Huge Wal-Mart in Japan a big hit

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NUMAZU, Japan – The aisles are wide, the selection is huge – and Wal-Mart's first warehouse-sized supercenter store in Japan is a hit with shoppers.

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Compared to old-style Japanese stores with a mishmash of merchandise crowding the shelves, the towering aisles here are filled with rows and rows of similar products – soda, sneakers, frying pans.

The American look is new to most Japanese. Bold signs that read "shoes" or "toys" hang from above to direct shoppers to the right aisles, and a moving walkway takes shoppers with their giant carts to a rooftop parking lot. A massive single-floor store like the supercenter is so unusual that benches had to be placed in some spots to accommodate Japanese who complained they needed a rest.

Shoppers such as Eri Hiraiwa can't get enough.

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