I was having a conversation today about gaming markets and ports and such and got on a bit of a tear before deciding not to flood the discord with a rant, so now y'all get blessed with it instead.
There is this thing capitalism does a lot, that's kind of hard to describe, so to start let me tell you the story of Finnish Cheetos.
admittedly, this is all based on memory. I did a quick glance at the wikipedia article to make sure I wasn't completely off base and Financial Times is quoted as calling this debacle "a gold standard case study in what retailers should not do when they enter a new market" so good enough
I live in Winnipeg which is not especially big (~800k) but is significantly bigger than all the towns around it because the Canadian midwest is pretty spread out. The next biggest city in the province (Brandon) is 1/16th the size and the closest city the next province over (Regina) is 1/4 the size and a 6 hour drive.
If you're looking for some sort of drivable family getaway, there are a lot of great parks areas but the nearest larger cities are all 14+ hours away. It's much easier to do the 8 hour drive to Minneapolis or, if you just want to go to a hotel that has a pool for the kids and do some shopping at some stores that don't exist in Canada, why not drive the 4 hours to Fargo or Grand Forks?
Regardless of whether people were just heading down to shop or they were coming back from larger car trips (my family would drive down to visit relatives in Wisconsin or Illinois every summer), people would tend to stop off at a grocery store on the way back to buy snacks that aren't sold in Canada. Target has groceries and it's nicer than Walmart so it was well-liked.
Eventually, Target worked out that they were doing great sales and had a great reputation so when Zellers, The Bay's1 lower end department stores, went out of business, Target decided to buy up their leases and open shop. Only they didn't (and honestly, couldn't) bring over all the American-only stuff that Canadians were buying. They sold the same stuff that Zellers had been selling only the selection wasn't as good and it was more expensive.
In a shocking turn of events, Canadians weren't really interested in shopping at Target. Zellers had not been selling Keebler cookies or weird chip flavours for cheaper and people had already forsaken them for Walmart or Superstore—why would they switch back? Target lost a couple billion dollars in a couple years and then left Canada for good.
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It's completely normal that our big department store in Canada is the continuation of the trading company set up in the 17th century. I imagine most countries rely on either a trading company or at places called things like Canadian Tire when they need to buy a bedspread or a stand mixer.
