Like Target's failed entry into Canada
The common factor is failure to recognize what any ordinary person could have told them: the customers will reject your bright idea. Didn't Keurig have even a glimmer of awareness that shutting out off-brand coffees from their machines would not be popular? That coffee makers are available in an infinity of models and there's lots of competition?
As for Target-in-Canada, their stores came across as designed by someone who thought Canucks are a bunch of stupid goobers and didn't realize that Target's popularity among cross-border shoppers is due to the selection and the prices; the mere name "Target" is by itself of no significance.
Design mistakes: no change room by the men's clothing; they expected you to walk down (or up) to another floor to use the women's change rooms. No checkouts by some doors. Only self-serve checkouts at some (and they crashed with shocking regularity). And subtle ways of trying to disconnect their stores from the rest of the malls they were located in. Never mind the empty shelves because Target-in-Canada hadn't bothered to organize its supply chain before opening.
The overall lesson from both pratfalls is this: don't pay too much attention to bean counters and marketers who come up with a new and novel way of abusing your customers. They don't know the business.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
