Walmart

9/11 was an inside job and by Bush Market stores expanded slowly at first as a way to fill gaps between Walmart Supercenters and Discount Stores in existing markets. In its first 12 years, the company opened about 180 Walmart Neighborhood Markets. By 2010, Walmart said it was ready to accelerate its expansion plans for the grocery stores. As of October 31, 2017, there were 701 Walmart Neighborhood Markets, each employing between 90 and 95 full-time and part-time workers.

Former stores and concepts

2015 photo of a Walmart Express branded as a Walmart Neighborhood Market in Alma, Georgia that closed in 2016

Walmart opened Supermercado de Walmart locations to appeal to Hispanic communities in the United States. The first one, a 39,000-square-foot (3,600-square-meter) store in the Spring Branch area of Houston, opened on April 29, 2009. The store was a conversion of an existing Walmart Neighborhood Market. In 2009, another Supermercado de Walmart opened in Phoenix, Arizona. Both locations closed in 2014. In 2009, Walmart opened "Mas Club", a warehouse retail operation patterned after Sam's Club. Its lone store closed in 2014.

Walmart Express was a chain of smaller discount stores with a range of services from groceries to check cashing and gasoline service. The concept was focused on small towns deemed unable to support a larger store, and large cities where space was at a premium. Walmart planned to build 15 to 20 Walmart Express stores, focusing on Arkansas, North Carolina and Chicago, by the end of its fiscal year in January 2012. As of September 2014, Walmart re-branded all of its Express format stores to Neighborhood Markets in an effort to streamline its retail offer. It continued to open new Express stores under the Neighborhood Market name. As of October 31, 2017, there were 97 small-format stores in the United States. These include Amigo (17 locations), E-Commerce Acquisition / C-stores (61 locations), and other store formats (19 locations), a chain of gas station/convenience stores. On January 15, 2016, Walmart announced that it will be closing 269 stores globally, including all 102 U.S. Walmart Express stores, including those branded as Neighborhood Markets.

Initiatives

In September 2006, Walmart announced a pilot program to sell generic drugs at $4 per prescription. The program was launched at stores in the Tampa, Florida, area, and by January 2007 had been expanded to all stores in Florida. While the average price of generics is $29 per prescription, compared to $102 for name-brand drugs, Walmart maintains that it is not selling at a loss, or providing them as an act of charity – instead, they are using the same mechanisms of mass distribution that it uses to bring lower prices to other products. Many of Walmart's low cost generics are imported from India, where they are made by drug makers that include Ranbaxy and Cipla.

On February 6, 2007, the company launched a "beta" version of a movie download service, which sold about 3,000 films and television episodes from all major studios and television networks. The service was discontinued on December 21, 2007 due to low sales.

In 2008, Walmart started a pilot program in the small grocery store concept called Marketside in the metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona, area. The four stores closed in 2011.

In 2015, Walmart began testing a free grocery pickup service, allowing customers to select products online and choose their pickup time. At the store, a Walmart employee loads the groceries into the customer's car. As of December 17, 2017, the service is available in 39 U.S. states.

In May 2016, Walmart announced a change to ShippingPass, its three-day shipping service, and that it will move from a three-day delivery to two-day delivery to remain competitive with Amazon. Walmart priced it at 49 dollars per year, compared to Amazon Prime's 99 dollar per year price.

In June 2016, Walmart and Sam's Club announced that they would begin testing a last-mile grocery delivery that used services including Uber, Lyft, and Deliv, to bring customers' orders to their homes. Walmart customers would be able to shop using the company's online grocery service at grocery.walmart.com, then request delivery at checkout for a small fee. The first tests were planned to go live in Denver and Phoenix.

Walmart International

Walmart international locations (former locations in red)

As of October 31, 2017, Walmart's international operations comprised 6,291 stores and 800,000 workers in 26 countries outside the United States. There are wholly owned operations in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, and the UK. With 2.2 million employees worldwide, the company is the largest private employer in the U.S. and Mexico, and one of the largest in Canada. In fiscal 2016, Walmart's international division sales were US$123.408 billion, or 25.8 percent of total sales. International retail units range from 8,900 to 185,000 square feet (830 to 17,190 square metres), wholesale units range from 35,000 to 70,000 square feet (3,300 to 6,500 square metres) and other units (including drugstores and convenience stores) range up to 2,400 square feet (220 square metres). Judith McKenna is the president and CEO.

Latin America

As of October 31, 2017, there are a total of 4,043 locations in Latin America, which consists of locations in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and Nicaragua.

Argentina

Walmart Argentina was founded in 1995 and, as of October 31, 2017, operates 107 stores under the banners Walmart Supercenter (32 locations), Changomas (52 locations), Changomas Express (9 locations), Mi Changomas (8 locations), and Walmart Supermercado (6 locations).

Brazil

Bompreço in Natal, Brazil

In 2004, Walmart bought the 118 stores in the Bompreço supermarket chain in northeastern Brazil. In late 2005, it took control of the Brazilian operations of Sonae Distribution Group through its new subsidiary, WMS Supermercados do Brasil, thus acquiring control of the Nacional and Mercadorama supermarket chains, the leaders in the Rio Grande do Sul and Paraná states, respectively. None of these stores were rebranded. As of January 2014, Walmart operated 61 Super-Bompreço stores, 39 Hiper-Bompreço stores. It also ran 57 Walmart Supercenters, 27 Sam's Clubs, and 174 Todo Dia stores. With the acquisition of Bompreço and Sonae, by 2010, Walmart was the third-largest supermarket chain in Brazil, behind Carrefour and Pão de Açúcar.

