Introduction
Recently, convenience has been a very big driving factor behind consumers with the emergence of ecommerce and online stores. Therefore, even though Walmart is on the Fortune 500 list and one of the biggest retailers in USA, it started facing competition from online department stores like Amazon. From brick-and-mortar to click-and-mortar, Walmart’s journey has been an interesting one.
Walmart’s Online Strategy
With a 16% increase in the ecommerce retail sales of USA (U.S. Census Bureau, 2015), ecommerce sales amounts to about 10% of total retail sales in the country. Seeing such an increasing trend for the ecommerce retail sector, Walmart has been adopting omnichannel strategies to make the shopping experience better for its customers. By combining the three primary platforms of shopping – mobile app, website and physical store, Walmart is using all three channels to project an integrated experience for the end consumer. Several initiatives have been taken by the company to increase its presence in the online retail space. A brief timeline of
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This was a majority of the country. But, according to a study by Kantar Retail, the average Walmart shopper is a white 50-year-old female with an annual income of USD 53,125 (“Meet the Average Wal-Mart Shopper”, 2014). It used geographic, psychographic and demographic strategies to segment its market. Segmenting customers geographically, Walmart mainly caters to the rural and semi-urban crowd, locating its stores in the outskirts of towns and on highways. The reason being, in USA, the richer households are located in smaller towns and villages, since the lower income group works in the cramped cities. Walmart’s average target customer’s income is higher than the average American’s and therefore, targeting these areas geographically is a good idea for
Walmart is bad for America, as some say. The Globalization essay that was handed out in class had many good points. It states that Walmart puts many smaller businesses out of service. A recent study by David Neumark of the University of California at Irvine and two associates at the Public Policy Institute of California, "The Effects of Wal-Mart on Local Labor Markets," uses sophisticated statistical analysis to estimate the effects on jobs and wages as Wal-Mart spread out from its original center in Arkansas. The authors find that retail employmen...
As seen in Exhibit F, Best Buy has 1,055 main locations that consist of their standard large format stores, and 406 Best Buy Mobile locations that focus on mobile device sales. To supply these locations, Best Buy has 23 distribution centers located throughout the country. Comparatively, Wal-Mart has 4,625 stores stocked by 158 strategically located distribution centers. This puts Wal-Mart at a huge advantage in a couple of ways. Not only is Wal-Mart much more likely to have a store nearby any given customer, they are also better equipped to keep its products in stock at all times. This means more customers visit, and due to stocking, more customers can make the purchase they want. On an international level, Wal-Mart also exceeds Best Buy’s few hundred stores with 6,308 stores in over 11 countries. This furthers Wal-Mart’s availability to customers and puts them at an advantage over Best Buy. Additionally, the increased scale of Wal-Mart’s retail and distributive operations make them extremely competitive on pricing, a major aspect of purchase decisions for high-ticket items like consumer electronics.
Wal-Mart has branded stores in all 50 states and in over 27 countries. Wal-Mart started with humble roots in 1962 by Sam Walton in the small town of Bentonville, Arkansas. Within thirty years, the small local discount retailer grew to one of the largest retail companies in the United States of America. Now it stands as the largest retailer in the world. As the largest retailer, Wal-Mart has gained many detractors. In "The Case for Wal-Mart," Karen De Coster and Brad Edmonds recognize how people “like to attack bigness” (632). Many believe Wal-Mart offers low wage jobs with few employee benefits, discriminates against women, and among many other issues, doesn’t give back to the community (631). In contrast to the constant barrage negative attacks, Wal-Mart proves beneficial to the community. Wal-Mart prides itself on being an equal opportunity employer to such a degree it has the most diverse group of employees anyone can imagine. Most Wal-Mart stores are the anchor that provides a steady stream of consumers to other much small businesses in the area. Beyond providing quality jobs for the people in and around the store, Wal-Mart brings convenience, lower prices, and help to those in need.
