As found via Kottke, a manufacturer said no to Walmart. He used to carry his Snapper line of lawn equipment at Walmart, but he withdrew his goods due to the falling price point and a request for lower quality.
This article is especially telling when it looks at Walmart's business practices. For those who prefer durability and ease of use over a low price point, the following is troubling:
If you know nothing about maintaining a mower, Wal-Mart has helped make that ignorance irrelevant: At even $138, the lawn mowers at Wal-Mart are cheap enough to be disposable. Use one for a season, and if you can't start it the next spring (Wal-Mart won't help you out with that), put it at the curb and buy another one.
I completely agree with the philosophy of purchasing a better product at a higher price. Sure, I don't drink coffee, so the analogy doesn't perfectly fit me, but I will purchase more expensive shoes or clothing to get a good, long-term, quality deal. It's cheaper to buy one nice pair of running shoes per year than buy two crappy pairs and later pay for foot therapy due to poor fit. The below example is why I purchase my cameras at camera stores and my outdoor gear from REI.
Wier doesn't really think that a $99 lawn mower from Wal-Mart and Snapper's lawn mowers are the same product any more than a cup of 50-cent vending-machine coffee is the same as a Starbucks nonfat venti latte. "We're not obsessed with volume," says Wier. "We're obsessed with having differentiated, high-end, quality products." Wier wants them sold--he thinks they must be sold--at a store where the staff is eager to explain the virtues of various models, where they understand the equipment, can teach customers how to use a mower, can service it when something goes wrong. Wier wants customers who want that kind of help--customers who are unlikely to be happy buying a lawn mower at Wal-Mart, and who might connect a bum experience doing so not with Wal-Mart but with Snapper.
Buy more, or buy better? I choose the latter.