Perhaps a misread of South Korean culture led Wal-Mart to exit country

This article over at Bloomberg seems to make this same point about Wal-Mart's recent exit from South Korea. The reason given here was that fickle South Koreans did not want spartan, empty stores that did not cater to the specific shopping needs of the South Korean customer.

The needs don't only fall into the product category -- the entire shopping experience as a whole (with all components considered) was just not there in the South Korean Wal-Mart stores. Hence, customers were not shopping there in large enough numbers to justify keeping the doors open on all the stores. Some of the quotes mentioned in this article references the "warehouse-type feel" that the Wal-Mart stores had in South Korea -- and this flies in the face of Korean customs and customers.

One lesson to the world's largest retailer -- perhaps it needs to study the cultural significance of the retail shopping environment before designing and deploying stores. That "warehouse feel" may work here in the U.S., but obviously the culture in South Korea does not embrace this kind of design.

If the store environment doesn't work with customers, the lowest prices and the biggest selection won't matter a bit. Wal-Mart found that out in an experiment that just ended.