Section 1 – Store Identification
Sam Walton opened the first retail store called Walmart in October of 1962. Walmart is headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas and is now considered one of the largest grocery store retailers in the United States. Five years after opening his store in 1962 Walton expanded to 24 additional stores in Arkansas. In 1968 Walton began expanding out of Arkansas into other states. Now Walmart spans across the United States and 27 countries. Overall, Walmart has over 11,000 stores and is considered as one of the largest private employer in the world employing over two million employees.
Walmart now has three different operating divisions; Walmart Stores US, Sam’s Club and Walmart International. Walmart has expanded into nine different retail divisions. There are the supercenters, food and drug, general merchandise, bodegas, cash and carry stores, membership warehouse, apparel stores and soft discount stores and restaurants. In 2010 the majority of the sales for Walmart were from the Walmart US stores netting $258 billion representing 63.8% of the total sales for the company.
The company model for Walmart is to sell a “wide variety of general merchandise at always low prices”. The focus of merchandise for Walmart is supply the popular items as stock. If items become unpopular managers are encouraged and given incentives to drop those less popular products. The idea is to provide popular items at low prices to maximize their revenues. The philosophy of Walmart it to “help people around the world save money and live better”. (Walmart website)
Walmart can be categorized as a large brand company that sells items from grocery, electronic, clothing, cleaning supplies and household supplies. Items can be purchased at store locations, online or large warehouse settings. Because Walmart has multiple locations across the country the retail giant is considered as a strong competitive organization. Many...