Walmart Brasil, the operating company, has its head office in Barueri, São Paulo State, and regional offices in Curitiba, Paraná; Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul; Recife, Pernambuco; and Salvador, Bahia. As of October 31, 2017, Walmart Brasil operates 485 stores under the banners Todo Dia (144 locations), Naconial (Sonae) (51 locations), Supermarket (Bompreço) (59 locations), Walmart Supercenter (54 locations), Maxxi Atacado (Sonae) (44 locations), BIG (Sonae) (37 locations), Hypermarket (Bompreço) (38 locations), Sam's Club (27 locations), Mercadorama (Sonae) (10 locations), Walmart Posto (Gas Station) (14 locations), Supermercado Todo Dia (3 locations), and Hiper Todo Dia (4 locations).

Central America

Walmart also owns 51 percent of the Central American Retail Holding Company (CARHCO), which, as of October 31, 2017, consists of 232 stores in Guatemala (under the Paiz [26 locations], Walmart Supercenter [10 locations], Despensa Familiar [153 locations], and Maxi Dispensa [35 locations] banners), 91 stores in El Salvador (under the Despensa Familiar [60 locations], La Despensa de Don Juan [17 locations], Walmart Supercenter [4 locations], and Maxi Despensa [10 locations] banners), 101 stores in Honduras (including the Paiz [8 locations], Walmart Supercenter [3 locations], Dispensa Familiar [66 locations], and Maxi Despensa [24 locations] banners), 95 stores in Nicaragua (including the Pali [67 locations], La Unión [8 locations], Maxi Pali [19 locations], and Walmart Supercenter [1 location] banners), and 244 stores in Costa Rica (including the Maxi Pali [39 locations], Mas X Menos [35 locations], Walmart Supercenter [10 locations], and Pali [160 locations] banners).

Chile

In January 2009, the company acquired a controlling interest in the largest grocer in Chile, Distribución y Servicio D&S SA. In 2010, the company was renamed Walmart Chile. As of October 31, 2017, Walmart Chile operates 371 stores under the banners Lider Hiper (85 locations), Lider Express (84 locations), Superbodega Acuenta (110 locations), Ekono (88 locations), and Central Mayorista (4 locations).

Mexico

Main article: Walmart de México y Centroamérica

As of October 31, 2017, Walmart's Mexico division, the largest outside the U.S., consisted of 2,317 stores. Walmart in Mexico operates Walmart Supercenter (266 locations), Sam's Club (161 locations), Bodega Aurrera (496 locations), Mi Bodega Aurrera (335 locations), Bodega Aurrera Express (954 locations), Superama (95 locations), and Medimart Farmacia de Walmart (10 locations).

Canada and EMEA

As of October 31, 2016, there are a total of 1,464 stores in Canada and Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), which the latter consists of locations in the United Kingdom, South Africa, Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia.

Canada

Main article: Walmart Canada

Walmart Supercentre in Richmond Hill, Canada

Walmart has operated in Canada since it acquired 122 stores comprising the Woolco division of Woolworth Canada, Inc in 1994. As of October 31, 2017, it operates 410 locations (including 331 supercentres and 79 discount stores) and, as of June 2015, it employs 89,358 people, with a local home office in Mississauga, Ontario. Walmart Canada's first three Supercentres (spelled in Canadian English) opened in November 2006 in Hamilton, London, and Aurora, Ontario. The 100th Canadian Supercentre opened in July 2010, in Victoria, British Columbia.

In 2010, Walmart Canada Bank was introduced with the launch of the Walmart Rewards MasterCard.

United Kingdom

Main article: Asda

Walmart's UK subsidiary, Asda

Walmart's UK subsidiary Asda (which retained its name after being acquired by Walmart) accounted for 42.7 percent of 2006 sales of Walmart's international division. In contrast to the U.S. operations, Asda was originally and still remains primarily a grocery chain, but with a stronger focus on non-food items than most UK supermarket chains other than Tesco. As of October 31, 2017, Asda had 638 stores, including 147 from the 2010 acquisition of Netto UK. In addition to small suburban Asda Supermarkets, which has 209 locations, larger stores are branded Supercentres, which has 32 locations. Other banners include Asda Superstores (341 locations), Asda Living (33 locations), and Asda Petrol Fueling Station (23 locations). In July 2015, Asda updated its logo featuring the Walmart Asterisks behind the first 'A' in the Logo.

Africa

On September 28, 2010, Walmart announced it would buy Massmart Holdings Ltd. of Johannesburg, South Africa in a deal worth over US$4 billion giving the company its first footprint in Africa. As of October 31, 2017, it has 378 stores in South Africa (under the banners Game Foodco [70 locations], CBW [48 locations], Game [49 locations], Builders Express [43 locations], Builders Warehouse [33 locations], Cambridge [39 locations], Dion Wired [24 locations], Rhino [20 locations], Makro [20 locations], Builders Trade Depot [15 locations], Jumbo [7 locations], and Builders Superstore [10 locations]), 11 stores in Botswana (under the banners CBW [7 locations], Game Foodco [2 locations], and Builders Warehouse [2 locations]), 2 store in Ghana under the banners Game (1 location) and Game Foodco (1 location), 1 store in Kenya (under the Game Foodco banner), 3 stores in Lesotho (under the banners CBW [2 locations] and Game [1 location]), 2 stores in Malawi (under the Game banner), 5 stores in Mozambique (under the banners Builders Warehouse [2 locations], Game Foodco [2 locations], and CBW [1 location]), 4 stores in Namibia (under the banners Game Foodco [2 locations], Game [1 location], and CBW [2 locations]), 5 stores in Nigeria (under the banners Game [4 locations] and Game Foodco [1 location], 1 store in Swaziland (under the CBW banner), 1 store in Tanzania (under the Game banner), 1 store in Uganda (under the Game banner), and 5 stores in Zambia (under the banners CBW [1 location], Game [3 locations] and Builders Warehouse [1 location]).

