History of Walmart

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This article covers the history of Walmart, the large international discount retail chain.

Sam Walton's original Walton's Five and Dime, now the Walmart Visitor's Center
Bentonville, Arkansas.
Contents
[hide]

• 1 Early history
• 2 1960s and 1970s
• 3 1980s and 1990s
• 4 21st century
o 4.1 New ventures
o 4.2 Legal trouble
o 4.3 Countries of operation
• 5 See also

• 6 References

Early history
The history of Walmart can be traced back to the 1940s when Sam Walton began his
career in retailing at J.C. Penny. In 1943 Walton met the Butler Brothers who owned the
retail chain Ben Franklin Stores. On May 9, 1950, Walton purchased a store from Luther
E. Harrison in Bentonville, Arkansas, and opened Walton's 5 & 10.[1] Thus, the Ozark
Mountain town of 2,900 residents would become the headquarters for the world's largest
retailer.
In 1962 Walton invested 95% of the capital to open the first Walmart store.

1960s and 1970s

At some point Sam Walton made the decision to achieve higher sales volumes by keeping
sales prices lower than his competitors by reducing his profit margin. By 1960, he had
eleven Walton's stores[2] Inspired by the successes of other discount department store
chains, Walton opened the first store in his own discount chain in Rogers, Arkansas that
year. Responsible for the purchase and maintenance of signage, Walton's assistant, Bob
Bogle, came up with the name "Wal-Mart" for the new chain.[3] By 1967, the company
grew to 24 stores across the state of Arkansas, and had reached $12.6 million in sales,
and by 1968, the company opened its first stores outside of Arkansas in Sikeston,
Missouri and Claremore, Oklahoma.[4]

The company's first stock split occurred in May 1971 at a market price of $47. By this
time, Walmart was operating in five states: Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri and
Oklahoma, and entered Tennessee in 1973, and Kentucky and Mississippi in 1974. As the
company moved into Texas in 1975, there were 125 stores with 7,500 associates, and
total sales of $340.3 million.

By 1977, Wal-Mart made its first corporate acquisition, assuming ownership and
operation of the Mohr-Value stores in Michigan and Illinois. This was followed by the
acquisition of the Hutcheson Shoe Company in 1978. In the same year Walmart also
branched out into several new markets, launching its pharmacy, auto service center, and
jewelry divisions.

By 1979, with 276 stores and 21,000 associates, Walmart reached $1.248 billion in sales.
[citation needed]

1980s and 1990s

In 1981, Wal-Mart moved into the southeastern U.S. market, opening stores in Georgia
and South Carolina, and acquiring 92 Kuhn's Big K stores. They moved into Florida and
Nebraska in 1982.

In April 1983, the company opened its first Sam's Club store, a membership-based
discount warehouse club, in Midwest City, Oklahoma. They also opened new Wal-Mart
stores in Indiana, Iowa, New Mexico and North Carolina, and implemented "people
greeters" in all of their stores. In 1984, they entered the Virginia market.

In 1985, with 882 stores with sales of $8.4 billion and 104,000 associates, the company
entered Wisconsin and Colorado, and the first stores in Minnesota opened the following
year, in 1986.
By the company's twenty-fifth anniversary in 1987, there were offices to track inventory,
sales, and send instant communication to their stores.[5] Continuing their technological
upgrades, they had equipped 90% of their stores with barcode readers by 1988, to further
assist in keeping track of their large inventory.

In February 1988, company founder Sam Walton stepped down as Chief Executive
Officer, and David Glass was named to succeed him.[6] Walton remained on as Chairman
of the Corporate Board of Directors, and the company also restructured their senior
management positions, elevating a cadre of executives to positions of greater
responsibility.

Also in 1988, the first Wal-Mart Supercenter opened in Washington, Missouri. The
supercenter concept features everything contained in a standard Walmart discount store,
in addition to a tire and oil change shop, optical center, one-hour photo processing lab,
portrait studio, and numerous alcove shops such as banks, cellular telephone stores, hair
and nail salons, video rental stores, and other fast food outlets.

By 1989, Walmart was operating in 27 states with the addition of Michigan, West
Virginia, New Jersey, and Wyoming. By 1990, they entered the markets of California,
Nevada, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and Utah. The Walmart Visitor's
Center also opened this year on the site of Sam Walton's original store.

The 1990s saw an era of furious growth on an unprecedented scale and the incorporation
of several new ideas and technology into the business.

