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Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
Company typePublic
IndustryRetail (Department & Discount)
FoundedRogers, Arkansas, 1962
HeadquartersBentonville, Arkansas, USA
Key people
Sam Walton 1918-1992, Founder
H. Lee Scott, CEO
S. Robson Walton, Chairman
ProductsWal-Mart Discount Stores
Wal-Mart Supercenter
Sam's Club
Neighborhood Markets
Revenue$288 billion USD ($29B FY 2005)
20,428,000,000 United States dollar (2022) Edit this on Wikidata
11,680,000,000 United States dollar (2022) Edit this on Wikidata
Total assets252,496,000,000 United States dollar (2021) Edit this on Wikidata
Number of employees
1.7 million
Websitewww.walmartstores.com

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. NYSE: WMT, founded by Sam Walton in 1962, is the largest retailer and the largest company in the world based on revenue. For the fiscal year ending January 31, 2005, Wal-Mart reported net income of US $10.3 billion on US $285 billion of sales revenue (3.6% profit margin). If Wal-Mart were its own economy, it would rank 33rd in the world, with a GDP between those of Ukraine and Colombia. It is the largest private employer in the United States, Mexico and Canada. It holds an 8.9 percent retail store market share— $8.90 out of every $100 spent in U.S. retail stores is spent at Wal-Mart.

History

File:Walmart rollback 1.jpg
A Wal-Mart advertisement, showing a Wal-Mart greeter.
File:Walmart rollback 2.jpg
Another Wal-Mart advertisement


Business

Wal-Mart operates discount retail department stores selling a broad range of non-grocery products. Wal-Mart also operates "Supercenters" which offer a full line of grocery items. Wal-Mart also operates Sam's Club—a "warehouse clubs" similar to Costco that sells discounted bulk merchandise to dues-paying members.

As of January 2005, Wal-Mart employed 1.3 million people in the United States. Wal-Mart's corporate headquarters are located in Bentonville, Arkansas. Apart from retail locations, it operates 99 Distribution Centers and Transportation Offices in the United States. Internationally, Wal-Mart employs over 410,000 people (excluding Japan) for a company-wide total of 1.7 million employees. Wal-Mart also operates the largest real estate company in the United States, with an entire division devoted to building new stores, selling old stores, and developing shopping centers around its stores. In addition to its wholly-owned international operations, Wal-Mart owns a 37.8% stake in The Seiyu Co., Ltd. in Japan, with an option to purchase a majority stake in the future.

In the past, Wal-Mart operated dot Discount Drugs, Bud's Discount City, Hypermart*USA, OneSource Nutrition Centers, and Save-Co Home Improvement stores. In 1990 Wal-Mart acquired The McLane Company, a foodservice distributor. In 2003 McLane Company was sold to Berkshire Hathaway.

Wal-Mart stock is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol WMT. As of March 31, 2004, there were 333,604 shareholders of Wal-Mart's common stock.

Retail operations

Main article: List of assets owned by Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
Wal-Mart Retail Formats
Wal-Mart Retail Formats

Wal-Mart operates 5 major retail formats under 3 retail divisions:

  • Wal-Mart Stores USA
    • Wal-Mart Discount Stores — Average 100,000 square feet (9,290 m²) and include a selection of general merchandise, including apparel, electronics, health and beauty aids, toys, sporting goods, and household products.
    • Wal-Mart Supercenter — Average 187,000 square feet (17,400 m²) and combine a standard Wal-Mart Discount Store with a full-line supermarket. (commonly known as big box stores)
    • Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market — Average 43,000 square feet (4,000 m²) and include grocery, pharmacy, and limited general merchandise products.
    • Walmart.com — Online shopping site that offers merchandise different from that in stores. The walmart.com site also offers digital music downloads with digital rights management (DRM) and online photo processing.
  • SAM'S CLUB — a membership-only wholesale warehouse club focused mainly on serving small business owners. Clubs average 128,000 square feet (11,891 m²).
  • Wal-Mart International — operates various formats internationally, including (but not limited to) SAM'S CLUB, Discount Stores, Supercenters, Supermarkets, and restaurants.
Exterior of a typical Wal-Mart discount store.
Exterior of a typical Wal-Mart Supercenter.