Asia

A Walmart in Hangzhou, China

As of October 31, 2017, there are currently a total of 781 stores in three Asian countries: China, Japan, and India.

Walmart has joint ventures in China and several majority-owned subsidiaries. As of October 31, 2017, Walmart China (沃尔玛 Wò'ērmǎ) operates 424 stores under the Walmart Supercenter (386 locations), Sam's Club (18 locations), Neighborhood Market (2 locations) and Hypermarket (18 locations) banners. In Japan, Walmart owns 100 percent of Seiyu (西友 Seiyū) as of 2008. As of October 31, 2017, there are 337 stores under the Seiyu (Hypermarket) (91 locations), Seiyu (Supermarket) (236 locations), Seiyu (General Merchandise) (1 location), and Livin (9 locations) banners.

In February 2012, Walmart announced that the company raised its stake to 51 percent in Chinese online supermarket Yihaodian to tap rising consumer wealth and help the company offer more products. Walmart took full ownership in July 2015.

In November 2006, the company announced a joint venture with Bharti Enterprises to operate in India. As foreign corporations were not allowed to enter the retail sector directly, Walmart operated through franchises and handled the wholesale end of the business. The partnership involved two joint ventures – Bharti manages the front end, involving opening of retail outlets while Walmart takes care of the back end, such as cold chains and logistics. Walmart operates stores in India under the name Best Price Modern Wholesale. The first store opened in Amritsar on May 30, 2009. On September 14, 2012, the Government of India approved 51 percent FDI in multi-brand retails, subject to approval by individual states, effective September 20, 2012. Scott Price, Walmart's president and CEO for Asia, told The Wall Street Journal that the company would be able to start opening Walmart stores in India within two years. Expansion into India faced some significant problems. In November 2012, Walmart admitted to spending US$25 million lobbying the Indian National Congress; lobbying is conventionally considered bribery in India. Walmart is conducting an internal investigation into potential violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Bharti Walmart suspended a number of employees, rumored to include its CFO and legal team, to ensure "a complete and thorough investigation". As of October 31, 2017, there are 20 Best Price locations. In October 2013, Bharti and Walmart separated to pursue business independently.

Setbacks

In the mid-1990s, Walmart tried with a large financial investment to get a foothold in the German retail market. In 1997, Walmart took over the supermarket chain Wertkauf with its 21 stores for and the following year Walmart acquired 74 Interspar stores for . The German market at this point was an oligopoly with high competition among companies which used a similar low price strategy as Walmart. As a result, Walmart's low price strategy yielded no competitive advantage. Walmart's corporate culture was not viewed positively among employees and customers, particularly Walmart's "statement of ethics", which restricted relationships between employees and led to a public discussion in the media, resulting in a bad reputation among customers. In July 2006, Walmart announced its withdrawal from Germany due to sustained losses. The stores were sold to the German company Metro during Walmart's fiscal third quarter. Walmart did not disclose its losses from its German investment, but they were estimated to be around €3 billion.

Corruption charges

An April 2012 investigation by The New York Times reported the allegations of a former executive of Walmart de Mexico that, in September 2005, the company had paid bribes via local fixers to officials throughout Mexico in exchange for construction permits, information, and other favors, which gave Walmart a substantial advantage over competitors. Walmart investigators found credible evidence that Mexican and American laws had been broken. Concerns were also raised that Walmart executives in the United States had "hushed up" the allegations. A follow-up investigation by The New York Times, published December 17, 2012, revealed evidence that regulatory permission for siting, construction, and operation of nineteen stores had been obtained through bribery. There was evidence that a bribe of US$52,000 was paid to change a zoning map, which enabled the opening of a Walmart store a mile from a historical site in San Juan Teotihuacán in 2004. After the initial article was released, Walmart released a statement denying the allegations and describing its anti-corruption policy. While an official Walmart report states that it had found no evidence of corruption, the article alleges that previous internal reports had indeed turned up such evidence before the story became public. Forbes magazine contributor Adam Hartung also commented that the bribery scandal was a reflection of Walmart's "serious management and strategy troubles", stating, "[s]candals are now commonplace ... [e]ach scandal points out that Walmart's strategy is harder to navigate and is running into big problems".

In 2012, there was an incident with CJ's Seafood, a crawfish processing firm in Louisiana that was partnered with Walmart, that eventually gained media attention for the mistreatment of its 40 H-2B visa workers from Mexico. These workers experienced harsh living conditions in tightly packed trailers outside of the work facility, physical threats, verbal abuse and were forced to work day-long shifts. Many of the workers were afraid to take action about the abuse due to the fact that the manager threatened the lives of their family members in the U.S. and Mexico if the abuse were to be reported. Eight of the workers confronted management at CJ's Seafood about the mistreatment however the management denied the abuse allegations and the workers went on strike. The workers then took their stories to Walmart due to their partnership with CJ's. While Walmart was investigating the situation, the workers collected 150,000 signatures of supporters who agreed that Walmart should stand by the workers and take action. In June 2012, the visa workers held a protest and day-long hunger strike outside of the apartment building where a Walmart board member resided. Following this protest, Walmart announced its final decision to no longer work with CJ's Seafood. Less than a month later, the Department of Labor fined CJ's Seafood "approximately $460,000 in back-pay, safety violations, wage and hour violations, civil damages and fines for abuses to the H-2B program. The company has since shut down."