In 1990, US sales had quadrupled to $32 billion over the previous five years [2] and
Walmart acquired The McLane Company, a food service distributor,[7] which was later
sold to Berkshire Hathaway in 2003.[8]

In 1991, the company moved into the Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland,
Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and New York markets. Walmart entered the
international market in this year, with the opening of their first store in Mexico City.
They also acquired Western Merchandisers, Inc. of Amarillo, Texas. 1991 also saw the
launch of the Sam's American Choice brand of products.

On March 17, 1992 U.S. President George H. W. Bush presents Sam Walton with the
Presidential Medal of Freedom. Sam Walton passes away on April 5, 1992. His eldest
son, S. Robson Walton, succeeds him as Chairman of the corporate board of directors, on
April 7, 1992. This year, Walmart had a presence in 45 states with the addition of Idaho,
Montana, and Oregon, as well as Puerto Rico.

In 1993, the Walmart International Division was formed with Bobby Martin as its
president. The company also enters the U.S. markets of Alaska, Hawaii, Rhode Island
and Washington. Their stores also achieve the billion-dollar sales mark in one week in
December 1993.
Walmart acquired 91 PACE Membership Warehouse clubs from Kmart and 122 Woolco
stores in Canada in 1994.

In 1994, Walmart opened 3 value clubs in Hong Kong, while Canada now has 123 stores
and Mexico, 96.

Also in 1994, the Code Adam program

By 1995, Walmart had 1,995 discount stores, 239 Supercenters, 433 SAM'S CLUBS and
276 international stores with sales at $93.6 billion (including US sales of $78 billion) and
675,000 associates. Walmart entered its 50th state (Vermont), and enters the South
American market, with three new units in Argentina and five in Brazil. The company
enters the Chinese market in 1996 through a joint-venture agreement.

In 1997, Walmart replaced Woolworth on the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The
company has its first $100 billion sales year, with sales totaling $118.1 billion. Also this
year, they acquire 21 Wertkauf stores in Germany, and introduce their OneSource
nutrition centers.

In 1998, Walmart introduced the Neighborhood Market concept at three stores in

Arkansas. Neighborhood Market stores are predominantly grocery stores, and are meant
to attract customers with easier parking, less crowded aisles and quicker checkout.

Also in 1998, Walmart launched its Wal-Mart Television Network, a vast, in-store
advertising network showing commercials for products sold in the stores, concert clips
and music videos for a recording artist's media, trailers for upcoming movie releases, and
news.

21st century
In 2000, H. Lee Scott was named president and CEO and US sales had doubled to $156
billion since 1995.

Also in 2000, Walmart was ranked fifth by Fortune magazine on its Global Most
Admired All-Stars list, and in 2003 and 2004, as the most admired company in America.

In 2005, Walmart had $312.4 billion in sales, more than 6,200 facilities around the world,
including 3,800 stores in the United States and 3,800 international units, and employing
more than 1.6 million associates worldwide. In fact, their U.S. presence had grown so
rapidly that there were only small pockets of the country that remained further than 60
miles away from the nearest Walmart.[9] Approximately 138 million customers visited
Walmart stores each week all over the world. Their corporate philanthropy efforts also
assisted the U.S. hurricane relief efforts with $18 million in cash donations.
In 2006, on 26 July Walmart announced its complete pull-out of the German market. All
existing 85 stores were sold to the Metro Group which in turn turns most of the stores of
their own brand real,-.

On September 12, 2007, after 19 years, Walmart introduced new advertising with the
slogan, "Save Money Live Better," instead of "Always Low Prices, Always". It
commissioned Global Insight for the ads and the report stated that as of 2006, the retailer
saves American families $2,500 yearly (up 7.3% from $2,329 , 2004). The new research
found that the reduction in price levels due to Walmart resulted to savings for consumers
of $287 billion in 2006, which is $957 per person or $2,500 per household.

On June 30, 2008, Walmart unveiled the company's new logo, which stylized the name as
"Walmart". A sunburst or flower-resembling symbol replaces the star.

On February 22, 2010, the company confirmed it acquiring the video streaming company
Vudu, Inc. for an estimated $100 million.[10]

New ventures

In late 2005, Walmart designed two experimental stores, one in McKinney, Texas and the
other in Aurora, Colorado, which featured wind turbines, photovoltaic solar panels,
biofuel-capable boilers, water-cooled refrigerators, and xeriscape gardens.[11] The
buildings also included many other energy and cost saving technologies.

