History And Background Of Wal Mart Essay

In 1950, Sam Walton purchased a store and opened Walton’s 5 & 10 in Bentonville, Arkansas. This later became the home office of the now multi-billion dollar company. As business became more successful, Walton opened more stores and renamed the chain “Wal-mart.” Now, Walmart has stores all around the globe, with 5,229 stores in the US alone. It is considered the largest retail company in the world.

Wal-Mart founded in 1962 by Sam Walton is now the largest American retail corporation. With thousands of chains of stores and warehouses Wal-Mart monopolized the American retail industry. In addition, Wal-Mart is the second largest retail corporation in the world employing of two million employees world-wide. As one of the most valuable corporations in the world Wal-Mart continues to improve their sales annually while offering some of the lowest prices available. Wal-Mart’s famous low price guarantee, come at a high expense of the environment, the small businesses, education, the rights and safety of the consumer, but most importantly their employees. Although Wal-Mart has plays a dominate role in American economy, this “American”

Wal-Mart is considered one of the biggest employers in the U.S. with 25 different stores in most states also worldwide. One out of every 10 retail workers in the industry is employed by Wal-mart. When you think of Wal-Mart, you think of bargain items in any department of your choice. Hundreds of people visit Wal-mart on a daily basis, whether it is a big city or a small country town. Even though the business has created lots of jobs for people, especially in the smaller cities, it does hurt the small businesses. Wal-Mart has been viewed to have destroyed tens of thousands of small businesses and manufacturing jobs (Wal-Mart’s Impact on America 2012). With the opening of these Wal-Mart stores, it displaces other retail workers in the rural areas (Who win with Wal-Mart, 2011).

"Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer..." Adam Smith.

On July 2, 1962, Sam Walton opened the first Walmart in Rogers, Arkansas. Walmart’s story is the story of American capitalism. According to a 2012 study, more than 140 million Americans shop at Walmart each week. That’s more than how many people were at the 2012 Super Bowl. But there’s more to Walmart than what is on the surface. In this essay, I want to talk about and present the company’s actions.

Walmart stores Inc., started as a small discount store that grew into about 11,695 stores worldwide (Kamboj, & Kalia, 2011). Currently the store is the world’s largest commercial employer, and the second-largest employer in the world behind the Chinese military (Kamboj, & Kalia, 2011). Founded in 1962 by Sam Walton, the company is headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas (Kamboj, & Kalia, 2011). In 2014, the firm recorded204.75 billion dollars in total assets and 485.65 billion dollars in revenue (Kamboj, & Kalia,

to see where the company is now with the use of a brief Swot analysis.

Starting out with a single store in Bentonville, Arkansas, Wal-Mart has not stopped expanding. The First Wal-Mart store was opened in 1962 by a Mr. Sam Walton. He opened the store with one intention: sell products people need at the lowest price available. Wal-Mart has since blown up into a globally known and used corporation. Currently, more than fifty percent of all Americans live within five miles of a Wal-Mart store, which is less than a ten mile drive away. Ninety percent of Americans live within fifteen miles of a Wal-Mart. (Fishman, 2006). Wal-Mart is bordering on 9000 locations worldwide including operations in Mexico, United Kingdom, Japan, and India.

Sam Walton was born on March 29, 1918 to Thomas Gibson and Nancy Lee Walton near Kingfisher, Oklahoma. In Oklahoma, they owned and lived on a farm until 1923. The Walton's then decided that the farm was not profitable enough to raise a family on. So, Sam and Jame's (Sam's younger brother born in 1921) dad decided he would go back to being a Farm Loan Appraiser. Once this job started the Walton family moved out of Oklahoma and moved from town to town in Missouri. This would traumatize most children but for the Walton boys though it was no big deal. This could be seen when Sam was in 8th grade at Shelbina he became the youngest boy in the state's history to become an Eagle Scout and this was only a start of his

From a gallon of milk to a complete home makeover, Wal-Mart is the kind of store consumers (to include myself) go to buy all their home goods. What we don’t see are the management aspect of the operations, the issues stores, management, and executives go through on a daily basis. Wal-Mart has several challenges it goes through, from self-inflicting wounds to battling competitors for the lowest prices and consumer business. However its CEO’s both past and present have set the foundation and direction of where Wal-Mart is to be headed in the 21st century. With direction and orders in-hand, its top executives have developed

In 1962 Wal-Mart Inc. was founded by Sam Walton in Rogers, Arkansas. Mr. Walton desire was that “true leadership depends on willing service” which became the foundation that Walmart was built upon. Not to mention how that is main reason why the business has been successful in the past fifty years. Having a business which sold products that were lower in price and offered great services was the advantage point of why Walmart has been so widespread. One special reason why Mr. Walton had a difference perspective in running Walmart was that he depended upon his associates and the relationship he created with them shaped much of the achievement in the business. He started building Walmart in small towns not considering what other people told him

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

         Unraveling the concept of Wal-Mart exposes a simple idea of providing basic necessities at an affordable rate. A superb way of viewing a business is to look objectively at its’ operations. This begins by looking at their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats or to conduct a SWOT analysis of Wal-Mart.

When Sam Walton founded the first Wal-Mart in 1962, the idea of bringing in a discount-shopping store into rural America was almost unheard of, except for the local five and dime stores. When Walton noticed that he had a lot of competition from regional discount chains, him and his wife Helen traveled the country to study other new retailing concepts, and were convinced that it was the wave of the future. With Walton's vision, Wal-Mart grew to be a multi-billion dollar, international company, operating about 4,600 stores around the world.

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.