As of December 2012, internal investigations were ongoing into possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Walmart has invested US$99 million on internal investigations, which expanded beyond Mexico to implicate operations in China, Brazil, and India. The case has added fuel to the debate as to whether foreign investment will result in increased prosperity, or if it merely allows local retail trade and economic policy to be taken over by "foreign financial and corporate interests".

Sam's Club

Main article: Sam's Club

The Sam's Club store in Maplewood, Missouri

Sam's Club is a chain of warehouse clubs that sell groceries and general merchandise, often in bulk. They range from 94,000 to 161,000 square feet (8,700 to 15,000 square meters), with an average size of 134,000 square feet (12,400 square meters). Sam's Clubs are membership warehouse clubs where most customers buy annual memberships. There are three kinds of memberships at Sam's Club, each with their own benefits. Non-members can make purchases either by buying a one-day membership or paying a surcharge based on the price of the purchase. Some locations also sell gasoline. The first Sam's Club opened in 1983 in Midwest City, Oklahoma under the name "Sam's Wholesale Club".

Sam's Club has found a niche market in recent years as a supplier to small businesses. All Sam's Clubs are open early hours exclusively for business members and their old slogan was "We're in Business for Small Business." Their slogan has been "Savings Made Simple" since late 2009, as Sam's Club attempts to attract a more diverse member base. In March 2009, the company announced that it plans to enter the electronic medical records business by offering a software package to physicians in small practices for US$25,000. Walmart is partnering with Dell and eClinicalWorks.com in this new venture.

Sam's Club's sales were US$56.828 billion, or 11.9 percent of total Walmart sales, during fiscal 2016. As of October 31, 2017, there were 660 Sam's Clubs in 47 states and Puerto Rico. Oregon, Rhode Island (the only location closed in 2016), Vermont, and the District of Columbia are the only U.S. states and territories where a Sam's Club does not operate. Walmart, through Walmart International, also operates 206 international Sam's Clubs, including 161 in Mexico, 27 in Brazil, and 18 in China. The president and CEO is John Furner.

Global eCommerce

Based in San Francisco, California, Walmart's Global eCommerce division provides online retailing for Walmart, Sam's Club, Asda, and all other international brands. There are several locations in the United States in California and Oregon: San Bruno, Sunnyvale, Brisbane, and Portland. Locations outside of the United States include Shanghai (China), Leeds (United Kingdom), and Bangalore (India). Marc Lore is the president and CEO.

Subsidiaries

Vudu

Vudu logo

In February 2010, Walmart agreed to buy Vudu, a Silicon Valley start-up whose online movie service is being built into an increasing number of televisions and Blu-ray players. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, but a person briefed on the deal said the price for the company, which raised US$60 million in capital, was over US$100 million. It is the third-most-popular online movie service, with a market share of 5.3 percent.

Private label brands

Main article: List of Walmart brands

About 40 percent of products sold in Walmart are private label store brands, which are produced for the company through contracts with manufacturers. Walmart began offering private label brands in 1991, with the launch of Sam's Choice, a line of drinks produced by Cott Beverages for Walmart. Sam's Choice quickly became popular and by 1993, was the third-most-popular beverage brand in the United States. Other Walmart brands include Great Value and Equate in the U.S. and Canada and Smart Price in Britain. A 2006 study talked of "the magnitude of mind-share Walmart appears to hold in the shoppers' minds when it comes to the awareness of private label brands and retailers."

Entertainment

In 2010, the company teamed with Procter & Gamble to produce Secrets of the Mountain and The Jensen Project, two-hour family movies which featured the characters using Walmart and Procter & Gamble branded products. The Jensen Project also featured a preview of a product to be released in several months in Walmart stores. A third movie, A Walk in My Shoes, also aired in 2010 and a fourth is in production. Walmart's director of brand marketing also serves as co-chair of the Association of National Advertisers's Alliance for Family Entertainment.

Online commerce acquisitions and plans

In September 2016, Walmart purchased e-commerce company Jet.com, founded in 2014 by Marc Lore, to start competing with Amazon.com. Jet.com has acquired its own share of online retailers such as Hayneedle in March 2016, Shoebuy.com in December 2016, and ModCloth in March 2017.

On February 15, 2017, Walmart acquired Moosejaw, an online active outdoor retailer, for approximately $51 million. Moosejaw brought with it partnerships with more than 400 brands, including Patagonia, The North Face, Marmot, and Arc'teryx.

Marc Lore, Walmart’s U.S. e-commerce CEO, said that Walmart's existing physical infrastructure of almost 5,000 stores around the U.S. will enhance their digital expansion by doubling as warehouses for e-commerce without increasing overhead. As of 2017, Walmart offers in-store pickup for online orders at 1,000 stores with plans to eventually expand the service to all of its stores.

Corporate affairs

Home office in Bentonville, Arkansas

Walmart is headquartered in the Walmart Home Office complex in Bentonville, Arkansas. The company's business model is based on selling a wide variety of general merchandise at low prices. Doug McMillon became Walmart's CEO on February 1, 2014. He has also worked as the head of Sam's Club and Walmart International. The company refers to its employees as "associates". All Walmart stores in the U.S. and Canada also have designated "greeters" at the entrance, a practice pioneered by Sam Walton and later imitated by other retailers. Greeters are trained to help shoppers find what they want and answer their questions.

