Why is Walmart able to offer such low retail prices?
The answer is: government subsidies. Does a Lefty like to hear that? They don't.
Here's the story. During all your life and mine Federal tax subsidies to farmers have been in the range of $30 billion current dollars per year. That money just poured into the farmlands of America with virtually no place for farmers to spend it. In 1962 Sam Walton started his retail shop in rural Rogers, Arkansas. The farm money started to roll in because Sam had plenty of interesting items that farmers had always had to drive into big cities to buy. The farm money kept pouring in and Sam kept opening rural department stores.
If you want to see a fascinating video, here is one that shows the expansion of Walmart stores from one in Rogers, Ark. to the entire farmland of America and then into adjacent suburbs.
With this kind of size and buying power Walmart, thanks to nearly thirty years of $30 billion a year in Federal subsidies to farmers, just did what any large retailer would do: improved distribution and started outsourcing. The distribution system is a marvel of standard business, the outsourcing to China came earlier than everyone else and owes to the brilliance of Walmart management in seeing the future of China.
P.S. Mall of America tapped into this same ocean of money in 1992. It has over 500 stores in southern Minnesota.