Whenever Walmart is mentioned I like to use the rise of Dollar General to illustrate my complete lack of confidence in anything the company attempts. How on ear

Whenever Walmart is mentioned I like to use the rise of Dollar General to illustrate my complete lack of confidence in anything the company attempts. How on earth did Walmart see the rise of Dollar General and not think: hey we could do that, or hey we should buy them, or hey Amazon has slow rural deliveries let's innovate there. They simply gave it a half-effort attempt and then gave up the small town / discount markets (which contained many loyal existing customers), blinded by their efforts to become Amazon and attract customers who don't care about Walmart brand. Dollar General's stock has doubled over the past 5 years and has a market cap of $30 billion, I have difficulty believing anything Walmart can do in efforts to become Amazon will add value equivalent to acquiring or cloning Dollar General around 2009. The thing that really kills me is that when Dollar General started gaining momentum during recession in 2009, Walmart was still nearly three times as large as Amazon and could have used Dollar General strategies to put Amazon on the defensive in some markets, but for some reason they didn't and have been struggling to figure things out ever since. I don't even have a horse in the race, and probably dislike Walmart when I really think about it, but every time I see a Dollar General I start thinking about this and end up getting frustrated that a company could so fundamentally lose it's way, striving for something it will never have.