I think that its the fact that they, along with other "big box" chains like home depot and lowes, have used their buying power to dominate the market place to the point that smaller local stores,aka mom-n-pop shops, simply cant survive today. We havent been hit as bad in this area because the Wal-marts around here dont have the big grocery areas but local hardware stores are few and far between anymore. I always make it a point to shop at smaller locally owned businesses whenever possible but I do shop at the bigger chains when I have too.