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Did they ever actually do that step? Is there a documented case of it actually happening? Or did they just have lower prices by being more efficient and focusing on cheap goods, and then continue to have lower prices? And for that matter for groceries specifically I don't think they tend to be significantly cheaper in the first place, they just have similar prices to any other discount grocery store.
Do Walmart's prices even vary enough from store to store to justify such a strategy? They're not always the same between stores or compared to their website (in large part due to the cost of shipping if you're looking at groceries specifically) but it hardly seems like a big enough difference to be part of some predatory pricing strategy.
One possible problem: you can compare prices iff there's competition, which will depress prices.
Yup people have done that. One of the main findings is that existing competition doesn't actually matter very much. It's potential competition and goods substitution that matter a lot.
Imagine someone buys up all the old fashioned wood pencil producers. They then jack up the price. Suddenly no one is buying the pencils. They switched to pens and mechanical pencils.
Many people confuse a product for the market. The product was pencils, the market was "writing implements". Also there is often an option to just not have the thing at all.
The only way people actually corner markets these days (the last half century) without IP is by going after specific metals/elements, which rarely has impacts on end consumers, but definitely screws over certain producers.
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