in the 2008-09 cotton season to which he explained by saying, “World cotton consumption fell during the 2007/2008 season for the first time in this century and the current 2008/2009 season has witnessed a substantial further decline, perhaps of the order of 11 percent, to around 22.5 million tons.

He also added that “According to Cotlook’s data, therefore, world carryover stocks have risen during each of the past five seasons and, based on present estimates, seems unlikely to decline in 2009/2010”.

We then questioned him about the impact on availability of cotton next year as Chinese farmers are expected to reduce acreage in 2009-10 season, to which he said, “Some of the more pessimistic assessments of the 2009/2010 season’s cut in China’s cotton area have tended to disappear in recent weeks, owing to the firming of prices, brought about by the Chinese governments macro-control policies”.

He carried on “Observers seem increasingly inclined to the view that, given no abnormal setbacks, the new season’s output will therefore be reduced only moderately compared with 2008/2009. Cotlook’s current projection is a decline of 550,000-725,000 tons and China’s import requirement will persist both next season and into the future but the magnitude and timing of imports remains largely in the hands of government, by dint of quota controls”.

In conclusion he said, “Cotton Outlook does not make price forecasts. The Cotlook A Index currently stands at 59.25 US cents per lb (CFR main Far Eastern ports), levels last seen at the end of January. The introduction of a forward Cotlook A Index for the 2009/2010 season is anticipated shortly”.

Source: http://www.fibre2fashion.com/

Cotton imports may shoot up by 60%

Thanks to the increase of nearly 25-40 percent in the Minimum Support Price (MSP) of cotton, implemented by the government of India, the country could end up importing a higher number of bales in the current cotton season.

International cotton prices are quoting at a discount ever since the government owned agency Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) started its procurement, forcing eligible importers to import cotton which is available at a lower rate.

Fibre2fashion spoke to Mr DK Nair, Secretary General of the Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI) was very forthcoming when he said, “About 500,000 bales (1 bale = 170 kg) of cotton has arrived in the country so far and another 500,000 bales may be imported in the remaining part of the current cotton year, since ours is the costliest cotton in the world today and mills are looking for cheaper options abroad”.

He added by saying, “An unprecedented increase in imports may lead to decline in prices for the new crop and if this happens, it would be the result of reckless government intervention in the cotton economy during this year. The Government needs to separate populism from policy and to recognise the interdependence of cotton farmers and textile mills”.

Mr KF Jhunjhunwala, Chairman of Cotton Textiles and Allied Products Research Foundation, and Past President of Cotton Association of India, said, “This year import of cotton till September will touch 800,000 bales out of which 500,000 will be extra long fibres and 300,000 bales would be medium and small staple fiber”.

“Every year we import approximately 600,000 bales of cotton so this year it will exceed by only 200,000 bales which is not a matter of concern, though it is tough to predict about the future because it depends on the behaviour of the weather and if it rains well situation will be good”.

Source: http://www.fibre2fashion.com/

Online retailing gathers steam in Indi

E-tailing, or online retailing, is catching up in India with major retailers setting shop online.

The latest one to join the bandwagon is the Tata group, which recently announced that it would open an e-mall for the group’s products in the next two months. Earlier this month, Vishal Retail launched its online shopping portal — Vishalmegamart.com.

It was the Future group’s foray into e-tailing in 2007 that started the trend, though Fabmall was the first e-tailer in India (it set up an online shop in the late 1990s). Shoppers Stop followed by its e-tailing venture in late 2008 and so did the Anil Ambani-owned ADAG group, which launched RelianceMoneyMall the same year.

The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) has pegged the e-commerce market in India at Rs 9,210 crore. The market is estimated to grow 30 per cent year-on-year. E-retailing comes under e-commerce.

E-tailing helps retailers build loyal customers and is aimed at selling in areas where they don’t have a physical presence. Sankarson Banerjee, CEO of Future Bazaar (the Future group’s e-tailing venture), says the foray has worked well for the group. “In FY09, Future Bazaar sold Rs 122 crore worth of goods, 1.5 per cent of total sales of the Future group. By 2011, we expect it to be 2-3 per cent. Worldwide, it contributes 7-10 per cent of sales,” he said . Electronic goods and apparel are the most bought products online.