In March 2006, Walmart sought to appeal to a more affluent demographic, with the
opening of a new supercenter in Plano, Texas which was intended to compete against
stores that some viewed as more upscale and appealing.[12] The new store features
wooden floors, wider aisles, a sushi bar, a coffee/sandwich shop (with free Wi-Fi Internet
access), a Subway, and higher-end items such as microbrew beer, expensive wines, and
high-end electronics. The exterior sports the less-common hunter green background
behind the Walmart letters instead of the trademark blue.

In response to the popularity of organic food supermarkets, such as Whole Foods and
Wild Oats, Walmart announced plans in May 2006, to increase the amount of organic
food available in its stores.[13] They announced that both conventionally grown and
organic versions of certain products would be available, and the price of organic versions
would not be more than 10% over the price of conventionally-grown products.[13] Since
Walmart is one of the nation's largest grocery retailers, there was some concern expressed
that their push to lower prices would not be sustainable for inexpensive organic food.[14]

The 2010 remodelings of their smaller stores shifted their emphasis away from non-
grocery products towards carrying grocery items carried by their supercenters. This has
created a small backlash amongst some loyal customers. The smaller sizes and the larger
sizes in the adult clothing were discontinued as well as available styles, forcing adult
customers to look for clothing in the children's section, or go to the more expensive
specialty Big and Tall stores for basic items like jeans. Their popular Wrangler and Faded
Glory brands are not readily available through their on-line stores in the larger sizes,
making many of their customers feel that Walmart has completely abandoned their needs
now that they have driven Kmart out of most areas and is more interested in maximizing
their profits and pursuing the affluent demographic than being the one-stop-store filling
the needs for the entire family.

Legal trouble

Over the last decade or so Walmart has become involved in thousands of lawsuits for a
variety of reasons. The majority of the suits are class action lawsuits in which employees
are suing for unpaid wages.[15] They have also run into many discrimination cases in
which employees are suing for being profiled out of money or out of jobs. For instance,
there were two separate cases, one in 2004 and one in 2005 in which African Americans
were suing two different Walmarts for denying them jobs based on race.[16] These became
so popular that the reverend Jesse Jackson spoke during both of the proceedings. There
are also many lawsuits in which women are suing Wal-Mart for discriminating against
them. In one article written in 2004 USA today mentioned 32 different lawsuits that
involved women suing Walmart.[17] All of this has not affected Walmart financially
however, according to Fortune 500, Walmart still had $351 billion in revenue ($11 billion
in profit) in 2007, a new high for the corporation.[18]

On December 3, 2008, the family of Walmart service worker Jdimytai Damour, who was
killed by a stampede of shoppers frantically entering a Valley Stream, New York
Walmart store on Black Friday (November 28) ,[19] filed a wrongful death lawsuit against
the corporation; Damour's family alleged Walmart of encouraging a mass number of
customers to come to the store simultaneously.[20][21] In addition, the Occupational Safety
and Health Administration cited Walmart for "...inadequate crowd management
following the Nov. 28, 2008, death of an employee at its Valley Stream, N.Y., store. The
worker died of asphyxiation after he was knocked to the ground and trampled by a crowd
of about 2,000 shoppers who surged into the store for its annual "Blitz Friday" pre-
holiday sales event." [22] The company went on to spend an estimated $2 million in legal
fees fighting OSHA's $7,000 fine, because it apparently wished to prevent OSHA from
establishing a precedent that would enable OSHA to micromanage Walmart's crowd
control measures in the future.[23]

Countries of operation

As of October 2009, Walmart stores operate in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China,
Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Japan, Mexico, Nicaragua, Puerto
Rico, the United Kingdom, Pakistan,and the United States.[24]

