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Welcome to Wal-Mart in China, where the late Sam Walton has a new image: the Mao of retailing. There, as in Walton's home state of Arkansas, having the right merchandise is paramount. So the store in Shenzhen, just north of Hong Kong, is crowded with tanks of crabs, fish, frogs and shrimp, which can be taken home wiggling or be expertly gutted and cleaned on the spot...
...Wal-Mart's push into China--and Brazil and Germany and deeper into California and New York--offers a hint of why the world's largest retailer seems unfazed by this stinker of a holiday shopping season. Wal-Mart's sales in stores open at least a year were up only about 3% compared with the same period last year--at the low end of its expectations. But many other retailers were hurt much worse. Wal-Mart just keeps gaining market share, not only from bankrupt discounter Kmart but also from grocers like Kroger, drugstore chains like CVS and electronics...
...Wal-Mart is mounting an audacious expansion that could double its sales within just five years, to $480 billion. Some of that growth will come in new markets abroad, where 1,200 stores in nine countries already account for about 16% of the chain's total sales. But even more growth will be won as the chain insinuates itself into more U.S. neighborhoods and invades more product categories...
...think Wal-Mart already sells just about everything, think again. Think PCs, ceiling fans, more fashionable clothing, gasoline and even cars. "Their goal is to have a 30% share of every major business they are in," says Linda Kristiansen, a retail analyst for UBS Warburg Equity Research. If there's no Wal-Mart store near you, just wait. If you shop at Wal-Mart, expect your store to get bigger or a new store to open even closer. The chain plans to expand from 3,400 U.S. locations today--half of them in the South--to a nationwide network approaching...
...went something like, "We'd like 5.5 million meters, please. Now what's your price?" Try $5.21 per meter. As a result, ASDA slashed its retail prices in half and upped its annual jeans sales to 1 million, from 174,000. ASDA is acquiring some 2,000 products from Wal-Mart's global network, and its gains might have set off a consolidation spree. Last week, Morrisons, the U.K.'s fifth-largest chain, launched a takeover offer for Safeway, the fourth-largest. ASDA could join the fray. ASDA is making its mark on Wal-Mart, too. ASDA's George brand...