Store counts & revenue

Current store counts and revenue for Fiscal Year Ending January 31, 2005 (revenue amounts in U.S. Dollars):

ASDA in the United Kingdom is the largest of the international businesses by sales.

Competition

Wal-Mart's chief competitors in the discount retail space nationally include the Sears Holdings Corporation (Kmart) and the Target Corporation, along with many smaller regional chains such as Meijer in the midwest. Wal-Mart's move into grocery has also positioned it against major grocery chains such as Kroger, Publix, and local grocery chains. In the Sam's Club warehouse business, Wal-Mart's chief competitor is Costco, which is slightly larger than Sam's in terms of sales, as well as the smaller BJ's Wholesale Club chain operating mainly on the East Coast.

Wal-Mart TV Network

The Wal-Mart TV Network is an in-store network showing commercials for products sold in the stores, concert clips and music videos for recording artists products sold in the stores, trailers for upcoming movie releases, and news. According to a New York Times story, it is seen by 130 million people a month, making it the fifth largest network in America, behind NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox.

Contributions

In 2004, cash donations to non-profit organizations by Wal-Mart, its employees, and its customers made through Wal-Mart, the Wal-Mart Foundation and the Sam's Club Foundation totaled more than $170 million (approximately 0.06% of Wal-Mart's gross revenue and 1.6% of net income. The typical Supercenter channels $30,000 to $50,000 a year to local causes and events, some of which may include self-promotion, such as ads in brochures and playbills. More than 90 percent of cash donations from Wal-Mart Stores and the Wal-Mart & SAM'S CLUB Foundation target local communities.

In Response to Hurricane Katrina Wal-Mart donated $1 million each to the Salvation Army and the American Red Cross and $15 million to the Bush-Clinton Hurricane Katrina Fund for a total of $17 million during the first week, making the company the largest single corporate contributor to the effort. Wal-Mart's donation equals .005% of its revenue. [1] In addition, Wal-Mart had truckloads of supplies en route to the affected areas on Wednesday, before FEMA had organized a demonstrated response. Wal-Mart has also donated an estimated $3 million in merchandise to Mississippi, Louisiana, and to shelters in Texas. Wal-Mart has also provided over $1.5 million in emergency aid to displaced associates. Also, separately the Walton family through their foundation donated $8 million to the Bush-Clinton fund, $4 million to the Salvation Army, $2 million to America's Second Harvest, and $1 million to the Foundation for the Mid-South. Wal-Mart also setup an emergency contact website accessible online and at every store in the country.

Renewable energy experiments

Among more than 3,300 U.S. stores, the corporation has designed one, scheduled to open in 2005 in McKinney, Texas, featuring a wind turbine, photovoltaic solar panels, and a biofuel-capable boiler. The building includes many other energy and cost-saving technologies.

The Institute for Local Self-Reliance, while acknowledging that [2] "the features incorporated into Wal-Mart's new "green" store ... create very modest improvements in energy consumption and stormwater runoff," says that it does not change "Wal-Mart's basic business model, which is extremely polluting." The ILSR contends that Wal-Mart's practices increase driving, and that it has a poor record of locating stores on environmentally sensitive sites, especially wetlands.

Employees

Wal-Mart refers to its employees as "associates," and encourages managers to think of themselves as "servant leaders." Each shift at every store, club, and distribution center (theoretically) starts with a store-wide meeting where managers discuss with hourly associates daily sales figures, company news, and goals for the day.

All Wal-Mart stores in the United States have employees referred to as "People Greeters." They welcome people to the store and help prevent shoplifting. At Sam's Club these employees inspect the contents of the shopping carts of exiting customers.

U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton (Democrat, New York) formerly worked as a lawyer for Wal-Mart and also served on its Board of Directors.

