The knowledge you are referring to was never there in the first place. Large chains have largely centralized inventory management and the actual stores are little more than distribution centers and cash tills. And, even was that knowledge and capability there, the bigger problem remains that the invisible hand doesn't make the necessary capital to open a grocery store (and both its inventory and its plant assets) appear from nowhere. This is one of the trap corners that the unfettered free marketeers of the world would pretend don't exist, but they do and they're ugly.