Walmart Analysis

        On July 2, 1962, in Rogers, Arkansas, Sam Walton opened the first Wal-Mart discount store. Sam Walton’s vision was to have the lowest price for the consumers anywhere and anytime. In just five short years the organization owned 24 stores with 12 million in sales. The early years of the company had the business owner leading the organization daily. In 1969, Wal-Mart was officially incorporated as Wal-mart Stores, Inc.

 In 1970, Wal-Mart sold their first public stock at just under $17 a share. Starting in 1970’s, Wal-mart had a decade of incredible growth with the expansion of the stores nationally, the Home Office opened in Bentonville, Arkansas, and the first distribution center.

 Beginning in 1980 sales for the retail giant reached $1 billion in annual sales and had grown to over 275 stores and had 21,000 employees.  After reaching monumental sales the company, in 1987, installed the largest private satellite communication system in the United States, to connect the daily operations through voice, data, and video communication. In 1988, the first Wal-mart Supercenter opened in Washington, Missouri, to combine general merchandise with a full scale grocery store to ultimately create one stop shopping experience.

In the begging of the 90’s, Wal-mart went global by opening a Sam’s club store in Mexico City.  Sam Walton died in 1992; Rob Walton became chairman of the retail giant and had over 1900 stores and almost 400,000 associates. The rest of the 90’s Wal-mart grew to have stores in China, Canada, and the United Kingdom.  

The new millennium brought Wal-mart to sale items online or on a mobile device, entered the Japanese, India and Chile markets, $4 generic prescription program. With fifty years of tremendous growth and sales, in 2012, Wal-mart celebrated helping people save time and money. Today the company employs over two million associates worldwide in their 11,000 stores in over 25 countries to reach over 200 million customers each week.

         The target market for the organization is anyone who wants to save money or the hard working middle and lower class of society. The target market for this organization is very broad to help Wal-mart have a huge customer base. The value proposition is the set of benefits or values it promises to deliver to consumers to satisfy their needs. Wal-Mart’s value to their target market is by proclaiming to always have the lowest price every day. “Wal-Mart means low prices. They’ve defined their market position very effectively, and thanks to that fact, people know what they’re going to get when they buy products or services from those companies.” (Dylan, 2007)  The company does this by having many stores throughout the United States and abroad in small and big towns to deliver products and services at a discounted cost compared to other retail stores. Save time, save money can be used to describe the value this organization offers to the everyday public. The pricing of products and services of the company are lower than other retailers to even price match their competitors’ prices. Wal-mart having their own distribution centers which are strategically located to incorporate a seamless way to get the products to be sold in the retail stores. The evolution of Wal-mart’s supply chain includes three elements, according to a 2012 article from Arkansas Business: “distribution practices, operating its own fleet of trucks and technology.” (Traub, 2014) With Wal-mart having their own distribution centers and trucking fleet help this retail giant stay competitive in the market place and continue to have low prices on a variety of items and services.

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