Are Wal-Mart's prices really that different from anywhere else? I haven't been in a Wal-Mart in many years with only a few exceptions when traveling and someone I was traveling with felt they needed to go there. The place is so huge it takes an eternity to find anything. And the lines at the checkouts were way too fucking long. I assume it's always like that except at around 2 AM. It seems the most inconvenient shopping place on the planet to me. Their prices would have to be pretty fucking spectacular to get me to voluntarily drag my ass into that place. I was always under the assumption Wal-Mart's success was mainly because they competed with Kmart but they built on the periphery of towns where rents were cheaper than Kmart's plus they got sweet tax deals from towns in exchange for "creating jobs" so they also paid less tax than Kmart. Their distribution efficiencies came later after they had outgrown Kmart and Sears. That's the story you hear from some people in Bentonville anyway.
John Thornton