WalMart Stores Inc

3 Pages 705 Words

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. is the world’s largest retailer, with $256.3 billion in sales in the fiscal year ended Jan. 31, 2004, 1.6 million associates worldwide, and more than 3,600 facilities in the U.S. and 1,570 units elsewhere. It is estimated that more than 138 million customers per week visit Wal-Mart stores worldwide. Wal-Mart has four retail divisions – Wal-Mart Supercenters, Discount Stores, Neighborhood Markets, and SAM’S CLUB warehouses. Each of these is guided by a passion for customer satisfaction and “Every Day Low Prices.” Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart, opened his first Wal-Mart in Rogers, Arkansas in 1962. In recent years, Wal-Mart has been named “Retailer of the Century” by Discount Store News and has topped the FORTUNE 500 list. (www.walmartfacts.com)
Sam Walton’s basic beliefs were simple: “Give people high value, low prices and a warm welcome.” Walton built a culture based on one principle: make the customer number one and four basic beliefs: excellence in the workplace, respect for the individual, customer service, and “everyday low pricing.” Wal-Mart built its own warehouses so it could buy in bulk and have room to store the merchandise, then built stores in areas around the distribution points which cut the company’s costs and gave it more control over operations. Wal-mart lead the way with the development of their “hub-and-spoke” distribution system as more and more stores were opened. This allowed Wal-Mart to re-stock its stores quickly and kept the amount of unproductive store space to an absolute minimum which in turn resulted in higher sales per square foot and rapid inventory turnover (www.walmartstores.com).
As 2003 came to a close, Wal-mart faced some major challenges; some of them being, an unstable business environment, weak economic growth, and nervous consumers. All of which lead to minimal growth opportunities. European retailers wer...