Banerjee agrees, “Besides international audience, we get orders from J&K, Andaman & Nicobar, etc.” Ambareesh Murty, country manager, eBay India, concurs, “Online marketplaces help create trade between metros and Tier II & III cities by bridging the demand and supply gap.” Over a third of all products bought by eBayers in hilly areas (North East, Jammu & Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh) are tech gadgets (mobile phones, digital cameras and USB drives). While women from the metros are buying a lot of sarees, the sellers are spread across various cities and towns of India, including manufacturing hubs and handicraft hubs like Devanagere (Karnataka), Chittaurgarh (Rajasthan), Lucknow and Kunnamkulam (Kerala).

Moreover, e-tailing helps retailers save on the real estate cost. Also, an e-tailer does not have to carry huge inventories and can cut supply chain costs. But Banerjee disagrees, “It has other cost factors like delivery, technology, etc. It’s not cheaper.”

This year, there will be more such ventures. Arvind Retail, which sells a small part of its apparels through third-party e-commerce websites, is understood to be planning a foray into e-tailing. TV18, which already owns a 24-hour home shopping TV channel and a price checking site, called compareindia.com, is also learnt to plannig an e-tailing foray.

But replicating the success such ventures have had in the developed world is a far-away dream considering the broadband bottleneck. Anand Ramanathan, manager, Business Performance Services, KPMG, says, “It’s a good complimentary service but I don’t see it making big contribution to sales in the near future.”

On if e-tailing is aimed at getting customers where reatilers don’t have a physical presence, Ramanathan said, “Not really, the retailer has to have physical presence for delivery. Consider the Fabmall (a part of Trinetra Super Retail Limited) story.” Fabmall also opened brick-and-mortar stores. Two years back, it was acquired by the Aditya Birla Group.

These new ventures will be pitted directly against established players like eBay, Indiatimes, Rediff and Sify. Murty says it will only help the established players. “We welcome the entry of reputed brands that consumers trust. The launch of IRCTC (Indian Railway’s e-commerce arm) to power sale of railway tickets has encouraged a whole new demographic to shop online. We see new e-commerce entrants helping increase the size of the market by encouraging new non-shoppers to turn online shoppers,” said Murty.

Incidentally, e-tailing is not limited to retailers. FMCG major Amway also launched its own e-tailing portal in 2008.

For the direct-selling company, the online medium is aimed at expanding the company’s existing distribution network across 500,000 Amway Business Owners and also to tap the vast semi-urban customers base with direct access to Amway’s product range.

Source: http://www.business-standard.com

B2B Portals- “the new Age Shopping Sites”

A portal can be defined as the root destination for users that combines web links, features and services. At its beginning it was used as a generic word for popular search engines and internet access providers such as AOL, MSN and Yahoo but in recent days it has bought revolution in covering and converging business websites, where a corporate portal or enterprise information portal acts as a source for employees, customers, suppliers and other associates of a company to access corporate information and web services. B2B portals refer to websites that are natured to carry out electronic business and manage considerable parts of corporate business processes.

A B2B portal brings you an uncountable number of advantages. They lace your business with features like faster and easier access to product information, quicker response to client requests and better support. This not only increases the existing customer base but also reduces the cost of acquiring new customer significantly. They allow a business power the benefits of e-commerce for promotion and branding for instance an export business. These B2B portals integrate the whole marketplace into one and let you choose from variety. You can either place an order for purchase or directly buy products using your credit card. Whole transaction is managed by a consolidated workplace reducing the time in document process. As far as your research is concerned the company directories and E-catalogs do a very good job. If you want to go more in-depth then refer to those user and expert reviews posted on these portals along with the buying guides detailing product features.

Other than providing ease to your costumers, B2b have got a lot to offer to you internal business functionality. It augments the performance of the supply chain management system, internal messaging system product content adding system. It not only gives bells and whistles to your information exchange and product adding mechanism but also increases your return on investment.

With all the above offerings B2B portals is the future to come. They are growing day by day and helping the import/export companies in making their business more effective. Whenever you need to avalanche your business to the next level, this is the new option, other than traditional advertising, with added cost effectiveness. Overall, B2B portals are the lifeline of ongoing leading business companies and therefore play an influential role in the success of any business.

Source: http://www.ozelwebtasarim.com/