It increasingly seems the company's 45-year-old business model--based on a continuously improving supply-chain loop--is better suited to developing economies like Mexico, Brazil and China, where it is doing well, than to mature markets like the U.S. and Japan, where it isn't.

Not surprising, given how they high-tailed out of Germany - which very much is a mature market.

The supply chain network of Wal-Mart is amazing - but this doesn't help them if they don't analyze their markets sufficiently.