I live in AR and know several buyes that work in the Bentonville office of WalMart. Believe me I have given them an earful about WalMart closing the fabric section. Nothing they can do. WalMart will not be keeping any fabric bolts of in any store. A few out of the way stores will continue to sell fabric bolts until all is gone from the inventory. There has been no contract signed buy fabric on the bolts from any distributor. No thread for now but that is because Coats and Clark is not manufacturing thread they use to sell, it's all a new line. Walmart did not contract the new line or want to pay that much for the new thread, something like that. They signed a contract with June Taylor so those all those items will be stocked. And the remodel every six years or so? This came straight from someone who knows. It's a marketing ploy. Walmart knows every one knows where items are in the store and what section to go to. People can run in and out faster. If the store is re arranged completely people will have to navigate to find items again and while searching will see items they will probably buy that they usually avoid seeing. WalMart could be super great if they weren't so money hungry. I don't shop there much at all since the fabric, floss, and needlework items have disappeared.
One a good note, Connecting Threads are now only selling fabric made from US cotton and manufactured in the US for $6 a yard. That's the same price most of the WalMart fabric is selling for now. The fabric is excellent. I have a bunch of it. Every Wed. on the website many fabrics are marked down as a weekly web special.
That's when I buy my fabric for backings.