Lower margins could be offset by packing the selection with private-label merchandise, a strategy Walmart employed successfully in Mexico with its Bodega concept.
But smaller firms that make up the backbone of Germany's famous Mittelstand have also been packing up and moving abroad, especially into lower-cost and more flexible countries to Germany's east.
States bordering Canada, such as Maine and Minnesota, have been packing their elderly on buses and sending them across the border to take advantage of lower prices for certain prescription drugs.