1. Company Background.
Walmart is one of the largest retail companies in the world, and the largest retail company in the United States of America. It has been ranked number one on the Fortune 500 Index by Fortune Magazine. The founder of Walmart is Sam Walton, who opened the first Walmart store in 1962, in Rogers, Arkansas. As of 2007, Walmart obtains a store counting of about 6,700 units worldwide. Walmart provides general merchandize, such as health and beauty aids, family apparel, electronics, household essentials, toys, jewelry, fabrics, and also includes a pharmacy department. After Sam Walton opened his first store in 1962, he continued to make good profit due to a high sales volume of products. This eventually led to opening of 24 more stores by 1967. Walmart’s main competitor at that point of time was K-mart which had more stores than that of Walmart. However, the main USP of Walmart was to provide goods to consumers at low prices, which worked in their favor even when the economy faced a downturn, in the 1970’s. “Wal-Mart sales growth continued into the 1980s. In 1983 the company opened its first three Sam 's Wholesale Clubs and began its expansion into bigger city markets. Business at the 100,000-square-foot cash-and-carry discount membership warehouses proved to be good. The company had 148 such clubs by 1991, by which time the name had been shortened to Sam 's Clubs.” (International Directory of Company Histories. Ed. Jay P. Pederson. Vol. 141. Detroit: St.
Walmart is a multinational corporation with 11,000 retail locations located in 27 countries and is the largest retailer in the world. With over 2.2 million employees, Walmart is the also largest employer in United States the world. The history of Walmart dates back to 1962 when founder Sam Walton opened the first Walmart store in Rogers, Arkansas. By the late 1960s, total sales were over $12 million with 24 Walmart stores spread across Arkansas (Riffel, 2014). “By the end of the 1970s, Wal-Mart had expanded into a number of different services in its stores—selling pharmaceuticals, adding auto service centers, and introducing jewelry divisions.
Wal-mart Stores Inc was the world’s largest retailer and was started by Sam Walton in 1962 who named it as “Wal-Mart Discount City”. However before Wal-mart; Sam Walton owned a number of Ben Franklin Store Chains. Due to this prior experience of owning smaller variety stores and dealing with its franchised supply chain, he learnt various business concepts and also was able to selectively purchase merchandise in bulk from new suppliers and then transport these goods to his stores directly. And then he realized a new trend of discount retailing which was based on driving high volumes of product through low cost retail outlets. He also started a new concept of “Everyday Low
The Fortune 500 was established in 1955. Fortune 500 is a list of the 500 largest companies in the United States as compiled by FORTUNE Magazine. This list is compiled by using recent figures for revenue and includes both public and private companies with publicly available revenue data. (investopia.com) The Fortune 500 companies are ranked by the amount of revenue that they are bringing in on a yearly basis. While many feel that many of those businesses are operated by men, the Fortune 500 currently released and let it be known that there are 21 women CEO’s in the Fortune 500 category. (Management.Fortune)
Walmart is the biggest retail chain in America (Isidore), and if Walmart were its own country, it would have the 23rd largest GDP on the planet (“Walmart”). In fact, Walmart not only has more sales than second place retailer Costco, but they have five times their sales (“Walmart”). Yet, their overall impact is found to be negative. How is this possible? Well, after some thorough investigation and research the answer becomes blatantly obvious. Whether it is financially or economically, Walmart has not had the overall positive effect it was meant to contribute to our society.
