Sam+Walton


 * Kirsten Moler.**
 * Thesis:** Sam Walton’s creation of Wal Mart has had an influence on economy, productivity, competition and world wide production.

[] "Sam Walton, Our founder." //Walmartstores//. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Oct 2011. <http://walmartstores.com/AboutUs/9502.asp&xgt;.
 * 1) Opened the first wal mart store in Rogers,Ark, in 1962
 * 2) believed in “heck of a good time” while working hard
 * 3) Opened the first wal mart at the age of 44
 * 4) born March 29,1918
 * 5) He graduated from the University of Missouri at Columbiain 1940 with a B.A. in economics.
 * 6) From 1942 to 1945, he served as a Captain in the U.S. Army Intelligence Corps.
 * 7) Sam married Helen Robson of Claremore,Okla
 * 8) children: Rob, Jim, John and Alice.
 * 9) early retail experience at JC Penney
 * 10) Sam opened the landmark Walton’s Five and Dime in Bentonville,Ark., in 1951.
 * 11) Sam began to look beyond the small variety store format.
 * 12) company’s early popularity exceeded even Sam’s expectations
 * 13) rapid state-by-state store expansion
 * 14) Sam was an excellent role model and visionary
 * 15) introduced new technologies to retailing and encouraged associates to take risks.
 * 16) experimented with different types of stores
 * 17) __ [|Sam’s Club membership warehouses] __ and [|Walmart Supercenters]
 * 18) time was right, he also set the stage for [|international expansion] of the company with his first [|venture into Mexico].
 * 19) late 1998, Walmart had stores on four continents and nine countries
 * 20) built this company with the purpose of saving people money so they can live better

[] "Wal mart's influence grows." //USA// //Today//. Gannett Co. INC, 01/29/2003. Web. 7 Oct 2011. .
 * 1) Wal-Mart's influence on theU.S.economy has reached levels not seen by a single company since the 19th-century rise of Standard Oil
 * 2) Wal-Mart continues to expand rapidly
 * 3) adding stores throughout the country.
 * 4) Even if you don't shop at Wal-Mart, the retail powerhouse increasingly is dictating your product choices
 * 5) relentless price cutting helps keep inflation low.
 * 6) Wal-Mart is the top seller of groceries, jewelry and photo processing
 * 7) Wal-Mart is the biggest customer, or tied for biggest, at a host of largeU.S.businesses
 * 8) creating more of its own brands
 * 9) it averages 100 million customers a week.
 * 10) 88.5 million more people thanU.S.airlines fly in a week.
 * 11) 25% of theU.S.productivity gains from 1995-99
 * 12) one of the biggest sources of new jobs in the '90s and current decade
 * 13) With 1.3 million workers, it is the world's largest private employer
 * 14) It employs one of every 123U.S.workers and nearly one of every 20 retail employees.
 * 15) The chain's buying power is so immense that 450 suppliers have opened offices
 * 16) Sales representatives want to be near Wal-Mart buyers to beat the competition, says Rich Davis, a local economic development official. "I've had them sit here and say, 'Look, if we're not here, our competitor will be,' "Davissays.
 * 17) Other companies have likewise tweaked products so that they pass muster with Wal-Mart.
 * 18) Wal-Mart says it is committed to keeping shelves full of well-known brands such as Kellogg cereals and Tide
 * 19) private-label profits run as high as 30%, vs. 15% on brand-name items
 * 20) Private-label products also promise Wal-Mart more profit as the chain expands abroad, becauseU.S.brands don't have the same clout there

[] Gregory, Sean. "Walmart's latest move to crush the competition."//Time//. N.p., 9 Sept. 2009. Web. 9 Oct 2011. .


