Mass market retailing like Walmart, Target, Kmart, et al. is a very commoditized industry -- there is only price loyalty as opposed to brand loyalty. They may spend fortunes on branding efforts but in most cases on commoditized items price or location is the deciding factor.

I'll give you an example: I found a Walmart store brand V8 type juice I like that was $1.26 -- the name brand V8 juice in the same size (1/2 Gallon can) is $3.00 +- So, I went to Wallyworld and bought 5 cans of that juice and bought a few other items they had -- but I didn't do my bulk grocery shopping there -- I do that at Kroger. Why Kroger? Their overall prices seem the lowest around here.

Moral of the story is I would dump any of them in a heartbeat. If any mass market merchandiser could offer me the same quality at a better overall value, convenient location and business hours -- I'll shop there.

That is the Achilles heel of market commoditization and relying on overall consumer pricing.

WinCo is a noble example of how to break this cycle -- I wish them well and would be happy to try them out.

People shop at tube sites for their time-honoured Fap for the same reason in a twisted way. The tubes sell the porn product at the ultimate commoditized price -- free!

Maybe, porn paysites are like speciality retailing, there is some "customer loyalty."

But the analogy is the same in the price loyalty issue or the Vlasic foods dilemma with Walmart and the tubes and their user uploads -- the squeeze is on the supplier in the downward price spiral -- the mass outlet (retailer) makes there money on the volume or on other items sold.

One of the easiest quick fixes to price competition is lowering labor costs or staffing requirements.
Walmart could decide to charge $0.50 for parking, would you pay it?