Wal-Mart as we know it today evolved from Sam Walton’s goals for great value and great customer service. “Mr.Sam”, as he was known, who believed in
Wal-Mart is a huge retail company in the world. Wal-Mart store Inc. was founded in 1962. Samuel Walton and his brother J.L. Walton open their first Wal-Mart Discount City in Rogers, Arkansas (Wal-Mart History, 2010). Wal-Mart has mission word such as “Save people money so they can live better”. Wal-Mart buy its product in high cost and sell it with low price because it is an huge company which has more than 50% of sale as compared to k-mart and target as its competitors and provide saving to its customers. In one point, it is very useful for employers, employees and customers to buy and sell its goods and provides services. Over 245 million customers and members visit Wal-Mart store as well as 11,000 stores under 65 banners in 28 countries
Wal-Mart is a general merchandise discount retailer, which was incorporated in 1962. Wal-Mart’s history is based on one man, Sam Walton, who changed the course of retailing forever. Sam Walton first entered retailing when he was a management trainee at J.C. Penny Co. in 1940 in Des Moines, Iowa. After serving in the Army in World War II, Walton acquired a Ben Franklin variety store franchise with his brother James Walton in Newport Arkansas, until they lost the lease to the store in 1950. By 1962, when the first Wal-Mart Discount City was opened in Rogers Arkansas, both Walton’s were operating fifteen stores under the “Walton 5 & 10” name, and were the largest Ben Franklin franchisee in the
When opening the first Wal-Mart store, Sam Walton traveled the country to learn more about discount retailing and gained a new perspective on what he though Americans desired in a store (WalMart). Contrary to popular opinion, Sam Walton believed that discount stores could be successful in rural America so Wal-Mart’s early beginnings were rooted in the establishment of a small discount store in Rogers, AR opened by Sam Walton in 1962 (Wal-Mart). From there ,Wal-Mart continued to grow and was incorporated as Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. in 1969. Once the company was listed on the New York Stock Exchange, the growth skyrocked, growing from a chain of small discount stores to large supercenters
In 1970, Sam Walton the founder of Wal-Mart implemented an extremely significant warehouse distribution system. This new system evolved into Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and in that same year the company was publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange. The company began to expand extremely rapidly throughout the 70’s. During this period Wal-Mart started incorporating pharmacies and auto service centers into its stores which incited even more growth. By 1979, there were 276 Wal-Mart stores in 11 states. During the early 1980’s Wal-Mart’s
This visionary business savvy leader took the 1970s by storm. Not only did Walton begin selling stock on the New York Stock Exchange for $16.50 per share, he also took Walmart national “recording sales of $78 million” (Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 2015) in now fifty-one stores. In less than thirty years, Sam Walton had established Walmart as the leader in discount retail. Continuing with his philosophy of giving back to the community, Walton opened his “first distribution center and home office in Bentonville, Arkansas” and “established The Walmart Foundation” (Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 2015). “He 'd planted the seeds for what would become the global leader in retail” (Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 2015)
Sam Walton is the originator of the Wal-Mart Stores in 1962. It has its central command situated in Bentonville Arkansas. Wal-Mart Store is an American – universal retail organization, that runs vast stockroom and departmental stores. It is positioned as the biggest private manager around the world, having utilized more than two million individuals. It is situated in more than 50 states in America. The organization 's administrations are offered in around 15 nations around the world. It has around 8500 stores utilizing diverse names as a part of the world. The organization has possessed the capacity to utilize the four administration capacities to have the capacity to accomplish its objectives. The organization 's procedure of succeeding is putting forth its client’s great administrations and offering its merchandise at lower costs. Notwithstanding, it has faith in picking up its benefit by offering its merchandise in expansive volumes. ( Soderquist, D.(2005).
Walmart started out as a local discount retailer in Rogers, Arkansas and evolved into a discount powerhouse. Through Sam Walton’s leadership, dreams, and risk taking, Walmart success is shown through the innovation that developed in the following areas from thousands of stores within the United States and Puerto Rico, 27 countries, 600 plus Sam’s Club in the United States, 100 international clubs, and eCommerce websites for 10 countries to include the United States. This amazing success lies within one-man vision to provide customers and communities’ ways to save money for higher living standards. Walton’s strategy was “The Lowest Prices Anytime, Anywhere” (Corporate, 2015).
Walmart’s history dates back in 1945 when Sam Walton bought an outlet of the Ben Franklin retail stores with the aim of selling products at a relatively low cost, so as to generate huge sale volumes and make profits at a low margin. Although this portrayed the purchased outlet as a crusade for most consumers,
Walmart’s first store was opened up in Rogers, Arkansas in 1962 by Sam Walton. Walton had owned a retail store in the previous store and decided to utilize a unique concept to achieve high sales and rise above his competitors in the town and industry. Walton reduced the prices of his products so that they were lower to those that were being offered by the competitors. By 2007, Walmart had over 3,400 retail outlets throughout the country. The store also had 1.3 million employees and had facilitated about 6.49 % of the country’s sales in retail. Walmart deals in the sale of apparel, music, groceries and some household products. In 2005, Walmart’s end of year profits had exceeded those of other retail stores combined such as Target, Costco, Home Depo, and Sears Holding Company.
Sam Walton 's first venture as a milk boy is when he understood the value of a dollar and the knowledge of how far a dollar could take one in life. From Sam 's first five and dime stores in the 1950 's to his opening of the first Wal-Mart in Rogers, Arkansas in 1962, no one could have predicted the enormous success of this small-town merchant. Today, fourteen years after his death, Wal-Mart continues to grow and leadership of this company continues to rely on many of the traditional goals and philosophies that Mr. Walton left behind. In keeping one step