No retail chain in modern American history has so profoundly changed the way Americans shop as Walmart has. But on July 2, 1962, it was quite likely that not even founder Sam Walton knew he was launching a retail revolution with the opening of his first Wal-Mart Discount City in Rogers, Ark.
From that event arose what is now the world's biggest retailer, America's largest corporation and the leading private employer in a number of U.S. states. Walmart, headquartered in Bentonville, Ark., provides retail employment to some 2.1 million people in more than 9,000 stores in 15 countries around the world and rang up $421 billion in sales last year, far outstripping any other single retailer.
The company got to where it is today by focusing singlemindedly on delivering maximum value to its customers. Walton's own words to this day define the company's purpose:
"If we work together, we’ll lower the cost of living for everyone…we’ll give the world an opportunity to see what it’s like to save and have a better life."
Born in Kingfisher, Okla., in 1918, Walton spent most of his youth in Missouri, graduating from the University of Missouri with a B.A. in economics in 1940. After leaving the Army in 1945, Walton began his long career in retail as a manager at a J.C. Penney store in Iowa. From there, he moved to Newport, a small town in north central Arkansas, and opened a chain variety store. The first store to bear the family name, Walton's 5 and 10, opened in 1951 on the town square in Bentonville in northwest Arkansas; today it houses the Walmart corporate visitors center.
Discount department stores had already made inroads by the time Walton got into the business, with regional chains like Korvettes, Two Guys and Spartan eating into the profits of Main Street variety stores like Walton's. Like the Dayton family in Minneapolis and the Kresges in Michigan, Walton realized the threat discounters posed to his core business, and like those others, he decided to try beating them at their own game in 1962.
Walton, however, blazed a radically different path from rivals Target and Kmart. For most of its early existence, Wal-Mart sought growth in small towns like Bentonville. The huge stores with a wide selection of low-priced goods were a boon to small-town America - and earned the company its first critics, who decried its effect on small-town downtowns.
Walton involved his workforce deeply in pursuing the goal of making things cheaper, sharing financial data with employees and encouraging them to come up with more efficient ways of doing business. And as the company grew rapidly from the 1970s onward, Walton continued to live frugally himself, serving as a model for the company he ran.
That frugal streak earned Walmart critics in the labor movement, who accused the company of underpaying its employees and offering inferior benefits. The shopping public, on the other hand, brushed off the critics and flocked to Walmart stores in droves. Its entrance into metropolitan markets in the 1980s was as successful as its march through rural America in the previous decade.
A number of innovations in retail operations and logistics have flowed from Walton's and Walmart's relentless drive to save money, including sophisticated inventory tracking and distribution systems that have become retail industry standards. And Walton continually experimented with new store formats, including the supercenter that sold both general merchandise and a full line of groceries and the wholesale buying club. Continuing in that spirit, Walmart today is thinking small, launching smaller Neighborhood Markets and a new grocery chain devoted to selling fresh foods at low prices to busy families.
Shortly before his death in 1992, President George H.W. Bush bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country's highest civilian honor, on Walton, a fitting tribute to the man who transformed American retailing. Love it or loathe it, there is no doubt that Walmart has improved the lives of millions by allowing them to live better for less.
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By Sandy Smith
Sandy Smith is a veteran freelance writer, editor and public relations professional who lives in Philadelphia. Besides blogging for RetailGigs.com, he has written for numerous publications and websites, would be happy to do your resume, and is himself actively seeking career opportunities on Nexxt. Check out his LinkedIn profile and read his other posts on RetailGigsBlog.com.
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