See also
• Criticism of Walmart
• List of Walmart brands
• List of assets owned by Walmart
References
1. ^ Vance H. Trimble, Sam Walton: The Inside Story of America's Richest Man,
pp.46-64 (Dutton, 1990)
2. ^ Frank, T.A. "A Brief History of Wal-Mart." The Washington Monthly. April 1,
2006. Retrieved on July 24, 2006.
3. ^ Trimble, p102
4. ^ "The Wal-Mart Timeline." Wal-Mart (published on walmartfacts.com).
Retrieved on July 24, 2006.
5. ^ Ranade, Sudhanshu. "Satellite adds speed to Wal-Mart." The Hindu Business
Line. July 17, 2005. Retrieved on July 24, 2006].
6. ^ Longo, Donald. "Wal-Mart hands CEO crown to Glass - David Glass."
Discount Store News (available via FindArticles). February 15, 1988. Retrieved on July
24, 2006.
7. ^ Staff Writer. "Wal-Mart Agrees To Buy McLane." New York Times. October 2,
1990. Retrieved on July 26, 2006.
8. ^ "Wal-Mart SEC Form 10-Q." United States Securities and Exchange
Commission. April 30, 2003. Retrieved on July 26, 2006.
9. ^ Zook, Matthew; Graham, Mark (2006). "Wal-Mart Nation: Mapping the Reach
of a Retail Colossus". In Brunn, Stanley D.. Wal-Mart World: The World's Biggest
Corporation in the Global Economy. Routledge. pp. 15–25. ISBN 0-415-95137-2. [1]
Courtesy link to illustration from Matthew Zook's website
10. ^ Wal-Mart Re-Enters Digital Downloading of Movies With Purchase of Vudu -
Wall Street Journal - February 22, 2010
11. ^ Berner, Robert. "Can Wal-Mart Wear a White Hat?" BusinessWeek. September
22, 2005. Retrieved on July 24, 2006.
12. ^ Koenig, David. "Wal-Mart Targeting Upscale Shoppers." ABC News. March
22, 2006. Retrieved on July 25, 2006.
13. ^ a b Warner, Melanie. "Wal-Mart Eyes Organic Foods." New York Times. May
12, 2006. Retrieved on July 25, 2006.
14. ^ Pollan, Michael. "Mass Natural." New York Times. June 4, 2006. Retrieved on
July 25, 2006.
15. ^ http://www.lawsuitsearch.com/companies/walmart.aspx
16. ^ The New York Times 7/14/05
17. ^ Armour, Stephanie (June 25, 2004). "Women: Wal-Mart knew of bias". USA
Today. http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/retail/2004-06-24-walmart-
usat_x.htm. Retrieved May 4, 2010.
18. ^ "FORTUNE 500 2007: Wal-Mart Stores". CNN.
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2007/snapshots/1551.html.
Retrieved May 4, 2010.
19. ^ McFadden, Robert D.; Macropoulos, Angela (November 29, 2008). "Wal-Mart
Employee Trampled to Death". New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/29/business/29walmart.html. Retrieved 2009-11-26.
20. ^ Eltman, Frank (2008-12-03). "Family of NY Man Trampled by Shoppers Sue
Wal-Mart". ABCNews.com (Associated Press).
http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/wireStory?id=6383620. Retrieved 2008-12-04.[dead link]
 21. ^ "Year After NY Stampede, Black Friday Gets Makeover". New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/11/25/us/AP-US-Walmart-Death.html?
scp=1&sq=%20Jdimytai%20Damour&st=cse. Retrieved 2009-11-26.[dead link]
22. ^ "U.S. Labor Department’s OSHA cites Wal-Mart Stores Inc. following
crushing death of worker at Long Island, N.Y., store". OSHA.
http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/osha/osha20090556.htm. Retrieved 2009-11-26.
23. ^ Steven Greenhouse, "Wal-Mart Fighting $7,000 Fine in Trampling Case," New
York Times, 7 July 2010, B1.
24. ^ http://walmartstores.com/FactsNews/NewsRoom/9350.aspx

[hide]v · d · eWal-Mart Stores, Inc.

Key people Sam Walton · David Glass · Lee Scott · Jim C. Walton · Bud Walton · Douglas Daft

Amigo Supermarkets · ASDA · Líder · Sam's Club · Walmart Discount Stores ·

Assets Neighborhood Market by Walmart · Walmart Supercenter · Marketside · Project
Impact · Walmex · Walmart Canada · Más Club · Seiyu · Bompreço

Criticism of Wal-Mart · History of Walmart · List of assets owned by Wal-Mart

See also
Stores, Inc. · List of Wal-Mart brands

Annual revenue: US$405.61 billion FY 2009 ($13.4 billion) · Employees: 2.1 million · Stock
symbol: NYSE: WMT · Website: walmartstores.com
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Walmart"
Categories: Wal-Mart | Company histories | Economic history of the United States
Hidden categories: All articles with dead external links | Articles with dead external links
from September 2010 | Articles with dead external links from August 2010 | All articles
with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements from March 2011

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