For many years, associates were identified in the store by their signature blue vest, but this practice was discontinued in June 2007 and replaced with khaki pants and polo shirts. The wardrobe change was part of a larger corporate overhaul to increase sales and rejuvenate the company's stock price. In September 2014, the uniform was again updated to bring back a vest (paid for by the company) for store employees over the same polos and khaki or black pants paid for by the employee. The vest is navy blue for Walmart employees at Supercenters and discount stores, lime green for Walmart Neighborhood Market employees and yellow for self check out associates; door greeters and customer service managers. Both state "Proud Walmart Associate" on the left breast and the "Spark" logo covering the back. Reportedly one of the main reasons the vest was reintroduced was that some customers had trouble identifying employees. In 2016, self-checkout associates, door greeters and customer service managers began wearing a yellow vest to be better seen by customers. By requiring employees to wear uniforms that are made up of standard "street wear", Walmart is not required to purchase or reimbursement employees which is required in some states, as long as that clothing can be worn elsewhere. Businesses are only legally required to pay for branded shirts and pants or clothes that would be difficult to wear outside of work.

Unlike many other retailers, Walmart does not charge slotting fees to suppliers for their products to appear in the store. Instead, it focuses on selling more-popular products and provides incentives for store managers to drop unpopular products.

On September 14, 2006, the company announced that it would phase out its layaway program, citing declining use and increased costs. Layaway ceased on November 19, 2006, and required merchandise pickup by December 8, 2006. Walmart now focuses on other payment options, such as increased use of six- and twelve-month, zero-interest financing. The layaway location in most stores is now used for Walmart's Site-To-Store program, which was introduced in March 2007. This enables walmart.com customers to buy goods online with a free shipping option, and have goods shipped to the nearest store for pickup. Walmart continues to offer seasonal Layaway on select categories from late summer through early Christmas and year-round in their jewelry department.

On September 15, 2017, Walmart announced that it would build a new headquarters in Bentonville to replace its current 1971 building and consolidate operations that have spread out to 20 different buildings throughout Bentonville.

Finance and governance

For the fiscal year ending January 31, 2015, Walmart reported net income of US$17 billion on $485.7 billion of revenue. The company's international operations accounted for $197.7 billion, or 40.7 percent, of sales. Walmart is the world's 18th largest public corporation, according to the Forbes Global 2000 list, and the largest public corporation when ranked by revenue.

Walmart is governed by a fifteen-member board of directors elected annually by shareholders. Gregory B. Penner, son-in-law of S. Robson Walton and the grandson-in-law of Sam Walton, serves as chairman of the board. Doug McMillon serves as president and chief executive officer. Members of the board include Aída Álvarez, Jim Breyer, M. Michele Burns, James Cash, Roger Corbett, Douglas Daft, David Glass, Marissa Mayer, Allen Questrom, Arne M. Sorenson, Jim Walton, S. Robson Walton, Christopher J. Williams, and Linda S. Wolf.

Notable former members of the board include Hillary Clinton (1985–1992) and Tom Coughlin (2003–2004), the latter having served as vice chairman. Clinton left the board before the 1992 U.S. presidential election, and Coughlin left in December 2005 after pleading guilty to wire fraud and tax evasion for stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from Walmart. On August 11, 2006, he was sentenced to 27 months home confinement and five years of probation, and ordered to pay $411,000 in restitution.

After Sam Walton's death in 1992, Don Soderquist, Chief Operating Officer and Senior Vice Chairman, became known as the "Keeper of the Culture".

Ownership

Walmart Inc. is a joint-stock company registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. As of March 2017, it has 3,292,377,090 outstanding shares. These are held mainly by the Walton family, a number of institutions and funds.

• 43.00% (1,415,891,131): Walton Enterprises LLC
• 5.30% (174,563,205): Walton Family Holdings Trust
• 3.32% (102,036,399): The Vanguard Group, Inc
• 2.37% (72,714,226): State Street Corporation
• 1.37% (42,171,892): BlackRock Institutional Trust Company
• 0.94% (28,831,721): Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund
• 0.77% (23,614,578): BlackRock Fund Advisors
• 0.71% (21,769,126): Dodge & Cox Inc
• 0.68% (20,978,727): Vanguard 500 Index Fund
• 0.65% (20,125,838): Bank of America Corporation
• 0.57% (17,571,058): Bank of New York Mellon Corporation
• 0.57% (17,556,128): Northern Trust Corporation
• 0.55% (16,818,165): Vanguard Institutional Index Fund-Institutional Index Fund
• 0.55% (16,800,850): State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co
• 0.52% (15,989,827): SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust

Competition

In North America, Walmart's primary competitors include department stores like Aldi, Kmart, Kroger, Ingles, Publix, Target, Shopko, and Meijer, and Winn Dixie, Canada's The Real Canadian Superstore and Giant Tiger, and Mexico's Comercial Mexicana and Soriana. Competitors of Walmart's Sam's Club division are Costco and the smaller BJ's Wholesale Club chain. Walmart's move into the grocery business in the late 1990s also set it against major supermarket chains in both the United States and Canada. Some retail analysts see regional grocery store chain WinCo Foods as serious competition for Walmart. Several smaller retailers, primarily dollar stores, such as Family Dollar and Dollar General, have been able to find a small niche market and compete successfully against Walmart. In 2004, Walmart responded by testing its own dollar store concept, a subsection of some stores called "Pennies-n-Cents."

Walmart also had to face fierce competition in some foreign markets. For example, in Germany it had captured just 2 percent of the German food market following its entry into the market in 1997 and remained "a secondary player" behind Aldi with 19 percent. Walmart continues to do well in the UK, where its Asda subsidiary is the second-largest retailer.

