Walmart trying it’s luck in Germany

43 comments
  1. US style slave labour in retail is disturbing. I dont want to stress seeing that shit when I select my yogurt.

  2. I remember there being one in my city in like the late 90’s or early 2000’s, thing closed as fast as it appeared, quite ironic.

  3. “They thought we were communists”-german unionist worker who confronted his walmart employer with german unionist rights.

  4. You won’t get the full Walmart experience unless there’s some too-fat-to-walk woman riding around in her Walmart-supplied motor scooter.

  5. Vaguely recall they already tried. Posted about $1 Billion in loses then packed their shit and left.

  6. An acquaintance of me worked at a supermarket which has been taken over by Walmart. He has been urged out of his long lasting employment so they could hire cheaper employees. A year later they gave up…

  7. I cannot say I love German supermarkets but this meme is, unfortunately, spot on. Good luck, Walmart, you’re gonna need it.

    That said, the other way wouldn’t work either. Imagine a little Edeka or Aldi in US trying to do any kind of dent in Walmart and Target. Or even the socalled “big” Kauflands or real or something lol

    Edit: Turns out Aldi isn’t doing half bad in US. I would still argue they’re not really denting the big guys with 25k people employed vs 1.6M at Walmart e.g.

  8. ah walmart… as a equivalent to a high schooler i jobbed at the new walmart as a rack filler. walmart was faster gone that the germans learned the word

  9. They aren’t trying again, are they?

    In 2005, I went to a Walmart in Berlin and it was one of the singlehandedly most sad-feeling shopping experiences I have ever had. I live in North America, and I certainly wasn’t expecting it to be quite like that, but the atmosphere in Berlin Walmart was weird and depressing and everything was really messy and disorganized. I had to get out of there pretty quickly.

  10. I would absolutely hate having Walmart here, the thing I hate the most is how insanely slow they are at checkout and that they have that wheel with tiny tiny plastic bags that they pack badly for you so you leave with 18 plastic bags

  11. I remember going to Walmart in Germany back in the early 2000s.

    The store was big (it was one of the Marktkauf locations) and was similar to a German Metro, with clothing, shoes, housewares, appliances, electronics and food. However, it was run like a US Walmart – a lot of chaos, not very clean, giving you the “we’re a discounter” vibe, kind of like some of the Real markets in some areas today. That’s not a good approach for the southern parts of Germany – even the discounters Aldi and Lidl have seriously upped their games and are now presenting newly designed and renovated stores – people in my area don’t want to shop in “cheap-feeling” stores…

  12. I’ve never been to Walmart, but I feel like stores like Real and Globus are quite similar. So there would already be competition in the same “niche”, too.

  13. Add German customers who hate being greeted with fake friendliness and having their groceries bagged by minimum-wage workers for them. That’s just not us.

  14. Lol nazi like chants and a stasi like spying on eachother. They really didn’t think it through.

  15. I liked the Walmart back then. Huge selection in kind of cheap. But yeah, no chance for them in the German market.

  16. Didn’t they expect their employees to do that morning chant thing every day? That alone would cause you to fail, because that is ridiculous and nobody would do that.

  17. >German competition regulators accused Wal-Mart Stores of being too competitive today, and ordered the giant retailer to raise its prices for household staples like milk, flour, butter, rice and cooking oil.

    >German competition laws also prohibit a wide variety of discount and rebate plans. Though stores routinely post signs promoting ”special offers” and ”30 percent off,” companies are prohibited from offering discounts to people who enroll in loyalty or other special programs.

    ​

    # 😑

  18. I miss the German Aldi fast pitch cashiers!
    I do NOT miss the old ladies using their carts as battering rams to get in line!

  19. Erinnerung daran, dass der Walmart-Präzedenzfall der Grund ist, warum die BILD ihren Mitarbeitern nicht ohne weiteres verbieten kann, romantische Beziehungen untereinander zu haben.

  20. There should be at least three participants beating up Walmart – they pissed off the suppliers, too. The Walmart management entered the German market behaving as if they had the purchasing power their stores have in the US.

    Walmart turned up at German brand name suppliers demanding that they could perform unannounced inspections of the production because they are such a grand company. They were laughed at and thrown out.

    Walmart also demanded just in time delivery from the suppliers. However, when the deliveries turned up just in time, their logistics were unable to handle them and Walmart regularly left trucks waiting for up to five hours. That increased cost to suppliers and shipping companies.

    With that kind of introduction to the market, their purchasing prices and conditions never became competitive.

  21. Walmart never had a chance… it’s like a 16 years old recruit who thinks he will conquer a country and starve in the trench.

  22. In Essen there was a Walmart in the city, it closed and it’s been a REAL for a damn long time… nothing changed inside for about 20 years lol

  23. Wait are they trying again in Germany?

    My favorite anecdote from their attempt 20 years ago is how male customers thought the female employees were coming onto them because Wal-Mart instructed their employees to be friendly.

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