From Newsweek:

To move into China, America’s biggest and most successful retailer had to learn its business all over again.

In the grocery section of a big-box store in north Beijing, shoppers struggle to catch a bargain. And a fish. “We’d still rather pick it out ourselves,” says law student Guo Jiao, as she and a friend repeatedly plunge fishing nets into a tank full of slippery grass carp. Other shoppers with nets mob serve-yourself tanks swimming with crabs, clams and eels. Nearby, Yang Fuming has already landed his fish and carefully watches a clerk gut it. Once his fresh catch is eviscerated, Yang takes the bloody bag of still-convulsing carp and drops it into his shopping cart beside a pair of duvets he’s buying to cover his sofas, and a new kitchen apron. “I come here every day or two for the fresh stuff,” says the retired physicist. “They’ve got everything you need.”

Such is life in the Great Wal-Mart of China. Recognize the place? For Wal-Mart, China represents the biggest frontier since it conquered America. China’s voracious consumers are pushing retail sales to a 15 percent annual growth rate; that market will hit $860 billion by 2009, according to Bain & Co. But the standard-bearer of American retailing has pains-takingly discovered that success in China requires more than dutifully replicating its formula of cheap, steep and deep. It requires the kind of flexibility Wal-Mart has rarely shown: it requires going native. And now, after a decade of ingratiating itself to Chinese consumers by adopting their customs and culture, Wal-Mart is making its move from a minor player with just 3.1 percent of the market to a dominant force. [Full Text]