It started when I lived in the south. Lots of WM's took out their fabric depts. We moved up here 2 years ago. NONE of the new WM"s have any form of fabric in. No precuts, no bolts. One aisle with a handful of yarns, needles, hooks, threads, scissors and some ribbon.
My closest WM just got rid of theirs with no intent to put anything craft oriented there. There is still one here in the area I went to last weekend. I couldn't get over the low prices and the high quality! FQ's, bundles, layer cakes, jelly rolls, bolted fabrics in the quantities of what 2 WM hold here. I'm a happy girl. They are doing their remodel next year. The clerk said so far, they are going to keep it. She agreed it depended on the sales.
WM got rid of their layaways the same time they got rid of the fabric dept. when we lived in OK. Since then, every Christmas, I save my receipts for Christmas dinner and all the Christmas presents including wrapping and bows and photo copy them. I send them to Walmart every year. I never, ever buy any Christmas gifts or food at Walmart at all. I continually contact their customer service dept. The last couple of years they've sent me a gift card as a good faith offering. I send it right back. I still get some groceries there, but I ad match everything I can. If the other WM across town gets rid of their section, I will start saving my receipts from online shopping etc. of fabric and notions. Maybe if you can add up all that money we are spending in other stores it would matter .... idk...just my opinion I guess.