Germany. Even the "big" supermarkets are tiny and they're all German owned.
this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2025
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I remember Walmart tried to go into Germany and failed because they didnt understand the culture there. Greeters turned most people off for example.
Actually, Walmart's "corporate culture" violated German labor laws. And they couldn't compete with the German chains who were already established either.
Germany does have hypermarkets and those might be what the OP means.
Not in Baden-Württemberg. You'd have to go to France.
yeah just giant slabs of concrete with a huge building filled with stuffs.. same thing really.
maybe I just don't like this modern world lol
But they are much less prominent in Germany than in USA!
And typically Mediterranean people prefer buying their groceries in small corner shops that usually have some vegetables on shelves on the street in front of the shop.
This is a common view in Portugal and southern Italy. And to a reasonable extent in France as well. In Spain not so much, though!
yeees, I want to buy from someone, not something. It drives community which feels nonexistent
amazing news, thank you! I'll checkout Germany and plan a driving route to Netherlands or something. doesn't seem that far of a drive tbh. (I drove 7 hours 1 way just for an Xmas party a few weekends ago. lol.. 14 in total for a 5 hour party). I know, absurd for Europeans to think about :P
European motorways are a nightmare. It might not look that far on the map, but I'd rather drive from Boston to Brooklin ME on the i95 than from Karlsruhe to Freiburg on the A5.
Apparently Walmart has a location list here https://corporate.walmart.com/about/location-facts. It says it operates in 19 countries so there are many places that do not have Walmarts. Many of them probably don't have other big stores either.
lol, wasn't Walmart specifically but I do appreciate it. just corporate giant slabs of concrete in a jungle/nature setting. always meh and makes me just wanna no go there.
In most of Europe you can easily live all your life without seeing those, but they do exist.
My country, Finland, is probably the most hypermarket-based society in Europe, so maybe you'll want to steer clear of here if you don't like hypermarkets :D
Here's something scary for you from the capital of Finland, from what I would consider urban area:
All of the ex eastern bloc countries in Europe live in a somewhat similar way, but they don't have it as bad regarding this as Finland does.
Here's an example from Poland:
In Poland those don't exist half as close to city centres as in Finland, though, so it's easy to be safe from them!
Portugal, southern half of Italy, Greece, and actually probably all of Balkan countries have it very well in this regard! I love the tiny shops in those parts of Europe! :)
I have never seen a Walmart IRL. So... Probably all of Europe should be safe for you? And I didn't happen to see any of them in Laos, Thailand, Burma, India, or Nepal, either.
Do they actually exist outside USA at all?
I assumed Walmart/big box stores infected everything. Europe appears safe for the most part.
got some planning to do now, didn't even think about the EU
Is "big box store" the same thing as a hypermarket?
I mean, Carrefour and Tesco are basically everywhere in Europe. Germany has Kaufland. Finland and Estonia have Prisma, The three Baltic countries have Maxima XXX.
But I do not know if Walmart is really something similar to those or not. At least there are no idiotic greeters over in European hypermarkets, as I've heard Walmart does! :)
Walmart hasn't had their greeters actually greet anyone in 20 years. They just stand there. Sometimes they ask to check your reciept when you leave, but you are free to ignore them and keep walking.
In Canada: Vancouver, BC. Just don't go beyond the city limits.
Kingston, ON: if you can get past big box suburbia near the highway, the downtown is small and charming.
Montreal, QC is also very cool. Downtowns of major cities in Canada are generally very nice places to be, but outside there it depends on the city how sprawling the suburbs are.
I've never shopped at a Walmart in Japan. It's really fun to visit.
thanks, trying to leave Canada for a bit. gonna checkout some south easy Asian places and perhaps a small euro tour since they don't seem to have any
come to europe habibi!
working on it, might be euro, might be Southeast Asia, haven't fully decided yet but I would like to visit my mother's homeland in Maastricht
oh yes Maastricht is cosy! make a road trip out of it. that's what me and my gf basically do every summer with our van. you can do a lot in three weeks
why… why does everything need to look the same, sell the same junk.
Because it is cheap. Build a warehouse, fill it with cheap shelves full of mass produced products. Costs come down due to economies of scale. It's cheaper to make a kid's toy if they are all made of plastic from the same mold, and it is cheaper to make buildings if they are all built from the same engineering documents. Stamp your logo on the building so that people know what quality of goods to expect at your store. You can now undercut local stores with lower costs. People shop there because they want to save a couple bucks.
Ukrainian here, smaller town. Most stuff is purchased on a street market a.k.a. bazaar. But there are also two competing grocery chains, Tavria V and ATB. It's like RED and BLU. Left twix / right twix situation. They are everywhere. Anything that isn't no-name (and is food) is probably cheaper there than at a bazaar. Though I once saw them sell tiny ass stollen loafs for 12 whole bucks because "it's a slightly niche foreign recipe so it must be expensive" (and same with pretty much everything else in there). Might not sound like a lot but this is a week worth of (other) food, idk how much stollen costs for neighboring countries but went on amazon.de and scrolled for a little bit to find a similar thing for 2 euro.
Bigger cities have one or two really large (3+ story) buildings, which are renting spaces for the two competiting grocery chains, arcade halls, casinos, pizza/burger stuff and small stores selling random foods by weight. When one enters, all sense of time is lost.
I was also bored one day and made this image in response to someone sending the same thing but about Lidl
