MTed, if you believe that about the brand names that Wal-Mart carries, I will easily sell you a bridge over the desert. Brand names will not jeopardize their reputation for quality that way, especially sold in the high volumes that Wal-Mart sells them. As I said, Wal-Mart has big time buying leverage and will cut a high volume deal with suppliers that they cannot refuse. The suppliers make up for their lost profit margin with high volume gross profit dollars and so does Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is a champion at big-time negotiating and cutting their profit margin way down on some products as loss leaders to get you in the store. Once there the consumer buys other items that Wal-Mart buys also at a great negotiated deal but does NOT pass on all the savings to you, so it all evens out for them.

It's called merchandising and no one in the world does it better than them.

As for Target, which is owned by the conglommerate Dayton-Hudson, I think their fashion is worthless even though they are marketing it as trendy.   By the low depth of hard goods inventory in their store, and their higher prices on those items, they have no where near the buying power that Wal-Mart has, house brand, notwithstanding.