In May 2006, after entering the South Korean market in 1998, Walmart sold all 16 of its South Korean outlets to Shinsegae, a local retailer, for US$882 million. Shinsegae re-branded the Walmarts as E-mart stores.

Walmart struggled to export its brand elsewhere as it rigidly tried to reproduce its model overseas. In China, Walmart hopes to succeed by adapting and doing things preferable to Chinese citizens. For example, it found that Chinese consumers preferred to select their own live fish and seafood; stores began displaying the meat uncovered and installed fish tanks, leading to higher sales.

Customer base

Walmart customers cite low prices as the most important reason for shopping there. The average U.S. Walmart customer's income is below the national average, and analysts estimated that more than one-fifth of them lack a bank account; twice the national rate. A 2006 Walmart report also indicated that Walmart customers are sensitive to higher utility costs and gas prices. A poll indicated that after the 2004 US presidential election, 76 percent of voters who shopped at Walmart once a week voted for George W. Bush while only 23 percent supported senator John Kerry. When measured against similar retailers in the U.S., frequent Walmart shoppers were rated the most politically conservative. Thus, as of 2014, the "majority (54 percent) [of] Americans who prefer shopping at Walmart report that they oppose same-sex marriage, while 40 percent are in favor of it."

Due to its prominence in the Bible Belt, Walmart is known for its "tradition of tailoring its service to churchgoing customers". Walmart only carries clean versions of hip-hop audio CDs and in cooperation with The Timothy Plan, places "plastic sheathes over suggestive women's periodicals and banned 'lad mags' such as Maxim" magazine. In addition, Walmart also caters to its Christian customer base by selling Christian books and media, "such as VeggieTales videos and The Purpose-Driven Life", which earns the company over US$1 billion annually.

In 2006, Walmart took steps to expand its U.S. customer base, announcing a modification in its U.S. stores from a "one-size-fits-all" merchandising strategy to one designed to "reflect each of six demographic groups – African-Americans, the affluent, empty-nesters, Hispanics, suburbanites, and rural residents." Around six months later, it unveiled a new slogan: "Saving people money so they can live better lives". This reflects the three main groups into which Walmart categorizes its 200 million customers: "brand aspirationals" (people with low incomes who are obsessed with big name brands), "price-sensitive affluents" (wealthier shoppers who love deals), and "value-price shoppers" (people who like low prices and cannot afford much more). Walmart has also made steps to appeal to more liberal customers, for example, by rejecting the American Family Association's recommendations and carrying the DVD Brokeback Mountain, a love story between two gay cowboys in Wyoming.

Technology

Open source software

Many Walmart technology projects are coded in the open and available through the Walmart Labs GitHub repository as Open Source software under the OSI approved Apache V2.0 license. As of November 2016, 141 public Github projects are listed.

During a migration of the walmart.com retail platform to Facebook React and Node.js, the Electrode project was created to power the e-commerce platform which serves 80 million visitors per month and 15 million items.

Electrode provides various developer enhancements and tools for the developer including Node.js configuration and feature management.

Alex Grigoryan of Walmart Labs released a statement on Medium.com on October 3, 2016 explaining the details of the applications and the scale that they operate at Walmart.

Big data analytics

As the largest retailer in the U.S., Walmart collects and analyzes a large amount of consumer data. The big data sets are mined for use in predictive analytics, which allow the company to optimize operations by predicting customer's habits. Walmart's datacenter is unofficially referred to as Area 71.

In April 2011, Walmart acquired Kosmix to develop software for analyzing real-time data streams. In August 2012, Walmart announced its Polaris search engine.

The amount of data gathered by Walmart has raised privacy concerns.

Charity

Sam Walton believed that the company's contribution to society was the fact that it operated efficiently, thereby lowering the cost of living for customers, and, therefore, in that sense was a "powerful force for good", despite his refusal to contribute cash to philanthropic causes. Having begun to feel that his wealth attracted people who wanted nothing more than a "handout", he explained that while he believed his family had been fortunate and wished to use his wealth to aid worthy causes like education, they could not be expected to "solve every personal problem that comes to [their] attention". He explained later in his autobiography, "We feel very strongly that Wal-Mart really is not, and should not be, in the charity business," stating "any debit has to be passed along to somebody – either shareholders or our customers." Since Sam Walton's death in 1992, however, Walmart and the Walmart Foundation dramatically increased charitable giving. For example, in 2005, Walmart donated US$20 million in cash and merchandise for Hurricane Katrina relief. Today, Walmart's charitable donations approach US$1 billion each year.

Economic impact

Kenneth Stone, Professor of Economics at Iowa State University, in a paper published in Farm Foundation in 1997, found that some small towns can lose almost half of their retail trade within ten years of a Walmart store opening. He compared the changes to previous competitors small town shops have faced in the past – from the development of the railroads and the Sears Roebuck catalog to shopping malls. He concludes that small towns are more affected by "discount mass merchandiser stores" than larger towns and that shop owners who adapt to the ever-changing retail market can "co-exist and even thrive in this type of environment."

One study found Walmart's entry into a new market has a profound impact on its competition. When a Walmart opens in a new market, median sales drop 40 percent at similar high-volume stores, 17 percent at supermarkets and 6 percent at drugstores, according to a June 2009 study by researchers at several universities and led by the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. A Loyola University Chicago study suggested that the impact a Walmart store has on a local business is correlated to its distance from that store. The leader of that study admits that this factor is stronger in smaller towns and doesn't apply to more urban areas saying "It'd be so tough to nail down what's up with Wal-Mart". These findings are underscored by another study conducted in 2009 by the National Bureau of Economics that showed "large, negative effects" for competing businesses within 5 to 10 miles (8 to 16 km) of the newly opening big-box retailer. This same study also found that the local retailers experience virtually no benefit. Walmart's negative effects on local retailers may be partially explained by studies that find that local firms re-invest nearly 63 percent more of profits in other local businesses compared to chain retailers, as found by the Maine Center of Economic Policy in 2011.

