Why is Wal-Mart jacking up prices during a recession after they have killed so many smaller stores.?

Is anyone else noticing about a 25%price increase at Wal-Marts. Look at automotive, tires, Compare to discount tire.|||If you really believe they are intentionally raising prices JUST because we're in bad economic times-I can't help you...no business even as clueless as Walmart is anymore would do that. That said, I'm a total tightwad and do most of the shopping for our household. I worked for WM for a few years (plus a few other retailers). If you do see something going up by 25%, it's not the store doing this as much as the producer of the product. The price is then raised at store level as a reflection of the price increase-I'm sure you've heard the saying "passing the cost on to the customer." Retailers prices always have some profit margin built in but to change that margin by much of anything only happens in rare occasions, but again when it does it's only in small amounts-nothing close to the 25% you point out.





By pointing out you've seen this 25% increase in something you obviously know what the old price was. Why not ask a manager about this to see if it's a pricing error or a true jump in price. Heck, with that much of a jump in price why even care...just go get the item somewhere else. Jump on the bandwagon with so many others who are learning Walmart is far from the only game in town with good prices. A good consumer "knows" what a good price is. You obviously know what the price was so now all you have to do is find the same or better price elsewhere and make your purchase. You vote with your dollar and that's the only thing big companies understand at the end of the day.|||In business terms it's called "dumping" and I'm fairly certain that it may be an illegal practice in some countries. Involving selling at lower prices than everyone else until eventually developing a monopolistic competition over the market, this is followed by jacking up prices to "whatever the market will bear", as they say, simply because they can by that point. Standard Oil really set the 'standard' for that I'm afraid. It's a practice which lacks ethics and there should be better laws put in place to guard against it in my opinion. When SONY (Standard Oil of New York) was being persecuted for it, they were able to escape the treason charges simply by claiming that they would stop, and then moving to another state thus changing their business name, where they kept up the practise concealed as Standard Oil of New Jersey, Standard Oil of Ohio, etc. They're still getting away with it actually. But Walmart is the more obvious example of the two. The federal reserve controls the inflation rate by controlling the money supply, inflation being around 2.72% lately, so of course that plays a big part as well. The more money out there in circulation, the less it's worth, therefore prices have to rise to reflect lack of spending power in that money. Things are not going well economically lately, there are many unethical reasons for that but I am keeping hope alive that we're heading for improvements, probably and preferably sooner than later.