Walmart Company is an American multinational retail corporation. Walmart operates hypermarkets (supercenters), department stores, and grocery stores. The company is headquartered in Bentonville city, Arkansas State in the country of USA.
Walmart Company was founded in 1962 in Rogers city, Arkansas State by “Sam Walton & Bud Walton”. It was incorporated under the Delaware General Corporation Act on October 31, 1969.
In 1945, businessman and former J. C. Penney employee Sam Walton purchased a branch of Ben Franklin Stores from Butler Brothers.
On July 2, 1962, the first Wal-Mart Discount City store opened at 719 W Walnut Street in Rogers, Arkansas. The design of Walmart stores was influenced by Ann & Hope. Both Walmart founder Sam Walton and Kmart founder Harry B. Cunningham visited the store in 1961.
In 1969, the company was officially established as Wal-Mart, Inc. In the following year, it changed its name to Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. In the same year, the company opened its home office and first distribution center in Bentonville, Arkansas.
Here 38 stores and a workforce of 1,500 employees, the company recorded sales of $44.2 million. On October 1, 1970, it began trading as a publicly held company. It was subsequently listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).
In 1973, Walmart expanded to Tennessee. The following year, it expanded to Kentucky and Mississippi. By 1975, the company had opened stores in Texas. At that point Company had a total of 125 stores, 7,500 employees, and sales of $340.3 million.
At that time, Walmart Company had operations in 5 states: Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, and Oklahoma. In 1973, it expanded to Tennessee. In 1974, it opened stores in Kentucky and Mississippi.
By 1975, when the company moved to Texas, Company had a total of 125 stores, 7,500 employees and sales of $340.3 million. During the 1980s, Walmart experimented with a concept called Hyper-Mart, it was a precursor to the Supercenter. These 4 stores combined features of discount stores, supermarkets, pharmacies, video arcades, and other amenities.
In 1984, Sam Walton started to import a portion of his company’s products from China. It ranged from 6% to 40%. In 1988, he stepped down as CEO and was succeeded by David Glass, while he still remained as chairman of the board. During the same year, the first Walmart Supercenter opened in Washington, MO.
By the mid-1990s, Walmart had become the most powerful retailer in the USA. It was expanded into Mexico in 1991 and Canada in 1994. Afterthat Walmart stores opened throughout the United States. In 1995, Company has started a last store in Vermont State.
In 2000, H. Lee Scott was appointed as the president and CEO of Walmart. Under his leadership, the company’s sales rose to $165 billion. In 2002, Walmart was listed as America’s top corporation on the Fortune 500 list for the first time.
In this stage Company revenues $219.8 billion and profits are $6.7 billion. Since then, it has been consistently listed on the Fortune 500 list. It was not listed in 2006, 2009 and 2012.
On March 20, 2009, Walmart announced that it would pay every full- and part-time hourly employee a combined $933.6 million in bonuses. This was an additional benefit given on top of $788.8 million in profit sharing. Here, 401(k) pension contributions, hundreds of millions of dollars in merchandise discounts were also given. Also here contributions to an employee stock purchase plan were also made.
On April 23, 2011, the company announced that it was testing its new “Walmart to Go” home delivery system. Here customers can order specific items offered on its website. Initial testing took place in San Jose, California. On that time, the Company has not said whether the delivery system will be rolled out nationwide.
In June 2014, some Walmart employees protested at a major U.S. store demanding higher wages. There was a strike in the store protested at the shop. Also, they went on strike in the cities.
In 2015, Walmart was the largest US commercial producer of solar electricity. It had 142 megawatts of capacity and 17 energy storage projects. This solar energy is mainly on roofs.
In September 2017, Walmart acquired Parcel a Brooklyn-based company that specialized in technology-driven same-day and last-mile delivery. The following year, the Company introduced a crowd sourced delivery service for customers, known as “Spark”. It was utilized private vehicles for transportation.
On January 11, 2018, Walmart announced the closing of 63 Sam’s Club locations in Memphis, Houston, Seattle and other cities. In March 2018, Walmart announced that all of its stores would produce its own brand of meal kits.
In September 2019, Walmart announced it was ceasing sales of all e-cigarettes due to “regulatory complexity and uncertainty” over the products. Earlier in 2019, Walmart stopped selling fruit-flavored e-cigarettes. Company raised the minimum age to purchase tobacco products to 21.
In December 2020, Walmart launched a new service called Carrier Pickup. It allows customers to schedule a return for a product purchased online, in-store or from a third-party seller. These services can be activated on the Walmart app or website.
In January 2021, Walmart announced that the company was launching a fintech startup. The startup was with venture partner Rabbit Capital to offer financial products to consumers and employees. In February 2021, Walmart acquired technology from Thunder Industries to enhance its online marketing capabilities. The technology uses automation to create digital ads.
In August 2022, Walmart announced that it would acquire Olt Systems, a vendor management and product tracking Software Company. Walmart has announced a partnership with Paramount to bring Paramount+ content to its Walmart+ subscribers.
In January 2023, Walmart USA announced an increase in its minimum wage for hourly workers from $12 to $14 an hour. Approximately 340,000 employees will receive the raise, which goes into effect in early March 2023.