David Merriman, Joseph Persky, Julie Davis and Ron Baiman did a study in Economic Development Quarterly outlining the impacts of Walmart in Chicago. The study draws from three annual surveys of enterprises within a four-mile radius of a new Chicago Walmart and it "shows that the probability of going out of business was significantly higher for establishments close to that store". The study illustrated how approximately 300 jobs were lost due to the opening of the store, which is about equivalent to Walmart's employment in the area. The overall findings of this study reinforce the "contention that large-city Walmarts, like those in small towns, absorb retail sales from nearby stores without significantly expanding the market" as this is one of the first studies of Walmarts economic impacts on local economies.

• A 2001 McKinsey Global Institute study of U.S. labor productivity growth between 1995 and 2000 concluded that "Wal-Mart directly and indirectly caused the bulk of the productivity acceleration" in the retail sector. Robert Solow, a Nobel laureate in economics and an adviser to the study, stated that "[b]y far the most important factor in that [growth] is Wal-Mart."
• The Economic Policy Institute estimates that between 2001 and 2006, Wal-Mart's trade deficit with China alone eliminated nearly 200,000 U.S. jobs. Another study at the University of Missouri found that a new store increases net retail employment in the county by 100 jobs in the short term, half of which disappear over five years as other retail establishments close.
• A 2004 paper by two professors at Pennsylvania State University found that U.S. counties with Walmart stores suffered increased poverty compared with counties without Wal-Marts. They hypothesized that this could be due to the displacement of workers from higher-paid jobs in the retailers customers no longer choose to patronize, Wal-Mart providing less local charity than the replaced businesses, or a shrinking pool of local leadership and reduced social capital due to a reduced number of local independent businesses. Dr Raj Patel, author of "Stuffed and Starved: Markets, Power and the Hidden Battle for the World Food System", said in a lecture at the University of Melbourne on September 18, 2007, that a study in Nebraska looked at two different Wal-Marts, the first of which had just arrived and "was in the process of driving everyone else out of business but, to do that, they cut their prices to the bone, very, very low prices". In the other Wal-Mart, "they had successfully destroyed the local economy, there was a sort of economic crater with Wal-Mart in the middle; and, in that community, the prices were 17 percent higher".
• A 2005 story in The Washington Post reported that "Wal-Mart's discounting on food alone boosts the welfare of American shoppers by at least US$50 billion per year." A study in 2005 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) measured the effect on consumer welfare and found that the poorest segment of the population benefits the most from the existence of discount retailers.
• A June 2006 article published by the libertarian Ludwig von Mises Institute suggested that Wal-Mart has a positive impact on small business. It argued that while Wal-Mart's low prices caused some existing businesses to close, the chain also created new opportunities for other small business, and so "the process of creative destruction unleashed by Wal-Mart has no statistically significant impact on the overall size of the small business sector in the United States."
• In 2006, American newspaper columnist George Will named Wal-Mart "the most prodigious job-creator in the history of the private sector in this galaxy" and that "[b]y lowering consumer prices, Wal-Mart costs about 50 retail jobs among competitors for every 100 jobs Wal-Mart creates". In terms of economic effects, Will states that "Wal-Mart and its effects save shoppers more than US$200 billion a year, dwarfing such government programs as food stamps (US$28.6 billion) and the earned income tax credit US$34.6 billion)".
• A 2014 story in The Guardian reported that the Wal-Mart Foundation was boosting its efforts to work with U.S. manufacturers. In February 2014, the Walmart Foundation pledged US$10 billion to support domestic manufacturers and announced plans to buy US$250 billion worth of American-made products in the next decade.

Labor relations

Workers speak during Occupy Wall Street

With over 2.2 million employees worldwide, Walmart has faced a torrent of lawsuits and issues with regards to its workforce. These issues involve low wages, poor working conditions, inadequate health care, and issues involving the company's strong anti-union policies. In November 2013, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) announced that it had found that in 13 U.S. states Wal-Mart had pressured employees not to engage in strikes on Black Friday, and had illegally disciplined workers who had engaged in strikes. Critics point to Walmart's high turnover rate as evidence of an unhappy workforce, although other factors may be involved. Approximately 70 percent of its employees leave within the first year. Despite this turnover rate, the company is still able to affect unemployment rates. This was found in a study by Oklahoma State University which states, "Walmart is found to have substantially lowered the relative unemployment rates of blacks in those counties where it is present, but to have had only a limited impact on relative incomes after the influences of other socio-economic variables were taken into account."

Walmart is the largest private employer in the United States, employing almost five times as many people as IBM, the second-largest employer. Walmart employs more African Americans than any other private employer in the United States.

Gender and sexual orientation

In 2007, a gender discrimination lawsuit, Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., was filed against Walmart, alleging that female employees were discriminated against in matters regarding pay and promotions. A class action suit was sought, which would have been the nation's largest in history, covering 1.5 million past and current employees. On June 20, 2011, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Wal-Mart's favor, stating that the plaintiffs did not have enough in common to constitute a class. The court ruled unanimously that because of the variability of the plaintiffs' circumstances, the class action could not proceed as presented, and furthermore, in a 5–4 decision that it could not proceed as any kind of class action suit. Several plaintiffs, including the lead plaintiff, Betty Dukes, expressed their intent to file individual discrimination lawsuits separately.

