More About Wal-Mart

Today's article in the WSJ about Wal-Mart in the DFW area highlights the extraordinary challenge that Wal-Mart presents to grocery stores. The DFW market is the fifth largest in the U.S. Yet, in less than ten years, Wal-Mart has a 32% market share of the grocery business. With 104 stores including 60 supercenters, Wal-Mart employs over 24,000 people in the DFW area. Further, unlike popular perception, Wal-Mart's dominance has not depressed wages.

Although I live in the DFW area, I had no idea of Wal-Mart's size. I had seen the closures of a local Tom Thumb and a Minyard's further north, but I had attributed both closures to the growing presence of Whole Foods. Clearly, I had misattributed these seismic shifts in grocer trends, mistaking my own spending habits for those of others. It is almost unbelievable that Wal-Mart can roll over HEB, Tom Thumb, Kroger and Albertson's as easily as it used to roll over the mom-and-pop stores in small communities.