So I'm in China and I took some time to walk around a part of the city called Wangfujing (which means "well of the prince's palace"). Its a very vibrant part of Beijing and a cross between Santa Monica's 10th Street Prominade and the Las Vegas strip. Shopping and bright lights everywhere. The street that separates the shops is for pedestrians only so you will see food vendors and music stages set up throughout your walk. Its one of Beijing's premier shopping districts.

The thing that jumped out to me though was the 2 block stretch of Wangfujing that features three large stores - one for Nike (just opened about 3 weeks ago), one for Li-Ning and one for adidas (with another larger store under construction within the same block). The Wangfujing area will be even busier during the 2008 Summer Olympics and each of these three shoe and apparel companies will wage a battle to sell merchandise and achieve branding dominance.

Here's what I observed at each store:

adidas - Within the half mile I walked from my hotel to the Wangfujing shopping district I saw three adidas stores. The company has been touting the fact that they're opening new stores in China every week and I can certainly vouch for the fact they have a large presence here in Beijing.

NBA star Tracy McGrady is the marquee athlete featured in the stores. Celtics star Kevin Garnett is also featured prominently within the store - but still in his Minnesota Timberwolves jersey (adidas might want to change that sometime soon)

I was surprised to see no images of David Beckham anywhere. No Reggie Bush anywhere. As a matter of fact, I've seen no sign of the NFL anywhere at all.

The product seems reasonably priced, in fact it seems a bit less expensive than what you would pay if you walked in to an adidas store in the U.S.

The store I visited was about half the size of the new store adidas is building right down the street. My guess is that the new store will be about 13,000 square feet when its built.

Nike - Nike just opened a huge 13,000 square foot store in Wangfujing. The Beijing store is the largest of approximately 3,000 Nike retail destinations now open in China. When you enter the two-story store, there is a huge picture of Lakers star Kobe Bryant in his Team USA jersey. Bryant will be making an appearance at the store this weekend (which I will likely cover).

Milwaukee Bucks rookie Yi Jianlian is also featured prominently in the store as is tennis star Maria Sharapova. The interesting thing to me was while I saw plenty of LeBron James product (everything from shoes to apparel to basketballs), I did not see any images of LeBron within the store. That was interesting to me since Nike has touted James as one of their marquee athletes in this region.

Another thing I noticed about the Nike store is that they are selling product that I haven't seen available in the U.S. - mostly as it relates to color schemes. I saw Air Force One shoes in different colors than I'd ever seen before and "Beijing 2008" Nike gear is available. Lots of soccer balls on sale too. Jordan Brand gear available in some wild color schemes that  fit the culture over here much more than they would in the U.S.

Overall, the new Nike store is very impressive. Its also worth noting that the store is within walking distance of Nike-sponsored Dong Dan Park, one of the city’s most popular playgrounds with multiple basketball courts and football pitches.

Li-Ning - Make no mistake, the American athlete who has more billboards and more of a presence than any other in the Wanfujing shopping district is Miami Heat star Shaquille O'Neal.

Within the Wangfujing district, Li-Ning has more billboard signage than either Nike or adidas and Shaq graces all of those signs, which range from enormous billboards like the ones you would see in Times Square in New York, to the several signs bearing his image inside and outside the Li-Ning store itself. I'd estimate the Li-Ning store is at least 10,000 sqaure feet in size.

Just like the adidas store, you'll pay less for a pair of Shaq's shoes here (about $60 if I'm calculating the RMB to U.S. dollars correctly).

The NBA has a presence in the Li-Ning store as you can see the league's logo within the store as Li-Ning touts themselves as an official "NBA partner".

No Yao Ming signs anywhere that I could see within the Wangfujing shopping district. I did see two Tag Hauer billboards featuring Tiger Wods though. I'm off to some meetings with the folks from the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center at the University of Oregon. I'll check in with you later.