Costco's China Opening Descends Into Chaos

Amid the US-China trade war, one American business had an extremely popular launch in China on Tuesday. Maybe too popular. Costco had to close its first location in the country early on the afternoon of its opening day amid scenes resembling Black Friday chaos, the BBC reports. Video from the grand opening of the Shanghai store showed crowds of shoppers fighting to get inside, jostling over items including raw meat, and getting stuck in checkout lines up to two hours long, reports Reuters.

The discount retailer apologized for the "inconvenience" and said that in the future, the store will limit numbers to 2,000 shoppers at a time and will notify members when there are long wait times. The company said police will help improve the flow of traffic near the store, where people reportedly had to wait up to three hours for parking. Costco has had an online presence in China since 2014 but this is its first physical store in the country. (More Costco stories.)