# Malte Karstan

Malte Karstan writes LinkedIn explainers about business, migration and consumer markets, using data and visual maps to show what headline comparisons can miss.

- Profile: https://b2binfluencer.marketing/creators/malte-karstan/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/malte-karstan
- Based on 13 dated posts, latest 2026-10-10

## Summary

Most useful for explainers that turn headline figures and maps into better questions for business, migration and consumer markets.

- Best for: A European grocery or CPG brand seeking executive explainers on retail models and store-count interpretation.
- Not for: Launch announcements or direct-response footwear posts needing fixed dates, purchase clicks, no data caveats and light approval.
- Check first: Confirm audience geography, job function, comparable post engagement and written terms.

### Takeaways

- A store count is not a measure of retail power.
- A percentage change says nothing until you know the scale behind it.
- A company's home country is not where its value is created.

## Main ideas

- **A store count is not a measure of retail power**: Karstan's central retail argument is that a location is not a comparable unit. An independent merchant inside a cooperative, a franchised shop and a centrally managed discounter each count as one store, yet differ sharply in ownership, pricing authority, purchasing arrangements and exposure to operating risk. They then name the metrics the map cannot display — sales per square metre, average basket value, private-label penetration, stock turnover and logistics costs — and argue that a smaller network can carry greater turnover or stronger purchasing leverage than a larger one. Banner logos also flatten group-level weight, hiding the economic size of groups behind several chains.
- **A percentage change says nothing until you know the scale behind it**: Karstan treats base and definition as prior questions to direction. Percentage changes in annual migration inflows are not migrant populations, net migration or citizenship grants, they point out, so a country starting from a small base can double its intake while receiving far fewer people than a larger destination whose inflows fell. They also question the baseline choice: 2019 precedes pandemic disruption and later humanitarian movements. People under temporary protection should not simply be counted as permanent migrants under OECD definitions. For employers, their closing argument is that arrival is only the first chapter: qualifications, housing, language and administrative processing decide whether labour supply becomes work.
- **A company's home country is not where its value is created**: Karstan groups Denmark's best-known companies by what they actually do, then separates corporate heritage from current economic reality. A brand can be Danish by origin while manufacturing in Asia, employing thousands elsewhere and carrying investors around the world. A graphic that maps regions of origin is not a map of headquarters, ownership or factory locations. They also stress visibility: some of the most consequential companies are almost invisible to consumers because their products are designed into other companies' buildings and supply chains. The post names concentration and cyclical risks rather than treating international scale as a guarantee.
- **Nostalgia is an asset with a running cost**: Karstan's argument about consumer heritage is that reissues carry a real economic trade-off. Reusing a known silhouette lowers the cost of introducing a product because customers already recognise it, but it can erode the discovery that made the design desirable in the first place. Limited supply may inflate resale prices without delivering better margins to the manufacturer. Their conclusion is deliberately unromantic: a celebrated product is not automatically a profitable one, and an anniversary release risks turning memory into inventory. They apply the same reading to brands, noting that some preserve an unchanged icon while others continually reinterpret their own archives, and that neither approach guarantees relevance.
- **The habit across all of it: give the figure, then name the metric that would answer the question**: The same four moves recur in every post. A striking chart, list or statistic is presented fairly and without strawmanning; Karstan then supplies the definitional, ownership or scale detail that changes the reading; they explain who controls the business or carries the risk; and they close on the gap between the visible figure and the underlying economics. Sources are credited at the end of each post.

## Work to read

- [Europe's Grocery Map: Thousands of Stores, Very Different Kinds of Power](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/malte-karstan_europes-grocery-map-thousands-of-stores-activity-7514791088923148288-eM6c)
- [Denmark's Corporate Map Is More Complicated Than It Looks](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/malte-karstan_denmarks-corporate-map-is-more-complicated-activity-7514791372600549377-otC2)
- [25 Sneakers, 100 Years: When a Shoe Becomes Cultural Capital](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/malte-karstan_25-sneakers-100-years-when-a-shoe-becomes-activity-7514790607018455040-7mCF)
- [Migration's New Geography: Poland Surges, Germany Slips, Japan Adapts](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/malte-karstan_migrations-new-geography-poland-surges-activity-7514790025616850945-_BJj)

## Brand relationships

- **World Visualized** (mention)
- **vgraphsinsta** (mention)
- **Stefan Schwab** (mention)
- **International Relations Illustrated** (mention)

## Partnerships

The four posts are analytical business writing about migration, sneaker history, European grocery retail and Danish companies, published on LinkedIn on 10 October 2026. None includes a sponsorship disclosure, “#ad” or “partner” label, promotional insert, partnership format, sponsorship rate, contractual requirement or media kit. They consistently credit data sources and graphics—for example, EDEKA, Carrefour and Żabka disclosures with graphic adaptation by Stefan Schwab; OECD's International Migration Outlook 2025 with a World Visualized graphic; and the Danish company register, Forbes, Crunchbase, Glassdoor and local newspapers with an International Relations Illustrated graphic. A buyer should expect sources and graphic creators to be credited on a sponsored post. Ask for the format, deliverables, pricing, approval steps, usage rights, exclusivity, lead times and disclosure wording in writing before committing budget.

## Alternatives

- Andrew Lolk: Choose Andrew Lolk when the decision sits below the market-structure question—in the product feed, listing title or bidding target. Their two posts work through concrete ecommerce problems. One challenges the default that a known brand belongs first in a product title, then sets out three tests for moving it back: category-focused search terms, unknown brands, or other benefits more likely to lift click-through. The post also notes that removing the brand entirely was tested and did not work. The other describes one product category quietly losing share of spend inside a shared tROAS portfolio for six months, the split into two category targets on 16 September, and the reported result: dog food spend up about 88% in Denmark and Swedish weekly net profit moving from negative to positive. For a CPG company looking to compete better in retail media, marketplaces or product listings, this is the same operational task Lolk demonstrates with numbers attached.
- Luke Hodson: Choose Luke Hodson when the question is about retail power and cultural position rather than store economics—for instance, when a footwear, sportswear or youth-facing brand is tracking shifts in shelf space and influence. Hodson's two posts analyse the DICK'S Sporting Goods acquisition of Foot Locker for $2.4 billion and what combined buying power over brands may mean, as well as why Size? lost its role as the place streetwear dropped before reaching the wider market. Both argue from retailer positioning, brand relationships and consumer culture, and close by asking the audience what they are seeing.
- Christian Peter Sandvei: Choose Christian Peter Sandvei for technology leadership inside retail and wholesale organisations, rather than grocery market structure. Sandvei's two posts introduce the interview series Nordic CIO Pulse 2026 and share named practitioners' views: Steen Villsen at XL-BYG on putting trusted data, unified infrastructure and governance before AI, and Nicolas Skovmand at BESTSELLER on teams owning what they build. XL-BYG is a decentralised wholesale and retail cooperative, making the pairing relevant to grocery's ownership question. Sandvei is the better choice when the audience is CIOs and the decision is where to invest in data and AI, rather than how to read a store count.

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AI-assisted summary of public posts. Audience demographics are not available. Engagement appears only where we checked recent posts. Method: https://b2binfluencer.marketing/methodology/