Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) continues to aggressively look at China as its next retailing conquest, and the largest consumer electronics chain in the U.S. has just said that it plans on a second location in Shanghai to firmly cement its plans there.

The company stated that it still needs to find a suitable site, but if it does, another Shanghai store is in tow sometime in 2008. The retailer's existing Shanghai location -- in the downtown Xujiahui area -- opened in early 2007, and has already proved successful enough to make Best Buy's international development team seek another location. My, my -- that was quick!

Best Buy CEO Brad Anderson says that the retailer is studying China and is not making snap judgments in terms of its expansion strategy there, saying that, "Best Buy needs experience in the China market, but it takes time." The only problem is that the competition is becoming more fierce every day, with companies already familiar with doing business with Chinese consumers. The learning curve needs to accelerate in Best Buy's case or it could find itself behind.

It's very strategic for Best Buy to study the competitive landscape and brand itself as required in China's rapidly growing retail market, but in addition to that it needs to understand the needs of the Chinese consumer more than anything. That will take time and patience, but every quarter still counts here.

Welcome to the 30th installment of The Wal-Mart Weekly, a column dedicated to bringing you insight, wit, facts, results, opinions and just a bit of everything else when it comes down to a very hot topic these days: Wal-Mart.

Last week, I brought you a two part series on what Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) needs to focus on in order to restore the consistent growth it has enjoyed for well over a decade now. Here is part 1 and part 2.

This week, I'll be looking at a burgeoning opportunity with the retailer that is getting some pretty decent traction in the press, but is being lost on the Wal-Mart customer. That is, the retailer's growth in the last 18 months as a "green-friendly" corporate citizen, which has the chance to make a significant impact on the global environment. As usual, it seems this message is not being trumpeted from every voice within Wal-Mart to every Wal-Mart customer. It should be, though.

In an interesting eco-twist with the world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) stated yesterday that it will eliminate all laundry detergents from its shelves that are not packaged and sold in 'concentrated' form. In an effort to reduce waste and conserve natural resources, the company said that all U.S. Wal-Mart stores and Sam's Clubs would only sell concentrated detergent going forward, although a drop-dead date was not reported with the announcement.

After having strolled through Wal-Mart in the last 24 hours, I can say that much of the laundry detergent already sold by the retailer comes in concentrated form -- but then, there are many brands that are not. Procter & Gamble Co. (NYSE: PG) stated that they will start distributing smaller detergent containers for concentrated liquid detergent this year. P&G's larger brands are Tide and Downy, among many others.

The move is not really a surprise by Wal-Mart, which has been on a green warpath this year. This summer, the retailer announced that it would only accept smaller packaging from many of its vendors, and created a complete set of guidelines to help those vendors get packaging to where there would be minimal waste after purchase.

In addition to selling and promoting a huge assortment of energy-saving compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs), the company is taking steps to cut back (or even eliminate) high gas usage by its trucking fleet. All of these measures are part of the company's "Sustainability 360" plan. The plan includes these initiatives: saving more than 400 million gallons of water, 95 million pounds of plastic and 125 million pounds of cardboard over the course of every year. Now, those are some large numbers.

Fiscal 2007 will be a big year for Starbucks. It will finally give New Yorkers warm breakfast sandwiches. It will move closer to making China its biggest market outside the U.S. It will take down a chain of hippie baristas.

And, if reports by director of trading and operations Colman Cuff are to be believed, it will open 20% more stores than it has today; a whopping 2,400. While many of these will be in the U.S., a large number will be in China, where Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ:SBUX) currently has only 400 stores.

Everyone seems to believe one eternal axiom of investing: growth is good. Certainly, revenue and profit growth will be good for Starbucks and I (as an exceedingly small investor), for one, can't complain about the short-term growth of the stock -- up 65 cents, or 1.76%, today on the news. And growth surely seems built into the price, at an exceedingly rich 53x earnings.

But growth can be too fast. Too careless. Too extravagant. Too 20%. In my analysis of the company's cash flows, it's somewhere between $250k and $300k to open a new Starbucks. Maybe that's not outrageous? But it's not cheap. When I see these huge numbers all stacking up together, I want to be very worried.

Starbucks today said that it will eventually have 40,000 stores worldwide, not the 30,000 previously forecast.

Now, Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ:SBUX) has 12,000 stores today, so the statement is wild speculation on its face. Any number of factors could change between here and that 40,000 eternity: Suppose doctors find out that coffee causes cancer, or that people who drink coffee cause 90% of all car accidents.

Suppose China bars Starbucks because the company does not use Chinese coffee beans? Or, suppose that McDonalds goes into the business of having high-end coffee stores in their restaurants.

Of course, Wal-Mart may end up with 100,000 stores or Home Depot may end up with 50,000. Sears could add 30,000 stores in the next decade.

But, they aren't predicting it.

Douglas McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.

It's always fun to listen to a company's live earnings call (I really recommend it!) and then read the press reports the next day and see what actually gets reported.

Here's one of the biggest disconnects for me when it comes to eBay: Almost all the wire reports still refer to eBay as an auction site. But management hammered home the point again and again that it is an e-commerce site.

In fact Meg Whitman and the CFO only mentioned the auction format when discussing ways in which eBay is increasingly moving to a fixed price format with stores and, coming next week, "eBay Express."

At the end of Q1, eBay had 486,000 stores, including 247,000 in the U.S., making it, "the largest global provider of store fronts in the U.S.," according to Whitman. Fixed-price trading accounted for 34% of all merchandise sold.

And the online marketplace, as it calls it, is just one part of its business. It also has PayPal (payments) and Skype (communications)

eBay is still primarily an auctioneer -- but for how much longer?