Don't fall for that crap. That's the profit after their much-higher, per-item profit came in, they spent it on all kinds of stuff, and then reported the lower n

Don't fall for that crap. That's the profit after their much-higher, per-item profit came in, they spent it on all kinds of stuff, and then reported the lower numbers publicly. The actual markup on non-sales items at these big retailers can easily be double or more of the cost. It varies product by product. The corporate offices of each waste tons of money on all kinds of non-production people and fancy projects. They might also do payouts like dividends. The resulting pennies on a dollar of profit in final report echo'd endlessly is basically a PR ploy to benefit them in various ways. They do want to decrease any costs they have, though. The credit cards charging a percentage of revenue instead of retailers' profits or card companies' transaction costs + reasonable profit is ridiculous. Companies like Walmart and Kroger would love to cut that difference out. Given Kroger's growth and low-profit strategy, my initial guess is that blocking Visa would probably be a dumb move on their part. We'll see.