Since 1962 and the beginning of the discount retailer market Wal-Mart has been ahead of the retail game. By 1967 there were 24 Wal-Marts that had grossed 12.6 million dollars. In just 7 years Wal-mart had spread into 9 states. By 1979 Wal-Mart was the fastest store to reach a billion dollars in sales. In 2005 Wal-Mart has 3,800 domestic stores along with 3,800 stores internationally, and had made over 312 billion dollars. As you can see the Wal-Mart empire has grown monumentally. To move into this segment of the market would be tough.
There are several key competitive edges that keep Wal-Mart successfully maintaining its leading position in the industry. First of all, Wal-Mart’ multiple store formats allows Wal-Mart to extend their customer base. Since Wal-Mart opened its first store in Rogers, Arkansas, July 2 1962, it has extended its store number from 9 stores to a total 4,906 throughout the four types of store: (Discount stores, Supercenters, Sam’s club, and neighborhood markets) Wal-Mart is able to embrace more customers to fulfill all kinds of demand such as live supplies, groceries, pharmaceuticals, and entertainments. As a result, Wal-Mart’s sales and profit increase significantly. Backward expansion strategy is another key for its success. Unlike other retail stores, Wal-Mart opens its stores in small town first before entering into metropolitan area.
Wal-Mart’s competitive environment is quite unique. Although Wal-Mart’s primary competition comes from general merchandise retailers, warehouse clubs and supermarket retailers also present competitive pressure. The discount retail industry is substantial in size and is constantly experiencing growth and change. The top competitors compete both nationally and internationally. There is extensive competition on pricing, location, store size, layout and environment, merchandise mix, technology and innovation, and overall image. The market is definitely characterized by economies of scale. Top retailers vertically integrate many functions, such as purchasing, manufacturing, advertising, and shipping. Large scale functions such as these give the top competitors a significant cost advantage over small-scale competition.
According to Smithson, Walmart can expand its markets to new and emerging markets especially in the third world countries, which can significantly increase its revenues. Secondly, the company can reform is employment practices and improve the quality standard and in doing so, attract more customers and improve its brand image. On the other hand, the company faces threats such as the rising healthy lifestyle trend I that the company in most cases does not provide customers with healthy goods. At the same time, the company can capitalize on this aspect and increase its revenues. Aggressive competition from other discount retailers such as Target creates a great threat to the company (Smithson, 2015).
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is in the discount, variety stores industry. It was founded in 1945, Bentonville in Arkansas which is also the headquarters of Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart operates locally as well as worldwide. It operated 1209 discount stores, 1980 super centers, and 567 Sam’s Club by January 31, 2006. It has also extended its operations to many international countries. It runs its retail stores in two forms: Sam’s Club and Wal-Mart Stores. The Sam’s Club sells assorted product lines such as hardwares, electronics, jewelry, and to mention a few. The Wal-Mart stores also offer similar products in addition to the following: health and beauty products, apparel for women, men and children, household appliances etc (www.yahoo.finance.com). The Vision Statement, Mission Statement, Values and Code of Conduct, Corporate Governance: Directors, Executive Management, Committees and Stakeholder will be the key elements that will discussed in this report as it relates to Wal-Mart. In addition to that, the major trends in the general/macro environment and industry will be analyzed.
Walmart is a retail giant that just about everyone in America has purchased something from them. It is a one stop shop for anything that a person could ever need. Walmart stores can be found anywhere in fact most people are less than an hour drive away from a Walmart store. Walmart’s success has put many companies out of business. The chains success is primarily from low prices and using an information technology system to meet customer demands giving them a competitive advantage. Walmart’s first major use of information technology came in 1975 when the company leased an IBM computer system to track inventory in warehouses and distribution centers. Computers have come a very long way since this time and are used almost everywhere. But in 1975 this was cutting edge technology and gave Walmart the competitive advantage over other retailers. Another thing that Walmart used to be revolutionary in their supply chain was the use of scanning barcodes in 1983. Before barcodes objects had to be read by a skilled cashier. With barcodes all that was needed was a quick scan and the computer would do all the work. This greatly sped up checkout time and made tracking inventory and data collection much faster and easier for both customers and the employees. Since this time it has become an industry standard for products.
