“It is a good, important lesson, a turning point,” an international spokeswoman for Wal-Mart, Beth Keck, said. “Germany was a good example of that naïvete.” She added, “We literally bought the two chains and said, ‘Hey, we are in Germany, isn’t this great?’ ”
Among other things, she said, Wal-Mart now cares less whether its foreign stores carry the name derived from its founder, Sam Walton, as the German Wal-Marts do. Seventy percent of Wal-Mart’s international sales come from outlets with names like Asda in Britain, Seiyu in Japan or Bompreço in Brazil.