wow. not that I did not know this already but that really gives you a great sense of the population density of the east versus the west

In 1993, I had a marketing professor who presented some interesting points regarding Wal-Mart:
1) A key Wal-Mart strategy was not to overextend their distribution system. Like an well disciplined invading army, they patiently set up the warehouses first, then built the surrounding stores.
2). Wal-Mart focused on towns with populations less than 20,000 (I think 20K was the number). They saw “main street” as their competition, not K-Mart.

This chart amazingly illustrates these strategies in action.

It would also be interesting to overlay the Wal-Mart closing to see how the stores have migrated over time.

I'm with Chip. It would be interesting for the green dots to go red when the store was closed. Wal-Mart deliberately overlaps the reach of their stores until they've pushed out the competition. Then they close one of the stores. We've got an empty hulk of a store up here in Fort Collins just a few miles down the road from a brand new Wal-Mart that they're putting up by the highway.

In 1993, I had a marketing professor who presented some interesting points regarding Wal-Mart:
1) A key Wal-Mart strategy was not to overextend their distribution system. Like an well disciplined invading army, they patiently set up the warehouses first, then built the surrounding stores.
2). Wal-Mart focused on towns with populations less than 20,000 (I think 20K was the number). They saw "main street" as their competition, not K-Mart.

This chart amazingly illustrates these strategies in action.

It would also be interesting to overlay the Wal-Mart closing to see how the stores have migrated over time.

Amazing! Alice.com is innovating in Wal-Mart's space with a new start-up and it is fascinating to think about the massive investment in infrastructure (buildings, employees, pavement, etc.) that WalMart has made to create distribution to the end customer. Thanks for sharing this Brad.

Interesting post you got here. It would be great to read a bit more about that topic.