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Wal-Mart announced that it will no longer sell bolts of fabrics in all of its stores.  Wal-Mart originally catered to rural consumers and this has been a staple product of the company for many years.  However, the fabric department has declined in sales in many stores, proving that even products that are designed to be tailored to fit in a one size fits all store planogram.

Wal-Mart will remove this department from stores where the department has not performed.  This shows Wal-Mart's ability to act on solid business intelligence, but also indicates an interesting move away from a generic bussiness model designed to work everywhere and keep costs low.  It probably shows that there are no sacred cows in Wal-Mart stores and that other non-performing departments in certain regions may be in the cross hairs as well. 

As for all the craft and fabric stores that have survived Wal-Mart to this point, this could provide them with a niche to get their foot back in the door without having to compete with Wal-Mart.