Living her best life.
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@david @stevendbrewer The crazy bit is that ASDA *was* competitive, as a major supermarket chain: WalMart couldn't improve on them, and meanwhile Tesco just did Tesco (cue background sound effects of a Roman legion marching past in lockstep)
@cstross @david @stevendbrewer Do you remember Tesco's attempt to enter the US market? "Fresh & Easy" - except it turned out to be neither of those things.
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@cstross And, just for reference, Target (pronounced "targé") is where Walmart shoppers go when they want to feel upscale. If you really want to experience the true depths of despair, go to Ocean State Job Lot, which is stocked with stuff that didn't sell anywhere else. Or was returned. https://www.oceanstatejoblot.com/
@stevendbrewer @cstross The idea of stuff that was stocked in the US and didn't sell elsewhere has instilled in me the fear of the Endless depths of the cosmos.
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@cstross I wonder what wine pairs well with both sushi and cinnamon rolls…
@stevendbrewer
I think sake could work with both.
@cstross -
RE: https://mastodon.social/@orci/116009155879650410
Living her best life.
(I've gawked inside a Target once, on a long-ago visit to the Excited Snakes of America, and yeah, this is the ONLY way to shop there.)
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@stevendbrewer
I think sake could work with both.
@cstross@violanders @cstross Or shōchū?
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RE: https://mastodon.social/@orci/116009155879650410
Living her best life.
(I've gawked inside a Target once, on a long-ago visit to the Excited Snakes of America, and yeah, this is the ONLY way to shop there.)
@cstross The best way to shop at Target is to know what you want, go in, buy it, and get out. Same for Walmart, but at double time.
Been boycotting both for the last year, or so, and have always avoided Walmart as much as possible. -
RE: https://mastodon.social/@orci/116009155879650410
Living her best life.
(I've gawked inside a Target once, on a long-ago visit to the Excited Snakes of America, and yeah, this is the ONLY way to shop there.)
@cstross https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_Canada
We had ‘em, briefly, but nobody went. Though now The Bay is toast, if they tried again, it might be a different story.
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@cstross @david @stevendbrewer Do you remember Tesco's attempt to enter the US market? "Fresh & Easy" - except it turned out to be neither of those things.
@jbenjamint @cstross @david @stevendbrewer Walmart attempted the same in Germany, lasting 10 years from the mid Nineties and burning through a few $bn.
Retail in Europe is really hard. -
@cstross @stevendbrewer Walmart took over Woolco here a few decades ago and are still going strong, and have moved into groceries as well. They’re still here, with an awful shopping experience. I generally avoid.
Then there was the Hudson’s Bay Company, founded in 1670, which went out of business last year after a run with American owners who were more interested in real estate games. Killing the oldest company on the continent is an achievement of some kind, I guess.
Pales in comparison to how spectacularly #Walmart failed in #Germany.
The U.S.A. management managed to fall afoul of regulations that were meant to prevent the Stasi from happening again.
They instituted policies of forced smiling at customers, group cheer sessions, and employees required to report any employees who dated other employees.
Reporting on people's personal lives to the authorities is a bit of a no-no in modern Germany.
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@jbenjamint @cstross @david @stevendbrewer Walmart attempted the same in Germany, lasting 10 years from the mid Nineties and burning through a few $bn.
Retail in Europe is really hard.@jbenjamint @cstross @david @stevendbrewer @jsl
1/ Yeah, that was amusing.
"Hey, let's enter one of the biggest retail shark tanks on the planet without doing any market research! I am sure nothing can go wrong with this plan!
Also, let's make the employees sing corporate songs like we do in the USA. I'm sure the Germans will love that!"
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@jbenjamint @cstross @david @stevendbrewer @jsl
1/ Yeah, that was amusing.
"Hey, let's enter one of the biggest retail shark tanks on the planet without doing any market research! I am sure nothing can go wrong with this plan!
Also, let's make the employees sing corporate songs like we do in the USA. I'm sure the Germans will love that!"
@jbenjamint @cstross @david @stevendbrewer @jsl
2/ Also, telling employees to constantly smile at German customers is a bad idea. Because the reaction of the average German will be:
"Who is this creepy weirdo, and what do they want from me?"
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Please read my pitch deck and front me $250M for my new AI-crash-proof startup idea?
MAKING SHOPPING FUN AGAIN: A supermarket that's also a dodgem cars arena with wine and sushi bars (credit card required for running tab before admission)
@cstross Are you sure this thing does not exist in Japan? Feels very close to quantum internet pornography…
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@jbenjamint @cstross @david @stevendbrewer Walmart attempted the same in Germany, lasting 10 years from the mid Nineties and burning through a few $bn.
Retail in Europe is really hard.@jsl @cstross @jbenjamint @david @stevendbrewer It is. I was looking recently to buy some Muji drawer units, and discovered that there’s no way to get them in Sweden. (They pulled out of their joint venture with a Swedish department store, and their delivery service only handles smaller items.)
On a tangent, one of my wishes is for Daiso to expand to the EU.
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RE: https://mastodon.social/@orci/116009155879650410
Living her best life.
(I've gawked inside a Target once, on a long-ago visit to the Excited Snakes of America, and yeah, this is the ONLY way to shop there.)
@cstross Real possum-in-a-doughnut-box “do as you must, I have already won” energy.
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@stevendbrewer @cstross Oh, I thought the rolls had both sushi and cinnamon in them. Otherwise, where's the crime?
You joke but we have a local pizzeria that also does food from their home country. Some of it has cinnamon in it so if you are lucky, the meat fried on the same surface for the pizzas will taste cinnamon. We do not eat pizza there but love their other food
Cinnamon does not quite work with meat or fish, the (western) brain gets confused. "Is this desert or main corse? Both?"
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@stevendbrewer Hey, this is the UK! We have Tesco here. (WalMart tried to break into the supermarket biz, bought ASDA—the third-ranked chain—and made a big noise. A few years later they ran weeping to the anti-trust people. Then they gave up, sold most of their stake in ASDA, and got out. Retailing in the UK is hardcore!)
@cstross
Walmart did try and bring some US style practises to the UK but mostly on the management side - I heard stories of having to sing a corporate song in morning meetings, which didn't sit well in Leeds. Their lasting legacy might be the amount of Halloween crap they introduced.
@stevendbrewer -
@cstross @david @stevendbrewer Do you remember Tesco's attempt to enter the US market? "Fresh & Easy" - except it turned out to be neither of those things.
@jbenjamint @cstross @david @stevendbrewer yet Aldi Sud seems to have managed to be highly successful in Europe, the UK and the US.
More random stuff in the middle aisles, that's what's needed! Go in for a family shop, leave with a lathe and a wetsuit.
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@jbenjamint @cstross @david @stevendbrewer @jsl
2/ Also, telling employees to constantly smile at German customers is a bad idea. Because the reaction of the average German will be:
"Who is this creepy weirdo, and what do they want from me?"
@juergen_hubert im an american and I feel exactly the same about faked corporate enthusiam
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@juergen_hubert im an american and I feel exactly the same about faked corporate enthusiam
@jbenjamint @cstross @david @stevendbrewer @jsl @bweller
Yeah, but in a weird quirk of American service culture, a lot of American shopper expect service people to be _servile_. "The customer is always right!", and all that.
