Originally Posted by
Onebyone
The Walmart fabric dept depends entirely on that dept. manager. Many just order the basic stock items and the ones that listen to customers or knows about quilting will order the good notions and tools. Anything in the Walmart inventory can be ordered as stock items for the store. It all depends on shelf space for that dept. I suggested getting rid of half the artificial flowers as that aisle is always a mess. The dept manager said oh my friends and I love making flower arrangements. One Walmart close by the dept manager is a quilter. That fabric dept is fantastic. Her dept. made enough profit to keep the fabric dept open, in fact it never got rid of that dept when all others did.
I worked in major retail for years and I know this not to be true. A major retail store can order anything they want, but if the corporate planners haven't planned that item to be in that store they won't get it. Every single item in every store is planned out by corporate. It depends more on the geographical area and the population make up of that area. It can even come down to ridiculous planning such as even numbered stores will get products A-B-C and odd numbered stores will get products X-Y-Z. Also, with the advent of on line ordering, retailers don't have the need to stock as much as possible in the stores now. Walmart carries so much more on line than they do in the stores, and often times if it's a product they carry both in store and on line the on line price will be better.
Cari