Crumbling Wal?

For the last decade or so the retail landscape has been dominated by the Bentonville giant. Numbers from as recent as 2004 reflect the hold it has on retail market. But like changes in every field, the one in retail also came swooping and W*M has some challenges on its plate. I came across a very good article by Paula Rosenblum of Retail Systems Research on the challenges facing the giant. Some key observations cited by Ms. Rosenblum that I found interesting were pertaining to how retailers have responded to W*M's presence - "In a post Wal-Mart world, retailers could not differentiate on operational efficiencies, or selling commodities. Wal-Mart owned that space. Retailers like Target, who made hay by selling really cool stuff cheap (or somehow making commodities seem cool), Costco who made warehouse shopping chic, and Whole Foods, who gained its customers trust by being at the forefront of eco-friendly and healthy, started knocking the ball out of the park by NOT being like Wal-Mart". The article goes on to recommend how W*M can use IT to bring back its "mojo". One very interesting part of this recommendation was the use of RFID instore to track stock movements. However given some of the technological (hardware) problems related to RFID, I am not sure how practical that is. Only the future will tell if the Wal's crumbling or the Mojo's Risin.....