If anyone's interested in the history of retail, the book In Sam We Trust is a pretty cool read of not only how Walmart got started, but all of the other ones that have come and gone. Sears was the number 1 retailer for a loooooong time before Kmart came around, then I believe Kmart was number one until Walmart started. Sam Walton's strategy was pretty simple: build Walmarts in places that Kmart and Sears didn't see a market, biding his time until he built up enough capital to start going head to head with the big 2. Now we see the results. But all along, Kmart and Walmart were pretty bottom barrel, buying bulk deals of crap that other higher priced retailers didn't want. The other kids made fun of you for looking like you bought your clothes at Kmart.
Funny a couple of posters above mentioned memories of the cafeteria at K-mart. Alot of the "novel" ideas that Walmart and Target are pushing such as the cafeteria/cafe, the pharmacy, the optician, the family photos, are nothing new at all. One of the smaller regional stores in the southwest PA area was Murphy's Mart which became Ames department stores in the late 80's. My brother worked there in the mid 90's and told me about digging around in the back store rooms one day, finding promotional architecture drawings and photographs of the extensive "shopping experience" you could find at Murphy's in the 50's and 60's. In addition to the retail you had the lunch counter, pharmacy, banking services, even the attached service station for tire and lube services for your car. This was a fancy place for the time. Of course Sears has had all of this too for a long time. Nowadays, Target's biggest contribution to the marketplace has simply been taking all of that and adding style and decor, and it has worked really well for them.