Nearly every K-Mart I have been in for the last two years looks like it's on the verge of closing down. Their selection in general is horrible, their former marketing dream (Martha) turned into a nightmare, and their prices are, on average, 2 or 3 percent higher than the other retailers. And that's in the regular stock areas.
The toy sections are rarely stocked and when they are, it is of peripheral items and then in such large numbers that it takes up shelf space from the "quicker" selling items. A K-Mart I went into today (I was hoping to find the new Unleashed) has gotten at most three cases of figures since this time last year: one case of the Yavin wave, one case of the OTC with Kenobi, Tusken, and Jawas, and one case of the repack wave from last year (Jedi Luke, TR Vader, Snowtrooper, SC Anakin, POC Fett on Saga cards). They hang around for months on end, still at full price, and they are never clearanced. No wonder the chain is hurting financially.
K-Mart would actually make more money by selling the stuff early since, come April 2nd, nobody is going to be paying 7 bucks for figures from them anyway. If LFL comes down hard and says "No more ROTS figures for you this year", I don't think it would make much of a difference because even a three year old knows that 7 bucks for an Anakin is a bit different than 5 and a quarter across the street at Wal-Mart.
And for the millionth time, I'd like to just say that I find the idea of a release date being applied to toys as totally ridiculous. I mean, there are times when they're released too far in advance (the X-Men, Spider-Man, and Hulk movie toys being released six or more months ahead of time being a case of this), but saying you can't sell TOYS until a particular date is even more asinine than the way Hasbro treats their stuff as if it is a state secret.