TIL after trying for a decade, Wal-Mart withdrew from Germany in 2006 b/c it couldn’t undercut local discounters, customers were creeped out by the greeters, employees were upset by the morning chant & other management practices, & the public was outraged by its ban on flirting in the workpl

I think part of it is the size difference in the US and France. Many businesses here have thousands of locations. They want to regulate and make sure the experience is exactly the same from location to location. There are some people who really enjoy and need this consistency. They're the same people who prefer going to big chain restaurants, because they always know what they're going to get. It's comfortable. I'm not one of those people personally, but that's the experience and image many large companies want to sell. The problem comes when regional companies expand outside of their local region.

For example, Krispy Kreme donuts is a very popular doughnut chain that originated in the southern US. They opened up in my home state, where the local donut chain was Dunkin' Donuts. They went out of business completely within 3 years.

Likewise I worked at an IMAX that was owned by a Canadian company, and we ran into cultural clash issues whenever the Canadian bosses would come over to inspect things. Their style was very different from that of local management, and the disconnect left the employees confused. They were incredibly polite, in a terrifying way. We could never tell if they were genuinely pleased with us, or politely furious.

I once worked at a chain restaurant, Ruby Tuesdays, when it was opening its first location in my region of the US. They sent in people from Texas to coach, train and open the new store in New England. The original menu was very different from most places in the area, and they didn't keep certain items in stock that customers kept requesting (like vinegar for their fries). They were also much more bombastic and friendly than the locals, and put off patrons with how overly friendly and aggressive they were with service. The higher ups kept scratching their heads, unable to figure out why people in a heavily Italian area of New England weren't interested in eating pork rinds, or corn chowder. The restaurant eventually added in some local dishes, replacing corn chowder with clam and removing pork rinds from the menu altogether, but business wasn't great in the beginning.

I feel like countries that are significantly smaller than the US (to put it in perspective, France is smaller than Texas alone), enjoy a type of freedom that comes with having local businesses and fewer huge chains. You get diversity with your shopping experience, and while I have never been there, I'd imagine the average French company promotes itself more on how unique of a shopping experience it provides, rather than how consistent and similar they are. This is how certain areas of the US are (mostly the older areas, like the Eastern coast), compared to the Mid-West where many areas are much newer and have fewer "mom and pop" stores as a result. This is all based on assumptions and I've never been to France, so I might be way off base here, but it seems to track in my experience.

/r/todayilearned Thread Parent Link - atlantic-times.com