Hmm. So the author went to Wal-Mart and couldn't find the McCormick's vanilla, and from this, we are to assume that Wal-Marts across the nation are removing all name-brand products from their shelves?
You're not reading the article correctly then, if that's what you think it says. Walmart has been removing selected name-brand products from their shelves and having only their "off-brand label" in the name-brand place.
Now, this is an article about that. And in addition to that article, I can confirm that myself. And in addition to me, another FReeper here on this thread can confirm that too.
And in addition to that, yet another FReeper says that not only does Walmart remove products like this from shelves, but sometimes they do so for a while in order to "negotiate" better prices (if I understood that FReeper right), and they may come back months or maybe even a year later.
So, it would appear that this is -- indeed -- happening.
And thus, that's why I said it was an extremely stupid marketing move on behalf of Walmart -- to end up driving their customers into Walmart's competitors' hands, because of Walmart discontinuing those selected products that they have.
Now..., if you can't understand that much of the story here... I'm afraid you need much more help than I'm able to give you... LOL...
How do you think businesses do, or should, "negotiate"?
If Wal-Mart wants to sell only their in-house brand, that's their prerogative. It's monumentally dumb to do so, but they have that right.
You're free to open your own grocery store and compete.
Except that's not what the article says. Unsurprisingly, the article is pretty poorly written, but the line that could come closest to what you're saying is this:
"Walmart expansion of it’s Great Value brand is replacing many of the name brands, we have used for so many years."
Hard to give much credibility to a piece of "news" that can't even properly use the term "its," but leaving that aside, this sentence is, at best, ambiguous. It says that GV is replacing name brand products. May well be true--WM may well be devoting more shelf space to GV at the expense of name brand products; I have no idea whether or not that's true. But even if it were, that doesn't mean that it is discontinuing the sale of name brand products. That's something that you've read into the article based on the ridiculous story that the author, Diamond Poet--don't I remember him from his Pulitzer a few years back?--told about McCormick vanilla. Absurd.
Further, as I noted above, Wal-Mart is unique in that individual stores, in large part, determine their own inventory. Regardless of what Diamond Poet, or Star Traveler, or any other person noticed at their individual store, that doesn't mean boo for Wal-Marts in my town, or the other 50,000 Wal-Marts in America.
But yes, Diamond Poet's Wal-Mart didn't have McCormick's vanilla. Oh, the humanity!