According to the case, Walmart was the largest retailer in the world with sales of $330 billion, 1.8 million associates and almost 7,000 stores. Up to now, Walmart has developed the business in different countries and locations. Of course, the global expansion must involve the risks such as operational management and customer behavior and so forth.

By 1990, Walmart realized that the market would limit the business development, the management calculated that by the early 2000s, domestic growth opportunities would be constrained due to market saturation. Thus, they plan to expand the business to other countries in order to against the saturated market and the limitation.
In 1991, Walmart started to expand internationally, the first stores opened as a joint venture with Cifera in Mexico. Walmart adopted the operational management directly from United State to Mexico, it is one of the problems for replicating the distribution system. However, the system did not suit in those market, because the poor infrastructure, crowded roads, and lack of leverage with local suppliers, it cause the goods could not deliver directly to Walmart stores or distribution centers. The prices and costs increased by that condition, the products must be set at the higher level to face the negative impact, it would affect Walmart’s ability to gain market share.

Undeniably, Walmart was the lack of the market research when they enter into the new market. They misunderstand the customer behavior and the local situation, all the information should be collected by the research to investigate and evaluate the business environment so as to plan the suitable marketing strategy.
Nevertheless, Walmart has got the experience in this failure, they began to adjust the management as a path to get the market share