Abstract

In 2014, Walmart made a public statement announcing the closure of 30 underperforming stores. After 12 years of operations in Japan, the world largest retailer still had troubles to address Japanese consumers’ needs. In order to find some piece of answers, Takeshi Kamigouchi, Walmart Japan’s CEO, decided to look at Carrefour. Carrefour, second largest retailer in the world, is a French retailer that entered Japan market in 2000. Proud of its success in Taiwan in 1989, Carrefour thought it had all the required knowledge and strengths to perform in Japan. However, in 2005, only five years after its first operations in japan, Carrefour sold its Japanese operations to its number one competitor, Aeon. Since Carrefour and Walmart have been using the same “Everyday low price” business model, T Kamigouchi thought that by looking at Carrefour’s mistakes, he could finally learn how to break the code to perform in Japan.

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