CompetitionIn North America, wal-mart stores the main competition including as Target, ShopKo and Meijer, Canada's Zellers, the Real Canadian Superstore and Giant Tiger, and Mexico's Comercial Mexicana and Soriana. Wal-mart's move to the grocer in the late 1990s, also make it against the big supermarket chains in the U.S. and Canada. Several smaller retailers, primarily dollar stores, such as Family Dollar and Dollar General, have been able to find a small niche market and compete successfully against Wal-Mart for home consumer sales.[1] In 2004, Wal-Mart responded by testing its own dollar store concept, a subsection of some stores called "Pennies-n-Cents."[2] Wal-Mart also had to face fierce competition in some foreign markets. For example, in Germany it had captured just 2% of German food market following its entry into the market in 1997 and remained "a secondary player" behind Aldi with a 19% share.[3] In July 2006, Wal-Mart announced its withdrawal from Germany. Its stores were sold to German company Metro.[4] Wal-Mart continues to do well in the UK, and its Asda subsidiary is the second largest chain after Tesco.[5] In May 2006, after entering the South Korean market in 1998, Wal-Mart withdrew and sold all 16 of its South Korean outlets to Shinsegae, a local retailer, for $882 million. Shinsegae re-branded the Wal-Marts as E-mart stores.[6] Wal-Mart struggled to export its brand elsewhere as it rigidly tried to reproduce its model overseas. In China, Wal-Mart hopes to succeed by adapting and doing things preferable to Chinese citizens. For example, it found that Chinese consumers preferred to select their own live fish and seafood; stores began displaying the meat uncovered and installed fish tanks, leading to higher sales.[7]Key Success Factors1. Low CostLow cost brings low price. Price will always be one of key success factors in determining who gets the business, and retains it. In comparision, The advantage of Walmart is its low price. And the mark-up on goods in Walmart is low. To guarantee the implementation of the strategy of low-cost competition, The premise is to reduce cost from each link.The logistics cost control is the measure of retail enterprise management level. It is also an important symbol of retail enterprises’ operating results.Wal-mart established strong distribution center system, which has the largest satellite communication system and the company's transportation team, all the company branch of computer department headquarters, realize full-automatic operation distribution center. By the integration of logistics, capital, optimization, Walmart owned a timely and efficient logistics cost control.2. ExpansionSupermarket sector is perfect competition. As an important asales channel of daily necessities, supermarket needs to rely on higher sales volume on low margin, and wins with scale, while fluctuation of the sector is small. Take supermarket chain Walmart for example, its sales growth has been depending on scale expansion, while contribution of same-store growth (organic growth) to sales growth is small, ranging between 2% and 5%. Therefore, a characteristic of supermarket sector is to continuously seek scale expansion and effect of scale.Wal-mart Financial Performance Table，1980，1990，1995-2002年份Sales*(milliondollars)Return onCapital*（milliondollars）Return onCapital& Sales’Ratesnet earning*（milliondollars）Netearning&Sales’ Rates198$1,643 n.a. n.a. 56 3.40%199 0 32,6022,212 6.80% 1,291 4%199593,627 5,247 5.6% 2,740 2.9%1996104,859 5,722 5.5% 3,056 2.9%Strategic map and analysisReferences1. Stilgoe, John. "Wal-Mart Giant Can Be Tamed." The Boston Globe. November 23, 2003. Retrieved on January 11, 2006.2. Berner, Robert. "Out-Discounting the Discounter." BusinessWeek. May 10, 2004.3. Ewing, Jack. "Wal-Mart: Struggling in Germany." BusinessWeek. April 11, 2005. Retrieved on July 27, 2006.4. Staff Writer. "Wal-Mart Abandons German Venture." BBC News. July 28, 2006. Retrieved on July 31, 20065. Fairlamb, David with Laura Cohn "A Bumpy Ride in Europe." BusinessWeek. October 6, 2003. Retrieved on July 27, 2006.6. Sang-Hun, Choe. "Wal-Mart Selling Stores and Leaving South Korea." The New York Times. May 23, 2006. Retrieved on December 2, 2007.7. Trunick, Perry A. "Wal-Mart Reinvents Itself in China." Logistics Today. January 2006. Retrieved on November 1, 2007.。