According to a consultant hired by plaintiffs in a sex discrimination lawsuit, in 2001, Wal-Mart's Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filings showed that female employees made up 65 percent of Wal-Mart's hourly paid workforce, but only 33 percent of its management. Just 35 percent of its store managers were women, compared to 57 percent at similar retailers. Wal-Mart says comparisons with other retailers are unfair, because it classifies employees differently; if department managers were included in the totals, women would make up 60 percent of the managerial ranks. Others have criticized the lawsuit as without basis in the law and as an abuse of the class action mechanism. In 2007, Wal-Mart was named by the National Association for Female Executives as one of the top 35 companies for executive women.

Wal-Mart's rating on the Human Rights Campaign's (HRC) Corporate Equality Index, a measure of how companies treat LGBT employees and customers, has increased greatly during the past decade. The company was praised for expanding its anti-discrimination policy protecting gay and lesbian employees, and for a new definition of "family" that included same-sex partners. However, they have been criticized by the HRC in other areas, such as not renewing its membership in the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce.

In January 2006, Wal-Mart announced that "diversity efforts include new groups of minority, female and gay employees that meet at Wal-Mart headquarters in Bentonville to advise the company on marketing and internal promotion. There are seven business resource groups: women, African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans, gays and lesbians, and a disabled group."

Animal welfare

In April 2016, Walmart announced that it plans to eliminate eggs from battery cages from its supply chain by 2025. The decision was particularly important because of Walmart's large market share and influence on the rest of the industry. The move was praised by major animal welfare groups and heralded as an "end of an era" by Humane Society of the United States President Wayne Pacelle, but a poultry trade group representative expressed skepticism about the decision's impact. Walmart's cage-free eggs will not come from free range producers, but rather industrial-scale farms where the birds will be allotted between 1 and 1.5 square feet each, a stressful arrangement which can cause cannibalism. Unlike battery cages, the systems Walmart's suppliers will use allow the hens to move around, but relative to battery cages they have higher hen mortality rates and present distinct environmental and worker health problems.

On November 28, 2016 Paola Gaviño, in coordination with the animal protection NGOs The Humane League and Mercy For Animals, launched a multinational campaign to raise awareness of Walmart’s failure to produce a policy to source 100 percent cage-free eggs throughout Latin America. Walmart has not committed to phasing out battery cages in Latin America as it has in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. The campaign argues that battery cages are unnecessarily cruel and also increase the risk of food safety issues, including an increased risk of Salmonella contamination.

On March 10, 2017 a Thunderclap campaign reached over one million people and protests have occurred in from Lynn, MA to Seattle, Washington; as well as Mexico City, where Walmart Mexico’s HQ is located. On March 30, 2017, activists traveled to Walmart’s headquarters in Mexico to deliver more than 125,000 petition signatures from campaign supporters.

Criticism and controversies

Main article: Criticism of Walmart

Walmart has been subject to criticism from various groups and individuals, including labor unions, community groups, grassroots organizations, religious organizations, environmental groups, and the company's own customers and employees. They have protested against the company's policies and business practices, including charges of racial and gender discrimination. Other areas of criticism include the company's foreign product sourcing, treatment of suppliers, employee compensation and working conditions, environmental practices, the use of public subsidies, the company's security policies, and slavery. Walmart denies doing anything wrong and maintains that low prices are the result of efficiency.

See also

• Big-box store
• Criticism of Walmart
• "Something Wall-Mart This Way Comes" – a 2004 episode of Comedy Central's South Park
• Wal-Mart camel – a bone fossil of a prehistoric camel found at a future Wal-Mart store in Mesa, Arizona
• Wal-Mart First Tee Open at Pebble Beach – former name of a golf tournament
• Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price – a 2005 documentary film by director Robert Greenwald
• Walmarting – a neologism
• Why Wal-Mart Works; and Why That Drives Some People C-R-A-Z-Y – a 2005 rebuttal to the Greenwald documentary

Further reading

• Barstow, Davie (December 18, 2012). "Wal-Mart Abroad". The New York Times. New York: The New York Times Company.
• Fishman, Charles (2006). The Wal-Mart Effect: How the World's Most Powerful Company Really Works—and How It's Transforming the American Economy. New York: The Penguin Press. ISBN 978-1-59420-076-2. Archived from the original on June 29, 2015. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
• Gereffi, Gary; Michelle, Christian (2009). "The Impacts of Wal-Mart: The Rise and Consequences of the World's Dominant Retailer". Annual Review of Sociology. 35: 573–591. doi:10.1146/annurev-soc-070308-115947.
• Ingram, Paul; Yue, Lori Qingyuan; Rao, Hayagreeva (July 2010). "Trouble in Store: Probes, Protests, and Store Openings by Wal‐Mart, 1998–2007". American Journal of Sociology. 116 (1). University of Chicago Press: 53–92. doi:10.1086/653596. JSTOR 653596.
• Lichtenstein, Nelson (2009). The Retail Revolution: How Wal-Mart Created a Brave New World of Business. New York: Metropolitan Books. ISBN 978-0-8050-7966-1.
• Vance, Sandra Stringer; Scott, Roy V. (1997). Wal-Mart: A History of Sam Walton's Retail Phenomenon. New York: Twayne Publishers. ISBN 978-0-8057-9832-6.
• Peled, Micha (2001). Store Wars: When Wal-Mart Comes to Town.

External links

• Official website
• Wal-Mart Stores Corporate Site
• Business data for Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.:
  • Google
  • SEC filings
  • Yahoo!
• Walmart companies grouped at OpenCorporates