It has been my understanding based on someone that worked for a tire manufacturer that the big distributors got tires that were priced based on a somewhat different tire from the norm. This came about when my friend noticed that the tires he had just bought (at a very low price) were only 2 ply, and didn’t think that manufacturer even made such tires. The company person admitted that they did business differently with the big stores. I have no idea if this applies to these tires/stores.