• General Information of Wal-Mart o Wal-Mart Stores Inc., is the world’s biggest retailer and the second largest company that is founded by Sam Walton in 1962, rural Arkansan. o Wal-Mart is the discount store offers a number of products and services along with its general merchandise and food products. o Wal-Mart has ventured into digital photo service, vacation planning, Internet access, flower delivery, DVD rentals, and financial services.
Sam believed that , if the prices were right , discount stores could be viable in smaller communities, “our strategy was to put good-sized stores into little one-horse towns that everyone else was ignoring.”
• General Information of Wal-Mart o Timeline for Wal-Mart o 1960 o The first discount store in Rogers Ark o dwest o 1945 - 1961 Sam Walton developed a chain of 15 Ben Franklin franchised variety stores across rural Arkansas o 1960 The first discount store o 1962 The first Wal-Mart opened o 1970 The first distribution center o 1980 The 330 Wal-Mart stores across the south and into the Midwest o 1995 Wal-Mart In 50 states
• General Information o The main target of Wal-Mart was rural markets (45% stores). But due to competition it moved to urban areas o Competitors
 Target, Kmart, T.J Maxx, Wholefoods, Lowe’s, Best Buy, Sears, Circuit City, BJ’s
 By 2007, Target had become Wal-Mart’s key competitor among discount merchandisers, partly by courting a clientele that was more urban, more style conscious, and more affluent than Wal-Mart’s customer base.
 Kmart merging with Sears in another big competitor.
 By 1993 , 55% of Wal-Mart stores faced direct competition from Kmart and 23% from Target o During the decade 2000-9, grown sales at an average :
 annual rate of 10%
 average return on equity of 21% o On January 31, 2009: in the face of America’s worst economic downturn in 60 years
 Wal-Mart