Walmart
| Walmart 7.jpg | |
 Walmart_logo.svg | |
| ISIN | 🆔 |
|---|---|
| Industry | Retail |
| Founded 📆 | 1992-07-02 |
| Founder 👔 | James Lawrence "Bud" Walton |
Area served 🗺️ | |
Key people | Greg Penner (chairman) Doug McMillon (president, CEO) , Walmart-2-Walmart |
| Owners | Walton |
| Members | |
Number of employees | 2,100,000 |
| 🌐 Website | [Lua error in Module:WikidataIB at line 665: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value). ] |
| 📇 Address | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onalaska,_Wisconsin |
| 📞 telephone | |
| https://twitter.com/Walmart?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor | |
| https://web.facebook.com/search/top/?q=Walmart | |
| https://www.instagram.com/walmart/ | |
Founder Sam Walton[edit]
Picture of Sam Walton's original Five and Dime store in Bentonville, Arkansas, now serving as The Walmart Museum. Sam Walton's original Walton's Five and Dime Store in Bentonville, Arkansas, now serving as The Walmart Museum In 1945, businessman and former J. C. Penney employee Sam Walton bought a branch of the Ben Franklin stores from the Butler Brothers.[29] His primary focus was selling products at low prices to get higher-volume sales at a lower profit margin, portraying it as a crusade for the consumer. He experienced setbacks because the lease price and branch purchase were unusually high, but he was able to find lower-cost suppliers than those used by other stores and was consequently able to undercut his competitors on pricing.[30] Sales increased 45 percent in his first year of ownership to US$105,000 in revenue, which increased to $140,000 the next year and $175,000 the year after that. Within the fifth year, the store was generating $250,000 in revenue. The lease then expired for the location and Walton was unable to reach an agreement for renewal, so he opened up a new store at 105 N. Main Street in Bentonville, naming it "Walton's Five and Dime".[30][31] That store is now the Walmart Museum.[32]
Wal-Mart logo from 1962 to 1964 On July 2, 1962, Walton opened the first Wal-Mart Discount City store at 719 W. Walnut Street in Rogers, Arkansas. Its design was inspired by Ann & Hope, which Walton visited in 1961, as did Kmart founder Harry B. Cunningham.[33][34] The name was derived from FedMart, a chain of discount department stores founded by Sol Price in 1954, whom Walton was also inspired by. Walton stated that he liked the idea of calling his discount chain "Wal-Mart" because he "really liked Sol's FedMart name". The building is now occupied by a hardware store and an antiques mall, while the company's "Store #1" has since expanded to a Supercenter several blocks west at 2110 W. Walnut Street. Within its first five years, the company expanded to 18 stores in Arkansas and reached $9 million in sales.[35] In 1968, it opened its first stores outside Arkansas in Sikeston, Missouri and Claremore, Oklahoma.[36]
1969–1990: Incorporation and growth as a regional power
Wal-Mart logo from 1966 to 1981 The company was incorporated under Delaware General Corporation Law as Wal-Mart, Inc. on October 31, 1969, and changed its name to Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. in 1970. The same year, the company opened a home office and first distribution center in Bentonville, Arkansas. It had 38 stores operating with 1,500 employees and sales of $44.2 million. It began trading stock as a publicly held company on October 1, 1970, and was soon listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The first stock split occurred in May 1971 for $47 per share. By this time, Wal-Mart was operating in five states: Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, and Oklahoma; it entered Tennessee in 1973 and Kentucky and Mississippi in 1974. As the company moved into Texas in 1975, there were 125 stores with 7,500 employees and total sales of $340.3 million.[36]
Wal-Mart logo from 1981 to 1992
In the 1980s, Wal-Mart briefly experimented with a precursor to the Supercenter, the Hyper-Mart. Four stores combined features of discount stores, supermarkets, pharmacies, video arcades, and other amenities.[37] Wal-Mart continued to grow rapidly, and by the company's 25th anniversary in 1987, there were 1,198 Wal-Mart stores with sales of $15.9 billion and 200,000 associates.[36] One reason for Wal-Mart's success between 1980 and 2000 is believed to be its contiguous pattern of expansion over time, building new distribution centers in a hub and spoke framework within driving distance of existing Supercenters.[37]
