Evolution of Wal-Mart

Evolution of Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart is the world's largest retailer and the world's largest company. Wal-Mart is probably the one retail store that United States can't live without simply because at Wal-Mart you can find anything you need even if its food or clothing. There thousands of Wal-Mart's located throughout the United States, I think so many that even they lost track of the amount of Wal-Mart's.

Before Wal-Mart even got it's name it was called Walton's Five and Dime. It all started with a man named Sam Walton. Sam Walton had worked for JC Penney for about 18 months and was able to meet James Cash Penney who was the founder of JC Penney. During his time working at JC Penney he was able to learn about retail and what it consisted of. Walton first started off by purchasing a store from Luther E. Harrison in Bentonville, Arkansas on May 9, 1950.

He named this variety store Walton's Five and Dime. This town at that time had about a population of 2,900 people. This is where the Headquarters of Wal-Mart first began. Walton by 1962, he had eleven Walton's stores inspired by the successes of other discount department store chains. Walton from the help of his assistant Bob Bogle came up with the name for his new chain retail stores calling it "Wal-Mart". Walton opened the very first Wal-Mart in 1962 in Rogers, Arkansas.

Sam Walton at first began opening his stores in smaller communities than the other major retailers. By 1967, the company grew to 24 stores across the state of Arkansas, and had reached $12.6 million in sales. In 1968, Wal-Mart opened its first stores outside of Arkansas in Sikeston, Missouri and Claremore, Oklahoma. The chain continued to add locations in small towns and had 78 stores by 1974. He added Sam's Club to the business in 1983. The chain continued to grow dramatically, with 330 stores in 1980 and $1.2 billion in sales, 1,114 stores by 1985 and $6.4 billion in sales, and 1,528 stores by 1990, with sales of $25,800,000,000.

Up to now Wal-Mart Stores has more than 5,700 stores, including some 1,350 discount stores, nearly 2,000 combination discount and grocery stores such as Wal-Mart Super centers in the United States, and 550 warehouse stores such as SamÐ''s Club. Nearly 75% of its stores are in the US which are around 3400. Wal-Mart owns 42% of Japanese supermarket chain Seiyu. Wal-Mart also has operations in Asia, Europe, and South America.

Wal-Mart Retail Mix

Wal-Mart has customer service that many people either complain about or really like. Wal-Mart sets it self aside from many other retail stores. At Wal-Mart customer service is one of their top priorities. Starting from the moment you walk n to the store there is always someone to greet you and sometimes they even ask if you need help with anything. The customer service is also very organized because they have everything throughout the store set into sections. The Customer service area is very well organized they have different lines according to specific reasons such as a line for returns or layaways and so on. Not only can you receive customer service at the store but you can also can receive customer service online at www.walmart.com and go down to the customer service section of the website.

The Merchandise Assortment at Wal-Mart at times can be very hectic. Due to the massive amount of customers that Wal-Mart receives daily it is very hard for the employees as Wal-Mart to keep up with every single person that walks into the store and to keep everything in order. Usually everything is in its place mainly because at Wal-Mart is divided into several departments such as Men's, Women's, Junior's, Boy's, Girl's, Infant's, electronics, tools, toy's, grocery, and etc. Each department has at least has one or more person working in that depart. This is to keep the merchandise in place and well assorted. This also helps keeping Wal-Mart looking clean and organized no matter what amount of people walk in and out and change their minds and leave a product in place that it does not belong.

Wal-Mart is known for having low prices. Their slogan is "Always low prices. Always." You can find clothes that you would probably find at a designer store for about