Walmart in Frankfurt?
 

OK, so I know there's no Walmart in Frankfurt...

We'll be flying into Frankfurt in the late afternoon, and would like to find a large Walmart-type or even "Babies R Us"-type of store identified and plugged into the GPS for a quick stop before hitting the hotel and crashing after a long flight.

We're going to be in the market for a portable baby sleeping unit. Something cheap and disposable after a 3-week trip. Something like a bassinet, playard, playpen, etc. that folds down and up easily and doesn't take up much space in small European hotel rooms.

Does anybody know of a store that would carry something like this (cheaply) in Frankfurt - bonus points if it's near the airport, and double bonus points if it has a web site where we could look online and get a good idea of what we'd be able to find there before we fly...

Thanks in advance for your help and suggestions.

There are (or were) Walmarts all over Deutschland. Hopefully they have all been shut down...

http://www.main-taunus-zentrum.de/de/home/home.html

You will be close to the Main-Taunus Zentrum shopping mall. It has all of your needs. I could not find an English page, but it is relatively close to FRA.

I think the Metro Retail company bought all the Walmart stores. There must be one of their stores in Frankfurt.

I think your best bet is the Isenburg Center (Isenburg Zentrum) shopping mall south of the city and not far from FRA. It's only around 20 minutes with the quickest bus connection so maybe 10-15 minutes by cab.

HP (German only): http://www.isenburg-zentrum-neu-isen...home/home.html

Do not know about your final destination, but there is certainly one bid difference between Germany and the US: In downtown Frankfurt (and more or less in every downtown) you will find plenty of shops and department stores, more or less an open air shopping mall.

WalMart is gone, rebranded or closed down.

However...if you fly in on a Sunday, you may have a very hard time finding an open store. The main train station might have some open stores, but maybe not what you are looking for.

Walmart decided to cease operations in Germany some time ago, but I don't know if all the stores have been closed yet (my guess is they have if Flying Lawyer says so).

Personally in the past I've been grateful to have the German version of Walmart (which wasn't an exact clone of the American store) available. I shopped many times at the Hamburg Walmart and was glad to have a store with good selection, prices, opening hours, and short waiting times at checkout.

I know Walmart has some minuses also. But I cannot be happy about thousands of people losing their jobs.

For any stores that were just re-branded, how do the new stores compare with the old?

In July 2006, Wal-Mart announced its withdrawal of operations from Germany because of sustained losses, they were simply mentally unable to operate a business on the German market and burned the money of their shareholders. The stores were sold to the German based international chain METRO AG (which is one of the big global players in this market). 15 of 85 stores were closed, most of the others rebranded to REAL, Metros comparable chain. Rebranding is still in process and will be completed June 28.

Of course there will not be thousands of people losing their job. And however: Waltmart has a labor force turnover even in the US of about 75 percent working there for less than a year. So no big loss for the labor markt anyway. What will certainly happen is that quite a few people get a better employer. Metro is for sure a fair and well reputed employer and not what we know from Walmart: Low wages, poor working conditions, inadequate health care, lack of recognition, inadequate pay, strong anti-union policies and a high labor force turnover rate was one of the prime concerns workers had with Walmart. And they failed last but not least because workers in Germany did not accept these conditions close to .....

Any further questions?

Yes, why would you turn the OP's request for information about where to buy baby items into a political discourse? :confused:

Further questions? You didn't answer the only question I posed!

It was not me speculating about "about thousands of people losing their jobs", was it? And it was not me praising them for "good selection, prices, opening hours, and short waiting times at checkout", was it? I just explained why it did not work in Germany. And I never understood Walmart either as "political" or as an American legend. And the original question was answered for long before gilpin started his pleading on the advantages of Walmart.
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I thought your assumption about "thousands of people losing their jobs" was your main concern. Sorry that I overlooked the other one. REAL offers the customer very much the same as Walmart.

duplicate

Pardon me for even suggesting such a thing is possible. :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
http://www.union-network.org/Unisite...employment.htm

I may not be the only one who has done that. The former Walmart employees protesting against Metro may have done some "speculating" of their own.
And you think talking about the shopping experience at a particular store is political? I guess you can always count on a lawyer for a twisted interpretation. I was merely responding to the post: and pointing out that there were some positive aspects of shopping there (the OP's question was about shopping and if you read the thread title it does mention Walmart) and thinking that it wasn't necessarily a good thing for those who lost their jobs. Oh, please... I never said anything political (you raised 100% of those issues) nor did I "plead" (I'll leave that to you lawyers). In fact what I said was:

I guess your comment "the original question was answered" really means that you had given your pronouncement from your ivory tower and so it was self-evident that there was nothing further to be said.

Oh, I don't like to hear of people losing their jobs, it is true. But it never crossed my mind that you would be concerned about such a thing, so I certainly didn't ask you anything about it.

Now as to my question: in English you can often locate the question by finding the "?" symbol at the end of a sentence (much as in German, unless I'm very much mistaken). That is especially true if that sentence is the last sentence, which is termed the "summary" and usually expresses either the main point or question which the writing taken as a whole was meant to convey or ask.

Cool.
I always learn new stuff on FlyerTalk. ^ :D

Rest assured, the list of the shops to be closed is not that long. However, corporate HQ will be closed too and this will certainly cost jobs. However - political again - it is amazing that they are protesting against Metro who took over these run down shops. Walmart entered into the German market in first place by taking over stores from other German chains. They had not a clue how to operate supermarkets in Germany and THEY failed. Metro bought the leftovers and now they are the bogeyman.

I do not believe supermarkets to be any political at all. They are business'

The original question was to my humble believe answered as the OP got advice on shopping malls, on down town shopping areas, on railway stations, on shopping hours. But take overs by US corporations in an occupational style are a nice topic too. I felt simpy tempted by certain posts. Sorry, if I (however) offended you personally. It was not meant to

I don't like exploiting employers and to say that Walmart has "its issues" is a wonderful understatement. I was on the team defending the rights of Walmart workers against the corporation and a lot of the "issues" I became aware of reminded me of Georgia before the Civil War. To be very honest: Even the limited number of Walmart workers losing their jobs, might be better of under German social security than Walmart workers in the US having a job with the chain. And vast majority keeping their jobs will have a fair employer. This certainly was and it was meant political.