All eyes on Chinese aisles

摘要

AHEAP of raw chickens greets customers at a Wumart store in Beijing, piled up on a table without packaging or protection against passing sneezers. The shop front is dirty, the decor shabby and the goods inside are displayed without the slightest attention to aesthetics. But the prices are wonderfully low. China is the world's fastest-growing major retail market, and may one day be the biggest. Foreign chains such as Carrefour, Walmart and Tesco are piling in. Yet none of them nor any of their local rivals comes close to dominating China as Walmart dominates the supermarket business in America. The largest chain, Shanghai Bailian, has only n% of the market and barely registers outside its home region.