Why did some of the early big-box retailers that were similar to Walmart, not make it -- when Walmart did?

If you are as old as me, you remember some big stores that were similar in many ways to Walmart and Target and even Kohls.

K-mart was around until fairly recently. I also remember Woolco, which was a brainchild of Woolworth— and The Treasury, which is an offspring of J.C. Penny—and Zayer, J.B. Hunter, and others.

Some of these stores, such as K-mart and Woolco, Zayer and The Treasury, were very similar to Walmart and some even were arranged/laid out in a similar fashion.

These early big-box retailers were way ahead of their time. They had more attractive buildings, and were similar in a lot of ways. So why did they fall by the wayside when Walmart became a mega empire?