Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
We Sell For Less Every Day!
Company at a Glance
Type : Public (NYSE: PG)
Founded : Rogers, Arkansas, USA (1962)
Headquarters : Bentonville, Arkansas, United States of America
Key people : Sam Walton (1918–1992), Founder
H. Lee Scott, CEO S. Robson Walton, Chairman Tom Schowe, CFO
Industry : Retail
Products : Discount Stores Supercenters
Neighborhood Markets
Revenue : ? US$351.1 billion (2007)
Net income : ? US$11.3 billion (2007)
Total assets : US$151.193 billion (2007)
Total equity : US$61.573 billion (2007)
Employees : ? 1.9 million (2007)
Slogan : Save Money, Live Better.(U.S.)
WE SELL FOR LESS every day! (Canada)
Website : http://www.walmart.com/
About The Company
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.is an American public corporation that runs a chain of large, discount department stores. It is the world’s largest public corporation by revenue, according to the 2007 Fortune Global 500 Founded by Sam Walton in 1962, it was incorporated on October 31, 1969, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1972. It is the largest private employer in the world and the fourth largest utility or commercial employer, trailing the Chinese army, the British National Health Service, and the Indian Railways. Wal-Mart is the largest grocery retailer in the United States, with an estimated 20% of the retail grocery and consumables business, as well as the largest toy seller in the U.S., with an estimated 22% share of the toy market.
Wal-Mart operates in Mexico as Walmex, in the UK as ASDA, and in Japan as Seiyu. It has wholly-owned operations in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Puerto Rico, and the UK. Wal-Mart’s investments outside North America have had mixed results: its operations in South America and China are highly successful, but it sold its retail operations in South Korea and Germany in 2006 after sustained losses.
Wal-Mart has been criticized by some community groups, women’s rights groups, grassroots organizations, and labor unions, specifically for its extensive foreign product sourcing, low rates of employee health insurance enrollment, resistance to union representation, and alleged sexism.
Wal-Mart Discount Stores
Wal-Mart Discount Stores are discount department stores with size varying from 51,000 square feet (4,738.1 m²) to 224,000 square feet (20,810.3 m²), with an average store covering about 102,000 square feet (9,476.1 m²).They carry general merchandise and a selection of food. Many of these stores also have a garden center, a pharmacy, Tire & Lube Express, optical center, one-hour photo processing lab, portrait studio, and a fast food outlet. Some also have gasoline stations.
The first Wal-Mart store opened in Rogers, Arkansas in 1962. It was later remodeled and expanded into a 24-hour Wal-Mart Supercenter.
In 1990, Wal-Mart opened its first Bud’s Discount City location in Bentonville. Bud’s operated as a closeout store, much like Big Lots. Many locations were opened to fulfill leases in shopping centers as Wal-Mart stores left and moved into newly-built Supercenters. All of the Bud’s Discount City stores closed or converted into Wal-Mart Discount Stores by 1997.
As of November 30, 2007, there were 979 Wal-Mart Discount Stores in the United States. In 2006, the busiest in the world was one in Rapid City, South Dakota.
Wal-Mart Supercenter
Wal-Mart Supercenters are hypermarkets with size varying from 98,000 square feet (9,104.5 m²) to 261,000 square feet (24,247.7 m²), with an average of about 197,000 square feet (18,301.9 m²). These stock everything a Wal-Mart Discount Store does, and also include a full-service supermarket, including meat and poultry, baked goods, delicatessen, frozen foods, dairy products, garden produce, and fresh seafood. Many Wal-Mart Supercenters also have a garden center, pet shop, pharmacy, Tire & Lube Express, optical center, one-hour photo processing lab, portrait studio, and numerous alcove shops, such as cellular phone stores, hair and nail salons, video rental stores, local bank branches, and fast food outlets. Some also sell gasoline; distributors include Murphy Oil Corporation (whose Wal-Mart stations are branded as “Murphy USA”), Sunoco, Inc. (“Optima”), or Tesoro Corporation (“Mirastar”).
The first Supercenter opened in 1988 in Washington, Missouri. A similar concept, Hypermart USA, opened in Garland, Texas a year earlier. All of the Hypermart USA stores were later closed or converted into Supercenters.
As of November 30, 2007, there were 2,435 Wal-Mart Supercenters in the United States.
Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market
Wal-Mart Neighborhood Markets are grocery stores that average about 42,000 square feet (3,901.9 m²) They offer a variety of products, which include full lines of groceries, pharmaceuticals, health and beauty aids, photo developing services, and a limited selection of general merchandise.
Neighborhood Markets are used to fill the gap between Wal-Mart department stores and Wal-Mart Super Centers.
The first Neighborhood Market opened in 1998 in Bentonville, Arkansas. As of November 30, 2007, there were 128 of them in the United States
List of Brands
Apparel
Athletic Works is a brand for athletic clothing, such as gym shorts. The brand is also used for sports equipment.
Faded Glory is a brand for classic Americana clothing and shoes.
George is a brand of clothing originally launched in the UK, aimed at young people who want to look fashionable on a tight budget.
Kid Connection is a brand used for a variety of products targeted for children, including toys and clothing.
Life is a brand of men’s underwear styled by Jockey.
Metro 7 is Wal-Mart’s newest brand of women’s apparel, that was released in the fall of 2006.
