Walmart was started by a great man by the name of Samuel Walton. Samuel was born right here in Oklahoma, in a little town called Kingfisher. He then enlisted to join the armed forces when he was 24 years old. A year later, when Sam was 25, he married his wife, Helen Robson. After moving around the nation and gaining life experience, Sam and Helen opened “Walton’s 5&10” in a small town named Bentonville Arkansas. Sam took all the knowledge and success he had acquired, and he crafted a dream and a plan. A dream that was criticized by competitors. His plan: to offer low prices and great service. He was told it would never work, but in 1962 he opened the first Walmart in Rogers, Arkansas. When the company went public, in 1970, the business grew and expanded. The Walmart associates were Sam’s secret recipe. They offered great service and kept customers coming back. This is the life blood of any business; Walmart being no different. They used a great environment to keep the customer loyalty. This system exceeded Sam and Helen’s expectations greatly. As the popularity and business grew; Sam’s dream and expectations grew with it. As Walton’s business grew, Sam began to implement new plans and systems that further revolutionized the industry. Sam began to use totally different approaches then people had seen, as well as using technologies that had not been thought of or implemented. He then pioneered a brand new store: the super center. This was widely successful and again blew
The economy during the 1960’s was at an all-time high. It had reached its longest uninterrupted period of economic expansion. Sam Walton sure picked a good time to open a brand new franchise. By 1976 Wal-Mart had a share value well above $176 million. By the end of 1980, Walton, had opened 276 stores and planned to increase that number by 100 every year. The same year that Walton had opened Wal-Mart, two other stores of the same fashion opened as well; Kmart and Woolco. Wal-Mart is an example of an Oligopoly franchise because Wal-Mart has limited competition, especially in the 1960’s. Sam Walton had a vision of a discount retail store; he saw his opportunity and went after it. In 1883 he opened Sam’s Wholesale club, and was very successful as well. Sam’s Club was aimed at small business owners that needed to purchase merchandise in bulk for
It almost seems ridiculous now because Walmart is one of, if not the number one, retail department store, but at one time people could not believe it would be successful at all. Though by 1970 Walmart was expanding and others were beginning to realize the potential Walmart had. Sam himself was shocked that what he had created was now booming. Sam was quick to credit not only himself but his loyal associates who were pleasing and meeting customer expectations. The relationship
On July 2, 1962, Sam Walton opened the first Walmart in Rogers, Arkansas. Walmart’s story is the story of American capitalism. According to a 2012 study, more than 140 million Americans shop at Walmart each week. That’s more than how many people were at the 2012 Super Bowl. But there’s more to Walmart than what is on the surface. In this essay, I want to talk about and present the company’s actions.
Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart was a business man with a vision. Sam was born in 1918 in Oklahoma. He was in the military until 1945 and then moved to Bentonville. Sam Walton was a very cheap man. Mr. Walton opened his own 5&10 store, and it became a success very quickly. Walton realized that passing on savings to his customers while earning profits through volume, would be the best way to have success in life as well as providing a better life for all Americans. Through this philosophy Wal-Mart was launched in 1962, in Rogers, Arkansas. Sam shared this vision with his associates and made them partners in the company; believing that this partnership would make Wal-Mart great. Sam
This is where the foundation of Wal-Mart's philosophy was born and changed the way retailers sell and customers buy forever. In his store, he would buy an item for 80 cents, priced it to sell at $1.00 and sell three times more of it than by pricing it at $1.20. The overall profit was much greater. By cutting the price, it boosted the sales to a point where it earned far more at the cheaper retail price than it would had by selling the item at the higher price. Sam eventually lost the lease on the building and had to end up selling his first very successful business. It led him to bigger and better things. Sam moved with his family to Bentonville, Arkansas to open self-service Five & Dime store which at that time was a new concept.
When Sam Walton founded Wal-Mart, he envisioned a grocery store that could provide great customer service along with low prices. Nobody in his industry trusted his ideas would bring in success. After the corporation went public in 1970, his partners and competitors soon began to believe in his vision. Walton once stated “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.” As he saw his aspirations coming to life he then began to grow his legacy. He introduced new technologies, products, and opened chain of stores Wal-Mart
In 1963, Sam Walton had a vision. A vision, that he could bring what the consumers needed, to them, at the lowest price possible. Mr. Walton believed that a company could not be run by just one person, it had to take team work. With Mr. Walton relying on his associates at the lowest level possible, he created the retail empire known today as Walmart. Mr. Sam, as he was referred to, would visit each and every store to learn about its culture. He would sit down with each and every associate and get ideas, comments, concerns, and anything that the associates wanted to talk to him about. This practice allowed for Walmart to create a culture of its own. A culture where each person makes a difference, no matter what your background or life style. The cultural synergy remains the same today. This philosophy is the basis for Walmart’s slogan, “Every person makes a difference.” Sam Walton knew that in order to be successful he needed to hear from everyone, to make everyone a spokesperson for the company. Many of the ideas that have been put into play have come from the lower level associates who never thought they could make a difference. Each associate comes from a different walk of life and background. This leads to the diverse workforce that Walmart has today. Sam’s practices have been instilled in today’s current CEO, Doug McMillion.
Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart, which is the biggest retailer in the world, had coined the famous saying ‘individuals don’t win, teams do’. There are several characteristics of Sam Walton that enabled him to be successful in his life and business dealings. Sam Walton could do anything he put his mind to. This can be witnessed in his ability to transform a small town store into a 25 billion-dollar industry at the time of his death. Also, Walton difficult childhood gave him something to strive towards later on in his life.
Wal-Mart evolved from Sam Walton’s purpose for great price and great consumer service. “Mr. Sam,” as he was known, believed in management through service. The principle that true leadership depends on willing service was the standard on which Wal-Mart was built, and drove the choices the business has made for the past 50 years. So much of Wal-Mart’s past is attached to the story of Sam Walton himself, and so much of our future will be deep-rooted in Mr. Sam’s principles. Sam's rivals thought his plan for a thriving business couldn’t be built around low prices and great service. As it happened, the company's achievement went beyond even Sam's hopes. The company went public in 1970, and the profits funded a steady growth of the business. Sam recognized the rapid increase of Wal-Mart not just to the low prices that fascinated consumers, but also to his staff of workers. He depended on them to give customers the great buying experience that would
Wal-Mart is a general merchandise discount retailer, which was incorporated in 1962. Wal-Mart’s history is based on one man, Sam Walton, who changed the course of retailing forever. Sam Walton first entered retailing when he was a management trainee at J.C. Penny Co. in 1940 in Des Moines, Iowa. After serving in the Army in World War II, Walton acquired a Ben Franklin variety store franchise with his brother James Walton in Newport Arkansas, until they lost the lease to the store in 1950. By 1962, when the first Wal-Mart Discount City was opened in Rogers Arkansas, both Walton’s were operating fifteen stores under the “Walton 5 & 10” name, and were the largest Ben Franklin franchisee in the
Samuel Walton was a businessman and entrepreneur known for establishing the discount chain Walmart, that grew to become the largest corporation in the world. Samuel Moore Walton was born March 29, 1918, in King Fisher, Oklahoma. He is the first son of Thomas Walton and Nancy Lee, they lived on a farm. Sam’s father decided farming did not provide enough money for his family and started to work for his brother in farm martagons. Sam and his family moved to Shelbina, Missouri. In eighth grade, he was active in boy scouts and became the youngest eagle scout in his state along with receiving the recipient of Distinguished Eagle Scout Award from the boy scouts of America. Later, the family moved to Columbia, Missouri, where Sam was a good student, quarterback on the football team, and voted most versatile boy at Hickman High School. After graduation, he attended the University of Missouri where he was a ROTC cadet and a member of the Zeta Phi chapter of Beta Theta Pi Fraternity. Sam was also an active member of QEBH, a secret society on campus for senior men, and president of the Burall Bible Class. In 1940, Sam graduated with a bachelor in Economics. Sam worked for J.C. Penney as a manager trainee in Des Moines, Iowa, and was paid $75 monthly. He had to leave the company because of being inducted in the Army for World War II in 1942. While in the army, Sam worked at DuPont in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Sam Walton is an American business leader who is well known for founding Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club, which Wal-Mart has grown to be the world’s largest cooperation. Wal-Mart first opened in 1962 after years of retail management business. The first Wal-Mart was first opened in Rogers, Arkansas. Wal-Mart is the go-to store, a place that basically has everything. Wal-Mart carries all the necessary things people uses during their everyday life for reasonable prices. Sam Walton is a successful business leader because he started a successful business years ago that is still effective today.
Walmart’s history dates back in 1945 when Sam Walton bought an outlet of the Ben Franklin retail stores with the aim of selling products at a relatively low cost, so as to generate huge sale volumes and make profits at a low margin. Although this portrayed the purchased outlet as a crusade for most consumers,
Sam Walton 's first venture as a milk boy is when he understood the value of a dollar and the knowledge of how far a dollar could take one in life. From Sam 's first five and dime stores in the 1950 's to his opening of the first Wal-Mart in Rogers, Arkansas in 1962, no one could have predicted the enormous success of this small-town merchant. Today, fourteen years after his death, Wal-Mart continues to grow and leadership of this company continues to rely on many of the traditional goals and philosophies that Mr. Walton left behind. In keeping one step
Sam Walton imagined using his creativity, what if there is a discount store in the city which buys everything in bulk from the country side and uses its own transport for delivery of good to the store, would the consumers buy from there at lower prices rather than going to other stores in the city with higher prices. He just used his creativity to solve the problem and Innovated world’s first and most successful Discount Store, Wal-Mart. Sam Walton, in his autobiography, said, “If you think about it from the point of view of the customer, you want everything: a wide assortment of quality merchandise; the lowest possible prices; guaranteed satisfaction; friendly, knowledgeable service; convenient hours; and a pleasant shopping experience. You love it when a store exceeds your expectations, and you hate it when a store inconveniences you, gives you a hard time, or pretends you’re invisible.” (2011). When he opened his first Wal-Mart store, no one imagined he was introducing a retailing formula that within a generation would impact the lives of millions of people.