The company's satellite network was also completed in 1987, a $24 million investment linking all stores with two-way voice and data transmissions and one-way video communications with the Bentonville office. At the time, the company was the largest private satellite network, allowing the corporate office to track inventory and sales and to instantly communicate with stores.[38] By 1984, Sam Walton had begun to source between 6% and 40% of his company's products from China.[39] In 1988, Walton stepped down as CEO and was replaced by David Glass.[40] Walton remained as chairman of the board. During this year, the first Wal-Mart Supercenter opened in Washington, Missouri.[41]
With the contribution of its superstores, the company surpassed Toys "R" Us in toy sales in 1998.[42][43]
1990–2005: Retail rise to multinational status
Wal-Mart logo from 1992 to 2008 While it was the third-largest retailer in the United States, Wal-Mart was more profitable than rivals Kmart and Sears by the late 1980s. By 1990, it became the largest U.S. retailer by revenue.[44][45]
Prior to the summer of 1990, Wal-Mart had no presence on the West Coast or in the Northeast (except for a single Sam's Club in New Jersey which opened in November 1989), but in July and October that year, it opened its first stores in California and Pennsylvania, respectively. By the mid-1990s, it was the most powerful retailer in the U.S. and expanded into Mexico in 1991 and Canada in 1994.[46] Wal-Mart stores opened throughout the rest of the U.S., with Vermont being the last state to get a store in 1995.[47]
The company also opened stores outside North America, entering South America in 1995 with stores in Argentina and Brazil; and Europe in July 1999, buying Asda in the United Kingdom for US$10 billion.[48]
In 1997, Wal-Mart was added to the Dow Jones Industrial Average.[49]
In 1998, Wal-Mart introduced the Neighborhood Market concept with three stores in Arkansas.[50] By 2005, estimates indicate that the company controlled about 20 percent of the retail grocery and consumables business.[51]
In 2000, H. Lee Scott became Wal-Mart's president and CEO as the company's sales increased to $165 billion.[52] In 2002, it was listed for the first time as America's largest corporation on the Fortune 500 list, with revenues of $219.8 billion and profits of $6.7 billion. It has remained there every year except 2006, 2009, and 2012.[53]
In 2005, Wal-Mart reported US$312.4 billion in sales, more than 6,200 facilities around the world—including 3,800 stores in the United States and 2,800 elsewhere, employing more than 1.6 million associates. Its U.S. presence grew so rapidly that only small pockets of the country remained more than 60 miles (97 kilometers) from the nearest store.[54]
As Wal-Mart expanded rapidly into the world's largest corporation, many critics worried about its effect on local communities, particularly small towns with many "mom and pop" stores. There have been several studies on the economic impact of Wal-Mart on small towns and local businesses, jobs, and taxpayers. Kenneth Stone, a professor of economics, found that some small towns can lose almost half of their retail trade within ten years of a Wal-Mart store opening.[55] However, in another study, he compared the changes to what small-town shops had faced in the past—including the development of the railroads, the advent of the Sears Roebuck catalog, and the arrival of shopping malls—and concluded that shop owners who adapt to changes in the retail market can thrive after Wal-Mart arrives.[55] A later study in collaboration with Mississippi State University showed that there are "both positive and negative impacts on existing stores in the area where the new supercenter locates".[56]
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in September 2005, Wal-Mart used its logistics network to organize a rapid response to the disaster, donating $20 million, 1,500 truckloads of merchandise, food for 100,000 meals, and the promise of a job for every one of its displaced workers.[57] An independent study by Steven Horwitz of St. Lawrence University found that Wal-Mart, The Home Depot, and Lowe's made use of their local knowledge about supply chains, infrastructure, decision makers and other resources to provide emergency supplies and reopen stores well before the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) began its response.[58] While the company was overall lauded for its quick response amidst criticism of FEMA, several critics were quick to point out that there still remained issues with the company's labor relations.[59]
In 2006, Charles Fishman published The Wal-Mart Effect, examining the operation of Wal-Mart's supply chain. His book caught the attention of the press and the public. Fishman's case studies illustrate Wal-Mart's drive to lower costs and achieve greater efficiency and suggest that it may have significant upstream effects. Since Fishman's book was published, Wal-Mart has more than doubled in size. Further research on Wal-Mart's role in the food supply chain has tended to be limited and anecdota.
