But isn't much of that self-inflicted?

That is to say, Walmart purposely aims to undercut the competition on price and to save people money. If they deviated a bit from that mantra they could surely increase their profit margins. Especially in areas where they are now the main purveyor of goods after they've driven out the competition.

That doesn't mean that $131.69 billion is not a massive amount of money. http://www.wikinvest.com/stock/Wal-Mart_(WMT)/Data/Gross_Pro...

That's gross profit--revenue minus cost of goods sold, not including salaries and rent. Other overhead plus taxes brings that down to about $15 billion. Which is not a lot of profit for a company with almost 2.3 million employees. It's equivalent to a 20-employee mom-and-pop that pulls out $120,000 a year for its owner. A McDonalds franchise is much more profitable.

Wow! Thank you for explaining that to me. Surprising.