Lost in translation - Wal-Mart stumbles hard in Brazil
When Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT.N) first expanded into Brazil's midwestern farm-belt city of Campo Grande seven years ago, the economy was booming and executives were eager to open stores even in sub-prime locations on one-way streets heading out of town.
It didn’t last. At the end of December, the U.S. retailer closed both of its Maxxi brand cash-and-carry stores in Campo Grande as part of a restructuring that shuttered 60 locations across Brazil, including some Supercenters. Shoppers said the stores could not compete on assortment, price or location.
"It was never clear who Maxxi was for. It wasn't cheap enough for the poor. But there was no appeal for the middle class," said Ordecy Gossler, 40, a public accountant filling his cart with cleaning supplies and toilet paper at Atacadão, a rival chain run by France's Carrefour (CARR.PA).
Today, Wal-Mart has just one Supercenter left in this city of 850,000 people, whose demographic of thrifty shoppers had once seemed suited to the world's largest retailer. It shuttered the city’s other one at the end of the year, as traffic dwindled in the shopping mall it was meant to anchor.
The retreat from Campo Grande is emblematic of Wal-Mart’s broader issues in Brazil, a once-red-hot destination for foreign retailers and other companies that has turned stone cold. And the lackluster performance in Latin America's largest economy shows how tactics that helped Wal-Mart build success in the U.S. sometimes get badly lost in translation overseas.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-walmart-brazil-idUSKCN0VQ0EQ?=rrpromo
= new reply since forum marked as read
