Walmart exiting Japan

Predicting the demise of Sears & Kmart since 2017!
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buckguy
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Walmart exiting Japan

Post by buckguy »

I wondered when they'd do this. They'd bought a troubled chain and, in typical Walmart fashion, had had a tin ear for the local culture and had failed to gain traction. When I saw that they closed quite a few Sam's stores, I figured this might be next. They're basically against a wall for profit growth and probably need more cash to expand their web presence:

https://japantoday.com/category/feature ... t-of-japan
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Re: Walmart exiting Japan

Post by storewanderer »

buckguy wrote: July 23rd, 2018, 5:29 am I wondered when they'd do this. They'd bought a troubled chain and, in typical Walmart fashion, had had a tin ear for the local culture and had failed to gain traction. When I saw that they closed quite a few Sam's stores, I figured this might be next. They're basically against a wall for profit growth and probably need more cash to expand their web presence:

https://japantoday.com/category/feature ... t-of-japan
To be fair those stores did not resemble a Wal Mart in any way, shape, or form.

Maybe they would have actually done better had they actually done things their way on a more limited scale... sort of like how Costco has been successful in Japan with its US-style store and many products that are hard to get elsewhere in Japan.
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Re: Walmart exiting Japan

Post by buckguy »

Whether the stores look like a US Walmart or not, the Achilles heal for them has always been an inability to grasp local culture---even in the US this has been a problem as they didn't want to stock urban stores with different clothing from the small markets stores even though it sold better there. Their lack of cultural understanding is one of the reasons why they did poorly in Europe and Latin America. They learned their lesson in China, but only after initial failures and being able to see how European hypermarts had made better adaptations to local culture.
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Re: Walmart exiting Japan

Post by Super S »

buckguy wrote: July 24th, 2018, 7:00 am Whether the stores look like a US Walmart or not, the Achilles heal for them has always been an inability to grasp local culture---even in the US this has been a problem as they didn't want to stock urban stores with different clothing from the small markets stores even though it sold better there. Their lack of cultural understanding is one of the reasons why they did poorly in Europe and Latin America. They learned their lesson in China, but only after initial failures and being able to see how European hypermarts had made better adaptations to local culture.
I'm not so sure this is an issue at Walmart. I often see slight variations in their offerings depending on where I am, and they do send inventory to other stores when needed, such as fans and air conditioners during hot weather. Some locations have varying department sizes, I have noticed smaller towns seem to have better-stocked sporting goods departments for example.

Target on the other hand does some things that don't make sense, such as rolling out the swimsuits and other summer clothing in colder areas in January, coats and sweaters during hot summer months, etc. This results in poorly stocked stores when the weather changes 3 months later and people actually need these items.

It is hard for any major chain with large stores to correctly predict every item for every part of the country. This is one area where regional chains usually did better. But the regionals are almost gone...
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Re: Walmart exiting Japan

Post by arizonaguy »

Super S wrote: July 25th, 2018, 5:42 pm
buckguy wrote: July 24th, 2018, 7:00 am Whether the stores look like a US Walmart or not, the Achilles heal for them has always been an inability to grasp local culture---even in the US this has been a problem as they didn't want to stock urban stores with different clothing from the small markets stores even though it sold better there. Their lack of cultural understanding is one of the reasons why they did poorly in Europe and Latin America. They learned their lesson in China, but only after initial failures and being able to see how European hypermarts had made better adaptations to local culture.
I'm not so sure this is an issue at Walmart. I often see slight variations in their offerings depending on where I am, and they do send inventory to other stores when needed, such as fans and air conditioners during hot weather. Some locations have varying department sizes, I have noticed smaller towns seem to have better-stocked sporting goods departments for example.

Target on the other hand does some things that don't make sense, such as rolling out the swimsuits and other summer clothing in colder areas in January, coats and sweaters during hot summer months, etc. This results in poorly stocked stores when the weather changes 3 months later and people actually need these items.

It is hard for any major chain with large stores to correctly predict every item for every part of the country. This is one area where regional chains usually did better. But the regionals are almost gone...
Costco seems to do a good job of merchandising at the individual store level. Different warehouses in different parts of town seem to have different merchandise.

I actually like Target for college team apparel (they seem to have a good selection of local college team items when I go to different towns).
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Re: Walmart exiting Japan

Post by storewanderer »

arizonaguy wrote: July 25th, 2018, 7:05 pm
Super S wrote: July 25th, 2018, 5:42 pm
buckguy wrote: July 24th, 2018, 7:00 am Whether the stores look like a US Walmart or not, the Achilles heal for them has always been an inability to grasp local culture---even in the US this has been a problem as they didn't want to stock urban stores with different clothing from the small markets stores even though it sold better there. Their lack of cultural understanding is one of the reasons why they did poorly in Europe and Latin America. They learned their lesson in China, but only after initial failures and being able to see how European hypermarts had made better adaptations to local culture.
I'm not so sure this is an issue at Walmart. I often see slight variations in their offerings depending on where I am, and they do send inventory to other stores when needed, such as fans and air conditioners during hot weather. Some locations have varying department sizes, I have noticed smaller towns seem to have better-stocked sporting goods departments for example.

Target on the other hand does some things that don't make sense, such as rolling out the swimsuits and other summer clothing in colder areas in January, coats and sweaters during hot summer months, etc. This results in poorly stocked stores when the weather changes 3 months later and people actually need these items.

It is hard for any major chain with large stores to correctly predict every item for every part of the country. This is one area where regional chains usually did better. But the regionals are almost gone...
Costco seems to do a good job of merchandising at the individual store level. Different warehouses in different parts of town seem to have different merchandise.

I actually like Target for college team apparel (they seem to have a good selection of local college team items when I go to different towns).
I find it more with Costco to be different warehouses in different parts of town opt to display items in very different sections of the store so if you shop multiple locations and just walk center aisles, you will see all different items at every single location. Plus they seem to move items around constantly so if you go in weekly and just walk center aisles, you keep getting exposed to different merchandise. But if you snoop around the aisles enough you'll find generally the same items.

I have found Wal Mart seemed to do a pretty good job with tinkering the supercenter mix and department size to individual store locations in the past. Look at a Wal Mart in Mexico and the supercenter is quite a bit different than in the US; much more service oriented and a lot more fresh foods made in the store. The Wal Mart supercenter in Canada is pretty similar to a US one but the mix is different with noticeably fewer SKUs on the non food side, a much larger and higher quality (but still marginal quality) bakery, etc.

I think the problem in Japan is Wal Mart bought junk stores that were too small for them and did not fit their format. Sort of like what happened to Target in Canada. The difference is Wal Mart just tried to keep running the old format they bought and under its name (were they being cheap, or were they trying to respect the culture there of what they bought, that could be argued to either point), while Target opted to try and squeeze their format into something it clearly did not fit into.
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