Walmart History Essay

1.1 Brief History of Wal-Mart

How could a simple and humble idea for a retail store turn a brand into a global ecosystem? How did a small-town man from Oklahoma turn his five and dime store into the world’s largest employer? This is the story of Sam Walton’s Wal-Mart discount stores and their rise to success. How a man with a simple, but monumental idea of passing savings onto customers instead of pocketing the savings himself, banking on sheer volume to make up for the lack of margin, changed the way retail would be done forevermore.

In 1945, Sam Walton borrowed $20,000 to launch his career as an owner of a Ben Franklin variety store in the small town of Newport, Arkansas. Within four years of opening, his store transformed from bleeding money to the top Ben Franklin franchise in the state. During this time, Sam spends time surveying competitors’ strategies on pricing and displays.

A depression-era man himself, Sam was extremely frugal and expected everyone else on his team to be cheap as well, even his executive team. On business trips, everyone was expected to fly coach and share a hotel room. In the corporate office, a cup of coffee would cost you 10 cents. Sam lived these values even when he became the richest man in the States by the 1980s; he still got a $5 haircut, forgoing a tip, from the same, local barber and drove his old pickup truck to work. Sam knew labor overhead was one of the biggest components of overhead so he wanted to hire as few people as possible and avoided talks of unionization whenever possible [3]. Despite being frugal with his money, Sam was the opposite with his time spent in the stores and getting to know employees. Sam made a genuine effort of staying in touch with them, even as Wal-Mart grew and grew. Perhaps his modest lifestyle and charismatic personality was what made his team support him and the Wal-Mart idea with an almost cult-like