Contributed by Jacob O. Cajetan
Walmart Inc (like Shoprite but much bigger than Shoprite) is an American multinational retail company with its presence in most part of the world. It operates chains of hypermarkets and groceries stores. Walmart Inc was founded by Sam Walton in the year 1962 in Bentoville Arkansas USA. Walmart is a community retail problem solver. The main idea behind the creation of Walmart Inc was to create a store that get product to the consumer at the cheapest price and make higher volume sales. Indeed, the idea didn’t pay off on the first instance but due to his persistence and hard work he found a way to make it work, by getting suppliers who were willing to supply product at low cost. As we know China has the most market with suppliers with less expensive product, according to an online research about 40% of Walmart product are supplied by Chinese suppliers.
Walmart Inc as at end of October, 2019 is reported to have about 11,438 stores and club in 27 countries operating under 55 different names. The title Walmart Inc is only official to store operating in USA and Canada alone.
1.WALMART FOUNDER WAS NOT A PHILANTHROPIST.
Sam Walton did not believe in charity. He actually believed the price of product are cheap enough to augment as charity. And giving out charity is taking out money out the hard earn stakeholders pocket. But, after his death in Walmart donated relive materials and supplied logistics for the victim of hurricane Katrina.
2.IN 2005 WALMART BECAME THE LARGEST GROCERY RETAILER IN USA.
It is reported that 90% of every American live 10 mile next to a Walmart store, so its easy to get your grocery at ease and cheap at Walmart and get to shop other valuables along, the rest of this 10% can shop online and get on time delivery.
3.THOUGH WALMART IS THE WORLD LARGEST COMPANY THEY WERE NOT SUCCESSFUL IN GERMANY AND SOUTH KOREA.
Walmart failed and were not successful even after the acquisition of some indigenous store due to the fact that most German store operate on the same principle as Walmart, by selling at the cheapest price and getting massive sales at minimum profits but there were oligarchs of companies that operate on the same level. It can also be said that one of the reasons they also failed was trying to impress the American culture on them.
4.THE FIRST WALMART STORE IN BENTONVILLE IN ARKANSAS HAS BEEN CONVERTED TO A WALMART MUSEUM.
The first store to bear the name Watson was opened in 1962 with a lot of history and success stories attached to the store. The store was significant for making up to a million dollars on it first year of operation and propelling the expansion of business. The building house lots of first sale records.
5.WALMART OWNS IT OWN ELECTRICITY COMPANY.
Walmart is known to always want to cut cost on their expenses and maximize profit. They invested in their own electricity company acquiring Texas retail energy. Their main aim was to purchase wholesale price electricity for all their store and save them $15million per year.it is also noteworthy that after the complete acquisition of the company they were able to provide power to their consumers at a cheaper price.
6.WALMART IS A MAJOR PIONEER FOR GREEN AND RENEWABLE ENERGY.
As at 2015 Walmart was the biggest commercial producer of solar energy with 142MW capacity and 17 energy storage. Its majorly on rooftops with additional 20,000m2 solar canopies over parking lots.
7.HIGH LOSS TO THEFT AND SHOPLIFTING.
It was reported that Walmart loss about $3billion annually to shoplifting and minor theft. If you are a huge enterprise your profits are huge so are your losses.
8.INVESTMENT INTO ENTERTAINMENT.
In 2008 Walmart collaborated with Coca-Cola and three other companies and produced a movie an overly-patriotic movie title “proud American” but it flopped and was rated IMDB’s worst movie of the 2000s.
9.DO YOU KNOW WALMART CEO EARN MORE IN AN HOUR THAN HIS EMPLOYEES EARN IN A YEAR.
A study made by the institute for policy studies, a liberal research group based in Washington DC, found that majority of CEO of companies in the country’s S&P 500 make an average of 319 times more than an average American worker. Walmart is included in the list, although Walmart pay is above the minimum wage. At the rate of $8.7 per hour.
10.IN 2005 H. LEE SCOTT, JR., THECEO OF WALMART LOBBIES THE CONGRESS FOR A INCREASE IN MINIMUM WAGE.
To a lay man or an employee this was a great news but until it was later proved as a great business strategy to take smaller competitors out of business.
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