No Boundaries, abbreviated on its labels as NoBo, is a line of apparel and home furnishings targeted at teenagers and young college students.
Puritan is a brand for basic and classic men’s clothing.
Simply Basic features family-oriented and Beauty department. These products to some extent correspond to products already under the Equate brand, but are priced lower.
Homelines
Get It Together products include furniture and housewares items.
HomeTrends products include large and small furniture, small appliances, and home office products.
Mainstays products include curtains, bedding, some small home furnishings, and various other home fashion products.
Hardlines
Color Place is the brand used for paint.
Durabrand is the name used for home electronics such as televisions, CD players, surround sound systems, and even blank recordable media (VHS, CD-R and DVD-R
Equate is a brand used for consumable pharmacy and health and beauty items, such as shaving cream, skin lotion, over-the-counter medications, and pregnancy tests.
EverStart is the brand for automotive batteries. The brand is also used for battery related accessories, such as jumper cables.
Holiday Time is used for Christmas items such as Christmas tree decorations, wrapping paper, and cards.
ilo is another brand used for electronics. It is used for LCD TVs, LCD monitors, DVD players/recorders, and MP3 players.
Kid Connection is used for toys.
Ol’ Roy is a brand of dog food, named after Sam Walton’s bird dog
Ozark Trail is a brand used for outdoor equipment.
ReliOn describes itself as “Wal-Mart’s healthcare brand
Spring Valley is the brand for vitamins and other nutritional supplements.
Special Kitty is a brand of cat food and litter.
SuperTech is Wal-Mart’s brand of motor oil that is found in the automotive departments.
White Cloud is a brand used for disposable diapers and training pants for infants and young children.
History
Sam Walton, a businessman from Arkansas, began his retail career when he started work on June 3, 1940, at a J.C. Penney store in Des Moines, Iowa where he remained for 18 months. In 1945, he met Butler Brothers, a regional retailer that owned a chain of variety stores called Ben Franklin and that offered him one in Newport, Arkansas.
Walton could neither come to agreement on the existing store’s lease renewal nor find a new location in Newport. Instead, he opened a new Ben Franklin franchise in Bentonville, Arkansas, but called it “Walton’s Five and Dime.” There he achieved higher sales volume by marking up slightly less than most competitors.
On July 2, 1962, Walton opened the first Wal-Mart Discount City store. Within five years, the company expanded to 24 stores across Arkansas and reached $12.6 million in sales. In 1968, it opened its first stores outside Arkansas, in Sikeston, Missouri and Claremore, Oklahoma.
Incorporation and growth
The company was incorporated as Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. on October 31, 1969. In 1970, it opened its 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, 1972, and was soon listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The first stock split occurred in May 1971 at a market price of $47. 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 it moved into Texas in 1975, there were 125 stores with 7,500 employees and total sales of $340.3 million.
During the 1980s, Wal-Mart continued to grow rapidly, and by its 25th anniversary in 1987 there were 1,198 stores with sales of $15.9 billion and 200,000 associates. This year also marked the completion of the company’s satellite network, a $24 million investment linking all operating units of the company with its Bentonville office via two-way voice and data transmission and one-way video communication. At the time, it was the largest private satellite network, allowing the corporate office to track inventory and sales and to instantly communicate to stores. In 1988, Sam Walton stepped down as CEO and was replaced by David Glass. Walton remained as Chairman of the Board, and the company also rearranged other people in senior positions.
Also in 1988, the first Wal-Mart Supercenter opened in Washington, Missouri. Thanks to its superstores, it surpassed Toys “R” Us in toy sales in the late 1990s.The company also opened overseas stores, entering South America in 1995 with stores in Argentina and Brazil; and Europe in 1999, buying ASDA in the UK for $10 billion.
A typical Wal-Mart discount department store
In 1998, Wal-Mart entered the grocery business, introducing the “Neighborhood Market” concept with three stores in Arkansas. By 2005, estimates indicate that the company controlled about 20% of the retail grocery and consumables business.
In 2000, H. Lee Scott became President and CEO, and Wal-Mart’s sales increased to $165 billion.<href=”#_note-2000sales” title=””>[15] 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 for 2006.
In 2005, Wal-Mart had $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” worldwide. Its U.S. presence grew so rapidly that only small pockets of the country remained further than 60 miles (100 km) from the nearest Wal-Mart.
As Wal-Mart grew rapidly into the world’s largest corporation, many critics worried about the effect of its stores 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. In one, Kenneth Stone, a Professor of Economics at Iowa State University, found that some small towns can lose almost half of their retail trade within ten years of a Wal-Mart store opening. 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, as well as the arrival of shopping malls — and concluded that shop owners who adapt to changes in the retail market can thrive after Wal-Mart arrives.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.
Special Event
Labor unions, religious organizations, and environmental groups have criticised Wal-Mart for its policies and/or business practices. In particular, several labor unions blame Wal-Mart workers’ unwillingness to join their organizations on the company’s anti-union stance. Others disapprove of the corporation’s extensive foreign product sourcing, treatment of employees and product suppliers, environmental practices, and use of public subsidies, and the impact of stores on the local economies of towns in which they operate.
Each week, about 100 million customers, nearly one-third of the US population, visit Wal-Mart’s US stores.
A poll before the 2004 US Presidential Election indicated that 76% of voters who shopped at Wal-Mart once a week planned to vote for George W. Bush, while only 23% planned to vote for John Kerry.