The expansion of German discount chain Lidl into US-Amerika is turning out to be less successful than hoped, to put it mildly. Sales are disappointing and the two billion euros planned to cover investment and start-up losses will not be enough. Management apparently chose too many wrong locations and built stores that were much too big. Instead of the 100 stores planned for last year only 47 actually opened.
This puzzles me a bit. You can’t walk a quorter of a mile in Germany without running into one of these places. And when I read how Lidl prices in the US seem to be just as low or lower than they are here, how could they possibly fail? Well, if they do, there’s still Aldi, right?
Die extrem jungen Expansionsteams haben in Amerika oftmals falsche Standorte ausgewählt. Zudem wurden zu große und zu teure Märkte gebaut. Die Umsätze sind enttäuschend. Die ursprünglich kalkulierten zwei Milliarden Euro für Investitionen und Anlaufverluste werden nach Informationen vom manager magazin nicht ausreichen.
Workers at five stores in and around Berlin were surprised to find cocaine packed into crates of bananas on Monday. Olaf Schremm, the head of Berlin’s anti-drugs squad said the crates had come from Colombia via the German port of Hamburg and the discovery was “pure chance”.
140 Kilo Kokain wurden in Aldi-Filialen in Berlin sowie in Velten (Oberhavel) entdeckt. Das Rauschgift war in Bananenkisten verpackt. Den Ermittlern zufolge handelt es sich um den größten Berliner Drogenfund seit Jahren.
Observing Hermann 