Wal-Mart benefits

According to Wal-Mart proponents, these benefits are offered to employees:

  • Health (80/20 co-pay cost varies by plan and health; Wal-Mart pays average of two-thirds of insurance cost.Template:Fn)
  • Dental (80/20 co-pay)
  • Stock Options (payroll deduction option, 15% match)
  • 401k (50% of profit sharing contribution by company, up to 4% of employees' pay)
  • Life Insurance (up to $200,000)
  • Company Paid Life Insurance (1 year's pay,up to $50,000)
  • Accidental Death and Dismemberment (100% associate paid)
  • Short Term Disability (100% associate paid)
  • Long Term Disability
  • Prescription Drug Benefit
  • 10% Discount
  • Stake Holders Bonus (varies per store based on sale threshold)
  • Sick Pay
  • Vacation pay
  • Personal time pay
  • Bereavement Pay (immediate family members)

Employees are eligible for full benefits after six months of full-time employment, two years of peak-time (part-time or seasonal) employment, or 1000 hours worked. Most benefits, including limited health insurance, start at the first day of employment.

About 30% of its 1.6 million employees have some coverage under the insurance plan.Template:Fn

Financial results

Wal-Mart is now the largest grocery chain in the U.S., with 14 percent of all grocery sales -- nearly twice the sales of Kroger ($95 billion vs. $51 billion). Wal-Mart also does 20 percent of the retail toy business. Sam Walton's family's holdings in Wal-Mart if combined would comprise the nation's largest fortune; at $100 billion combined they are significantly ahead of Bill Gates.

Wal-Mart went public in 1975. Since then its stock has climbed from 5 cents (split adjusted) to a high of $63 in March 2002. Its stock has dropped more than 20% since then, closing under $50 in August 2005.

Different explanations have been offered for this success:

  • The company has always paid a great deal of attention to site selection; in the company's early years, Sam Walton would fly over small towns in a private plane to identify prospective locations. The company claims it analyzes potential locations to find those that would support "one and a half" stores.
  • Wal-Mart benefits from economies of scale in manufacturing and logistics; the purchase of massive quantities of items from its suppliers combined with a very efficient stock control system help make Wal-Mart's operating costs lower than those of its competitors. They are leaders in the field of vendor managed inventory—asking large suppliers to oversee stock control for a category and make recommendations to Wal-Mart buyers. This reduces the overhead of having a large inventory control and buying department. Wal-Mart's vast purchasing power also gives it the leverage to force manufacturers to change their production (usually by creating cheaper products) to suit its wishes: a single Wal-Mart order can easily comprise a double-digit percentage of a supplier's annual output.
  • One particular aspect of the economy of scale is the aggregation effect, used in other business such as The Home Depot and Wells Fargo, whereby Wal-Mart sells as many different items as possible. This allows the company to grow revenue over its fixed cost base (more sales out of the same store). This is why Wal-Mart began to sell low margin groceries.
  • Information Systems: Wal-Mart helped push the retail industry to adopt UPC codes and bar-code scanning equipment. Also, Wal-Mart's focus on cost reduction has led to its involvement in a standards effort [3] to use RFID-based Electronic Product Codes to lower the costs of supply chain management. As of June 2004, it has announced plans [4] to require the use of the technology among its top 300 suppliers by January 2006.
  • Suppliers: A spokesperson for the company told the Wall Street Journal on Nov. 18, 2004 that it imported $15 billion worth of goods from China in the year that ended Jan. 31, 2004. About $7.5 billion were directly imported by Wal-Mart; the other $7.5 came indirectly through suppliers. In the same period net sales reached $256 billion, with $209 billion coming from U.S. operations. U.S. current account imports from China was reported as $152.4 billion during 2003 ([5]). Mainland Chinese media place Wal-Mart as their 8th largest trading partner in front of Russia and the UK on the top-10 list.
  • Cost Control: Wal-Mart watches very closely controllable expenses. Hourly associates can be reprimanded or terminated for having unauthorized overtime. Wal-Mart also squeezes out any inefficiencies in the business such as reducing paper used through computerization. Wal-Mart has closed stores as part of it's effort to avoid the expense of hiring union workers.

