Wal Mart Stores Inc. 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.

The purpose of this business report is to gain familiarity with Wal-Mart and to learn about the different aspects that make Wal-Mart a successful company. This report gives an in-depth analysis of the company history, services and products provided, the company philosophy, business methods, organizational structure, and financial and competitive analysis.

Wal-Mart Corporation is one of the largest retail stores in the world. They serve customers in meeting their needs with low cost saving items. On October 31, 1962, Wal-Mart was founded and incorporated by Sam Walton in Bentonville, Arkansas. Mr. Walton went into business because he felt that items sold were too high for the average customer to afford. His focus was to sell products at low prices to get higher volume sales at a lower profit margin. He bought bulk products from different suppliers so he could incorporate savings into his pricing to lower cost for customers. Under the savings cost concept, Wal-Mart grew rapidly and surpassed its competitors in sales and generating profits.

Wal-Mart, founded by Sam Walton in 1962, is the world’s largest retailer and public corporation. It operates over 6,500 stores worldwide, employs 1.9 million associates, and serves more

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.

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

Wal-Mart was founded 52 years ago in Rogers, Arkansas by a man named Sam Walton. He wanted to start selling products at low prices to get higher sales. In 1945 he bought a branch, and with sales increasing to 45% within the first year, Walton’s store received $105,000, which is about $1.38 million in today’s market. Every year after that, sales were on a steady rise. In 1970, Wal-Mart had 38 stores, 1,500 employees, and sales of $44.2 million. Ten years later there were 1,000 more stores, and sales of $15.9 billion. Today their sales revenue has been $473 billion. They employ 2.2 million people worldwide, 800,000 of those employees are international

Wal-Mart is sitting at number one on the Global Fortune 500 list. Sam Walton would never have thought that his creation of Wal-Mart in 1962 would lead to a global dynasty. By 1972 Wal-Mart went public which gave an infusion of money and capital for Mr. Walton that gave them 276 stores by 1980. In the mid 80's Wal-Mart expanded to having member only warehouse stores, Sam's Club. From there Wal-Mart opened supercenters that included full grocery and 36 departments of regular merchandise. By the end of the 1980's there were 1,402 stores and 123 Sam's Clubs (Wal-Mart corporate 2012).

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

Wal-Mart was first opened in 1962 by Sam Walter as a retail store. It started out a five and dime store in Rogers, Arkansas and was called Walton’s. He opened this store with one goal in mind, to sale at the lowest prices possible, quality leadership and great customer services. He thought that his idea could change the retail industrial. Wal-Mart was built on a solid foundation that remains stable even after the death of Mr. Walton. Wal-Mart became the largest multinational retail store in America, with a grocery store and a pharmacy. There is a Wal-Mart in all fifty states and seventeen international states and has more than 2.3 million employees. This store

Wal-Mart was founded by businessman Sam Walton in 1962 as a small retail store in Arkansas, USA. From there it has grown to become the largest retail giant in the world. Ranked by Forbes 2000 list for 2011 as the 18th largest public corporation in the world, Wal-Mart is the highest revenue generating public entity in the world as of 31st January 2011, with gross revenue of 422 billion US Dollars (Walmart Annual Report, 2011). It is also noted for being the largest private employer in the world having just over 2 million employees serving in 8500 stores, in 15 different countries, under 55 different names, worldwide. (Daniel, 2010)

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.