Today's news that Tesco is seeking to sell it's Japanese chain and withdraw completely from the market should not be a great surprise. Japan has a highly developed retail sector with many established & highly competent chains - why would Tesco think that it could enter a market that it doesn't know, doesn't have any real logistical links to & is already full of good shops. Students will also be very familiar with the notion of 'Critical Mass' - where by you need a very significant chain of stores to contribute to the costs of building and employing the large warehouses and infrastructure to support stores - Tesco simply wasn't big enough in Japan to start with and then struggle to grow to a sufficient scale to become competitive.
So no big surprise that withdrawal has come, a sensible decision after an unwise investment - of course they will never disclose how many hundreds of millions they will have wasted in the process. How long till they give up on their equally misguided American venture??
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