Wal-Mart began operations in 1964 and has since become the world leader in retail. Walmart began with goals to provide consumers with goods when and where they wanted them (Frank, n. d). Walmart developed cost structures to allow its company to offer consumers everyday low pricing. Walmart’s corporate mission focuses on a global growth strategy through concentrated integration. Wal-Mart's supply chain management supports a fast and responsive logistics system. In this paper, I will converse about the history of Walmart, and its supply chain management
In 1945, Sam Walton opened his first variety store and in 1962, he opened his first Wal-Mart Discount City in Rogers, Arkansas. Now, Wal-Mart is expected to exceed “$200 billion a year in sales by 2002 (with current figures of) more than 100 million shoppers a week…(and as of 1999) it became the first (private-sector) company in the world to have more than one million employees.” Why? One reason is that Wal-Mart has continued “to lead the way in adopting cutting-edge technology to track how people shop, and to buy and deliver goods more efficiently and cheaply than any other rival.” Many examples exist throughout Wal-Mart’s history including its use of networks, satellite communication, UPC/barcode adoption and more. Much of the technology that was utilized helped Sam Walton more efficiently track what he originally noted on yellow legal pads. From the very beginning, he wanted to know what the customers purchased, what inventory was selling and what stock was not selling. Wal-Mart now “tracks on an almost instantaneous basis the ordering, shipment, and delivery of literally every item it sells, and that it requires its suppliers to hook into the system, enabling it to track most goods every step of the way from the time they’re made and packaged in the factories to when they’re carried out store doors by shoppers.” “Wal-Mart operates the world’s most powerful corporate computing system, with a capacity (as of late 1999) of more than 100 terabytes of data (A terabyte is 1,000 gigabytes, or roughly the equivalent of 250 million pages of text.).
From the manufacturers’ warehouse to the shelves, the business must orchestrate a symphony of the right products to the right places at the right times. Walmart serves customers and members more than 200 million times per week in retail outlets, online and on mobile devices. The company is able to offer a vast range of products at the lowest costs in the shortest possible time (Chandran, 2001). The main reason for this incredible growth of Walmart is because its distribution centers are highly automated.
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. is a renowned retail goods superstore that sits atop the Fortune list at number one. It would be very difficult to find an individual who is unaware of Walmart’s position as the largest brick-and-mortar retail chain in the world. The company has thrived over the past few years and continues to grow by effectively managing its store operations and distribution strategies. One of the major contributors to the business consistently meeting market expectations is directly attributable to their management approach. Walmart has revolutionized the way retail companies manage their supply chains in more ways than one.
When Sam Walton died in 1992, some industry insiders doubted that the Wal – Mart chain that he had founded some 30 years earlier would retain its prominence as a discount retailer. Lost for good they feared, would be the “magic spark” that Walton used to light fires under the chain’s 1.3 million associates. And, as Wal – Mart stock failed to enjoy the same bull – market growth as many other companies in the mid – 1990s, the pundits appeared to be correct. Today, however, with stores in all 50 U.S. states and nine other countries, Wal – mart has rebounded, leading the pack of discount stores with record earnings. In fact, with $218 billion in annual sales and 100 million customers per week, Wal – Mart is the world’s largest retailer and was named “Retailer of the Century” by Discount Store News.
Online retail and shopping sales has been growing consistently every year, not just in the US but worldwide. Not only does online shopping give customers more convenience, more variety, and more discreetness but it also gives customers better prices. While it is quite true that Wal-Mart has product variety and cheap prices – things customers want – the physical stores do not really give the convenience and discreteness that online retail and shopping does.