Wal-Mart is a global retailer based in Bentonville, a small city in Arkansas in the US It is the largest public corporation by revenue. Its shares are traded on many international stock exchanges. Wal-Mart Corporation’s operating divisions are Marketside and Sam’s Club stores. Wal-Mart stores are marketed under local names in some international markets such as ASDA in the United Kingdom, Mi Bodega or Superama in Mexico, Seiyu in Japan or Bompreço in Brazil.
The Wal-Mart story is like a resume for company founder Sam Walton. He started his discount store in 1950 under the name Walton’s Five and Dime. Walton had previously operated a Ben Franklin store in Newport, Arkansas. He franchised it from 1944 to 1950 and then moved to Bentonville in Arkansas in 1950. He continued his association with Ben Franklin, but changed the store’s name to Walton’s Five and Dime.
Walton owned a small network of Walton’s Five and Dime stores in the late 1950s. He had realized that the success of discount retailing meant transferring savings to customers, as well as getting the best prices from Providers. Walton’s method was in sharp contrast to his competition, although the higher sales at Walton’s stores were evidence that he had discovered a model that would encourage higher profits for his company.
Sam Walton owned 11 stores in 1962. He and his wife Helen made a big gamble and reinvested everything in a new store in Rogers in Arkansas. This became Wal-Mart’s first branded store. This concept resulted in immediate success resulting in astonishing growth of the brand and 24 stores in 1967. Sam Walton incorporated the stores as Wal-Mart Stores Inc in 1967. In 1972, the company went public on the United States Stock Exchange. New York. This provided a cash injection and allowed the company to have 125 stores in 1975 and then 276 stores in 1980.
Wal-Mart employees also felt the advantage of this addition. Many received stock options in exchange for their loyalty. In 1970, Sam Walton began selling stock to the company without a prescription. Wal-Mart stock was worth $ 47 in 1971, this was not enough to make millionaires, but it increased to a staggering $ 49,875 per share in 1982. This was enough for children’s college expenses which was an ambition that many Wal-Mart employees have had. .
Wal-Mart’s attitude was conservative with acquisitions, but it has always been strategic in nature. The first two acquisitions were the purchase of Mohr Value Stores and Hutcheson Shoe Company in 1977, and then the purchase of Kuhn’s Big K Stores in 1981. It would be another nine years before Wal-Mart made another acquisition. Wal-Mart’s internal growth comes largely from the various Wal-Mart stores.
Sam Walton remained with the company his entire life, continuing to visit stores and meet employees, even walking with them around the store as they performed their duties. Walton promised to hula in a hula skirt off the New York Stock Exchange as a gesture of solidarity with employees if the company made a pre-tax profit of 8%. This would have made his gesture a simple public trick. The employees finally made it happen. In 1998, Walton was listed in Time magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People of the 20th Century.
Wal-Mart’s sales and profits continued to grow throughout the 21st century with no signs of negative effects from the weakening global economy. At the end of 2006, Wal-Mart owned 6,775 stores worldwide, had more than 2 million employees, and generated annual sales of nearly $ 350 billion.