Retail Sales : The Largest Industry Essay

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Retail sales was the largest industry in the United States prior to the 2000’s recession. It was the top employing industry from 2003 -2008 in nearly half of the U.S. states. Starting in 2009, every year has shown a decline in number of states where this is the top industry; as of 2013, retail was down to six from its peak of twenty-four. Retail is still a major industry but it will be interesting to discover how individual firms, specifically the largest ones, have handled this decline and what they may be doing to reverse the pattern. Kroger, Walmart, and Costco have the top revenues in the industry and are similarly categorized as well. Kroger is a supermarket, a larger grocery store with small section of general merchandise; Walmart is a hypermarket, contains a large range of products in both grocery and general merchandise; Costco is a warehouse club, also a large range of products but with a focus on selling large quantities at a discount with a small club fee. Since these three companies overlap in much of their products, there is competition between them which also adds to why they are respectable choices to analyze together.
Evaluating Market Value The start of this comparable analysis will be on value creation for their shareholders, a primary role of a financial manager. In general, increasing sales, earnings, and using those earnings wisely are the major ways to increase this value over time. With that in mind, the value can be compared over time using the three
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