Wal-Mart Fishes Upstream

It was not just another Wal-Mart store opening. On Mar. 22, thousands of shoppers, vendors, and media got a glimpse of what could be the Store of the Future for the No. 1 worldwide retailer. This upscale version of a Wal-Mart Supercenter in Plano, Tex., is a 203,000 square-foot laboratory where management intends to test some radical strategies and tactics that aren't in the tried and proven Wal-Mart (WMT) playbook.

For many of us -- and a handful of Target (TGT) managers who showed up to spy on the competition -- the first impression was that you were someplace else. It looked a lot, like, well, a Super Target. "You copied us," complained one Target official to Marcus Ludwig, the manager of the Plano Wal-Mart.