The EURO-conversion was used by retailers to raise prices. Aldi, however, reacted with the biggest price reduction of its
corporate history. As a result, it was able to double its profits.
Paragraph edited for clarity – the original is on page 17.
Imagine that – taking market share by improving service and prices.
EDIT: Mind you, some of Walmart’s failure is absolutely because the government has put bars on the free maket that made it illegal for them to succeed:
With organic growth close to being a mission impossible for hypermarket operators
due to stringent* planning and zoning regulations
Soon faced with
rapidly mounting losses, Wal-Mart’s management resorted to staff cuts and closures to
reduce its above-average personnel costs. Due to strict worker protection regulations,
however, making surplus workers redundant can be a complicated, lengthy and costly
affair in Germany – a cumbersome fact of life for its German competitors, but, obviously,
terra incognita for Wal-Mart Germany’s (mostly) American executives
* Stringent is explained elsewhere in the text and it is, indeed, stringent.
Beautiful article. My favorite parts:
– The leading retail strategy in Germany is “hard discounting” which offers a very narrow selection of high quality products at “rock bottom” prices. Aldi rules at this and hard discount retailers control a third of the market. In the UK etc this accounts for less than a tenth of the market. This is the polar opposite of Walmart’s “sell literally everything” strategy. – Germany has zoning laws that favor smaller buildings. This works in favor of hard discounters because they offer a narrow selection and minimalist shopping environment. Compare to Walmart’s “browse an entire warehouse and grocery store then eat at one of several restaurants” model. – Germany has antitrust/fair trade laws that forbid merchants from permanently selling goods below cost. This is Walmart’s favorite strategy famously observed in the gallon-jar pickle campaign. – Germany only allows retailers to be open for 80 hours per week, compared to 196 in the UK, 96 in the Netherlands, and 144 in France. – Walmart refused to recognize the outcome of the collective wage negotiation process with their German unionized employees and were “completely surprised” when said unions promptly organized walkouts in 30 stores. They were probably surprised because of their millions of US employees, only 12 are known to be unionized. This gave Walmart a “union basher” rep in Germany where unions are influential and popular. – Walmart tried to pull their “hire a ton of employees and give them shitty part time hours so we don’t have to give them full-time benefits” but worker protection laws prevented this and Walmart was forced to compete on product margins and services rather than recouping losses by shafting their employees. Aldi was able to match their prices cent for cent, but offered better service and more value. – Walmart repeatedly defied German antitrust laws like “You must provide your balance sheet and annual profit/loss statement” and “You must provide a bottle/plastic refund system for products you sell.” None of the other leading German retailers had a problem sustaining growth and profit while complying with these laws. – Germany put some dude from Arkansas in charge of the acquisition. He didn’t speak German. Anyone who’s spent time with Germans can imagine how well this probably went over.
So basically Walmart rolled up to Germany and tried to play its usual game of “buy out entire supply chains, sell products below cost until competitors are dry, then use their market reach to demand bulk orders from suppliers at near-zero margins, all the while keeping stores open 24/7 to maintain a huge pool of redundant part time workers at minimum wage with no benefits to reduce operating costs and further subsidize more supply chain buyouts” and the heavily unionized, aggressively antitrust, worker protection, high value low price German market laughed in their dumb weasel faces and sent them packing.
Meanwhile, Aldi, who has been commanding the German market while complying with all these regulations, has been expanding seamlessly into the US and has owned Trader Joe’s since 1979, which sells twice as much per square foot as Whole Foods.
This article is a beautiful demonstration that the only reason shitty companies like Walmart keep biting us in the ass in the US is because our leaders refuse to put them on a leash.
And not only that, the capitalism works better when there are strong anti-trust, strong worker protection, and strong market controls in place. More small businesses providing better goods and services for cheaper because they’re actually competing instead of doing like Walmart and burning capital until they force the local competition out of the market.
Even in the US… Trader Joe’s where I live has good products, a store that doesn’t stress me out, and absolutely most important… employees who seem to be happy doing what they’re doing. I trust the brand, which I don’t with Walmart. I don’t see Trader Joe’s actively trying to put the natural food store across the street out of business, or vice verse. I shop at both every week. I go into Walmart maybe twice a year, tops.
“Lemonade was not made for me, either. As a Singaporean Chinese woman, I would be lying if I said I was familiar with the complex, myriad ways Beyoncé explores black female personhood, sexuality, and spirituality in the film. But as a non-American, non-white woman, what I am familiar with is appreciating art that is not and will never be made with me in mind. This is a process that white people are now struggling with more publicly than ever. It seems to me that much of the pain in this process comes from entitlement, which often stems from ignorance. I wonder: Do white people in the Western world understand just how much of global popular culture is tailored to their tastes and their histories? Do white people in the Western world know that, for non-white people who wish to participate in and discuss global popular culture, being well-versed in white cultural and musical history is almost compulsory? Do white people in the Western world know how laughable it is that they feel excluded just because a popular work of art dares to be less culturally legible to them?”
I’m reading this queer anthology and the first story is a fairytale about a queer Latina girl whose anger was so fierce it literally poisoned the rich white men who unfairly captured the transgender soldier she was in love with and my heart is literally bursting I’m going to cry
the second story is about two queer girls who leave their husbands-to-be at the altar and flee together on a boat to become pirates IM FUCKING SCREAMING THIS IS EXACTLY THE KIND OF GAY CONTENT I SIGNED UP FOR
okay this is the anthology and it’s entirely written by queer authors and inspired by the stories of real queer teens in history and it’s the most wholesome and epic thing I’ve read in a long while
The people asked and the people shall receive! Here is an extensive rec list of fics centering the black characters of Black Panther,
and free of incest, p*dophilia and antiblackness. (I tried to make sure that all the fics and authors listed aren’t offensive, but if i accidentally recced an offensive fic or a fic written by a terrible person, please let me know so that i can fix it).
The fics are sorted by main pairings, and the last category is for fics centering around familial relationships and character study. The list includes around 50 works, so I put most of it under a “read more” to not clutter your dash. Thank you to those who helped me make this list! I hope everyone enjoys it.
M’Baku/T’Challa
The King and M’Baku by tehtarik : M’Baku/T’Challa, rated T, 4889 words, complete. [M’Baku fishes T’challa out of the river.]
All the Stars by manic_intent : M’Baku/T’challa, rated E (but most of the chapters are rated T), 39357 words, complete. [Postcanon AU that looks at the consequences of M’Baku’s decisions in the film.]
love, let’s talk about love by pissedofsandwich : M’Baku/T’Challa, rated T, 1 chapter out of 3 released so far. [T’Challa and M’Baku dance around the idea of pursuing something that they both want.]
moonstone by jesspava : M’Baku/T’Challa, Nakia/Okoye, 3221 words, complete. [Shuri is intent on proving that T’Challa and M’Baku are together.]
Happy International Women’s Day. Please read this. #SetHerFree #IWD2018
“We wish we could be celebrating with you on this day, but we are not free to do so…
The restrictions placed on women 100 years ago should never have been and today they seem ridiculous. Today, we should not be locked up because of our immigration status, and one day it will be seen for what it is: an unjust abuse of human rights. I invoke the spirit of the suffragettes to help me every day I am detained and am hungry for freedom and we need to remember the sacrifice these women made a century ago so that we can have a vote and therefore have a voice today. We urge every woman to use that vote to keep fighting to make our society fair for our daughters and for generations to come.”
wupacing 