Wal-Mart retreats from Germany

Posted by John
July 28, 2006

Wal-Mart is pulling out of the German market, in a textbook example of what happens when you don’t pay attention to differences in culture and approach. The company assumed that American pillowcases were the right size for German pillows (they weren’t), didn’t realize that Germans wanted to bag their own purchases and didn’t take into account different management styles and employee expectations. Even the world’s most powerful retailer isn’t exempt from this kind of thing.

Faith, Foreign missions

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  • Interesting! Ikea (Swedish, I know), makes people bag their own merchandize in all of their stores. Californians have adapted easily and Filipinos I know adapted as well (though I know some who have complained at the audacity ;)
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