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Retailers of that size - vs domestic retail share - are common globally among developed nations because the economy of scale is required to compete. The altern

Retailers of that size - vs domestic retail share - are common globally among developed nations because the economy of scale is required to compete. The alternative in a global economy would be to shut down access to your market to keep the foreign retail giants out. Otherwise they would come in and decimate your smaller, less competitive retailers. It's why just two grocers (E.Leclerc, Carrefour) in France have 40% of their grocery market. Throw in three other retail companies like Auchan Holding and you have total retail dominance by just a few players. It's why Schwarz Group and Aldi are so large in Germany and why Tesco has total sales equal to ~12% of all retail spending in the UK (domestically they're larger as a % than Amazon is in the US for example). If you scaled Tesco up, UK economy scaled to the US economy, they'd be larger than Walmart.

simonh 7y ago
Interesting, thanks. I think market structure differences matter. As I understands it in the US Walmart can have an effective monopoly in an area by being the only big supermarket within reach. The area might only have a population that can support one big store and Walmart get to be it. That’s much harder to pull off in the UK due to our denser population. This pits Amazon more directly against Walmart in particular in the US, because the package delivery model lets Amazon address the same markets as those big regional Walmart stores without having to build a big regional store. In the UK there would be very, very few areas where the main choices are Tesco and Amazon, but there are a lot of people in the US who’s main choices are Amazon or Walmart. Does that seem right?