 * 1) One goal of Project Impact is cleaner, less cluttered stores that will improve the shopping experience.
 * 2) friendlier customer service
 * 3) home in on categories where the competition can be killed
 * 4) "They've got Kmart ready to take a standing eight-count next year," says retail consultant Burt Flickinger III, managing director for Strategic Resources Group and a veteran Walmart watcher.
 * 5) "Same with Rite Aid. They've knocked out four of the top five toy retailers, and are now going after the last one standing, Toys "R" Us.
 * 6) Project Impact will be the catalyst to wipe out a second round of national and regional retailers."
 * 7) In this decade, it's down around 24% (stock)
 * 8) "Walmart is under excruciating pressure from employees and frustrated institutional investors to get the stock up," says Flickinger.
 * 9) While most retailers are shutting down stores, Walmart has opened 52 Supercenters since Feb. 1. Joseph Feldman, retail analyst at Telsey Advisory Group, estimates that each store costs Walmart between $25 and $30 million.
 * 10) over the next five years the company plans to remodel 70% of its approximately 3,600 U.S. store
 * 11) "We've listened to our customers, and they want an easier shopping experience,
 * 12) "We've brightened up the stores and opened things up to make it more navigable.”
 * 13) One of the most noticeable changes is that Project Impact stores reshape Action Alley, the aisles where promotional items were pulled off the shelves and prominently displayed for shopper
 * 14) Those stacks both crowded the aisles and cut off sight lines
 * 15) Now, the aisles are all clear, and you can see most sections of the store from any vantage point
 * 16) "Under Project Impact, Walmart is providing more of a full supermarket experience within its walls," says Feldman. "The biggest complaint against them has always been that it takes a long time to get through everything. This definitely improves efficiency."
 * 17) With Circuit City out of business, the electronics section has been beefed up.
 * 18) Walmart is also expanding its presence in crafts. Sales at Michael's Stores, the country's largest specialty arts-and-crafts retailers, have sagged, and Walmart sees an opportunity.
 * 19) What analysts really want to see from Project Impact, however, is a faster pace of implementation.
 * 20) But if Project Impact keeps picking up momentum, many more Walmart salespeople, and shareholders, should be smiling

[] Hornblower, Sam. "Walmart & China: A joint venture." //PBS. org//. N.p., 23 Nov. 2004. Web. 9 Oct 2011. .


 * 1) In 1991, Walmart became an international company when we opened a Sam's Club near Mexico City.
 * 2) Just two years later, Walmart International was created.
 * 3) We’ve created stores with different styles and formats to fit in with local customer needs, desires, and customs.
 * 4) More than 90 percent of our international stores operate under a different banner than Walmart.
 * 5) all of our stores share a common goal: Save people money, so they can live better.
 * 6) Today, Walmart International is a fast-growing part of Walmart's overall operations, with 5,261 stores and more than 730,000 associates in 27 countries outside the continental U.S.
 * 7) Forcing his American suppliers to cut costs, stressing sales volume over high margins, and wowing customers by showcasing one super low-priced item in each category -- all hinged on importing to find the cheapest prices.
 * 8) "From the beginning, Walton had bought goods wherever he could get them cheapest, with any other considerations secondary,"
 * 9) "increasingly looked to imports, which were usually cheaper because factory workers were paid so much less in China and the other Asian countries."
 * 10) Walton himself estimated that imports accounted for nearly 6 percent of Wal-Mart's total sales in 1984.
 * 11) "Buy American" campaign in the late 1980s and early '90s.
 * 12) "Buy American" campaign did rescue some U.S. manufacturers, but only those who followed his playbook. In a letter he wrote to suppliers in 1985, he made clear he was committed to buying U.S. goods only if they upgraded their operations and improved productivity to "fill our requirements."
 * 13) "So our primary goal became to work with American manufacturers, and see if our formidable buying power could help them deliver the goods, and in the process, save some American manufacturing jobs.
 * 14) "Sam wanted everything possible [made] in the U. S., but he was not going to pay [extra] for it to stay. The main thing he asked was: 'Is it good for our customers?' If not, we went and made it overseas."
 * 15) Sears, Kmart, Target, and JCPenney all had established procurement networks in Asia long before Wal-Mart arrived.
 * 16) “We keep moving around to chase lower wages. Or if there's a tariff, we'll move to a country that does not have the tariff."
 * 17) Even as Wal-Mart was pushing its U.S. suppliers to be more efficient and promoting its "Buy American" program through the '80s, the company bought more and more from Asia,
 * 18) But to please American consumers concerned about the Asian threat, the retailer played down its buying operations in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, and the rest of Asia
 * 19) But several months after Walton's death in April 1992, the "Buy American" campaign backfired when Wal-Mart became the target of a //Dateline NBC// expose that revealed "Buy American" signs adorning piles of imported goods from Asia. Overnight, an embarrassed Wal-Mart de-emphasized the "Buy American" campaign.
 * 20) Wal-Mart buyers became actively involved in developing products, and educating the mainland Chinese on how to make goods that would sell in America. "You'd go into a factory in Taiwan that's making men's shirts. You see what works," the Wal-Mart buyer recalled. "And then you go into China and tell a factory in China, 'This is why we're not buying from you.' Chinese people are not dumb. They're tenacious. They know they need to learn very quickly."