Criticism

File:Walmart low morals.png
Bumper sticker from Wal-Mart critic ReclaimDemocracy.org

Critics argue that a large portion of Wal-Mart's financial success is due to business practices harmful to employees, the community, the economy, and the environment. Specific areas of controversy include the company's product selection; treatment of suppliers, competitors, and employees; impact on local communities, and effects on world trade and globalization.

In 2005, Wal-Mart officials made public statements and embarked on a campaign to counter some of the criticism through a web site, walmartfacts.com.

Dumping

Five Rivers Electronic Innovations is located in Greeneville, Tenn. It employs more than 700 workers, and is the last American-owned color TV maker in the U.S.

In May 2003, Five Rivers filed an anti-dumping petition in Washington, charging that color television makers in China were illegally dumping their larger-sized color sets in the U.S., thereby threatening to put Five Rivers out of business. The company tracked TV imports from China and found that sales of the Chinese televisions skyrocketed from just over 50,000 sets in 2001 to 1.5 million sets during the first nine months of 2003.

In May 2004, the International Trade Committee unanimously agreed that the surge of these imports from China had injured Five Rivers, and then imposed duties averaging about 23 percent on these sets.

Wal-Mart, standing to lose money if Five Rivers was successful, filed a brief in support of the Chinese suppliers during the hearing, since then it has come to the aide of several other Chinese companies found guilty of dumping. [6]

Opposition to unions

Wal-Mart aggressively, and sometimes illegally resists unionization efforts brought forth by their employees. Wal-Mart has fired workers and has closed stores and departments after workers have voted to unionize, the company also shows anti-union videos to all new employees. So far, only a few North American stores have successfully voted to unionize, of these, at least one (Jonquière in the province of Québec) was closed within one year. Wal-Mart denies that the vote in favor of unionization was the motive for their actions, however the Quebec Labor Board has ruled that this closing was made to punish workers for excercising their right to organize, and has ordered that Walmart pay the workers just compensation, the board will determine the "appropriate remedies" for the former employees at a later time.

In a separate ruling, the labor board rejected Wal-Mart's request to turn over the names of all employees who signed up to unionize in some of their other stores. [7]

Wal-Mart had an illegal section of it's anti-handbilling/anti-solicitation policy that said that workers were not allowed to meet with union representatives or recieve union literature while they were off-the-clock and in a non-sales area, Wal-Mart amended this policy in an informal settlement with the National Labor Relations Board [8]

Wal-Mart managers have a policy of calling the police and having union organizers arrested, for trespassing, in order to have them removed from the premises. [9]

Wal-Mart has maintained books to be passed out to it's management, describing how to bust a union organizing attempt, one that leaked is titled "Labor Relations and You, at the Wal-Mart distribution center", and was prepared by a professional union buster named Orson Mason.

Wal-Mart maintains a "Labor Relations Hotline" for managers to call if they suspect union activity.[10]

Wal-Mart has an anonymous survey given to each one of it's employees, called "Grassroots", the purpose of this survey is to let them calculate a Union Probability Index number for each facility, that tells them how likely a union is to form there, they also have a 60 x 60 foot room at their corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas where it employees people to listen in on telephone calls and e-mails at these facilities, looking for people speaking about unionization, if a union is likely to form, Wal-Mart flies a team of professional union busters to that location to try and stop the union from getting in. [11]

Wal-Mart describes it's position on unions as follows:

"Our Walmart union stance is simple. There has never been a need for a Walmart union due to the familiar, special relationship between Wal-Mart associates and their managers. Wal Mart has encouraging and advantageous relationships with both our loyal and happy associates on the floor of each Wal Mart facility and our wonderful managerial staff. There has yet to be a standard in Walmart union history for a union to be needed.

Due to our amicable relationships between our associates and managers and executives, we believe there is no need for third-party representation. Our Walmart union stance does not suggest that we feel unions are unnecessary for all corporations. We merely believe that a Walmart union is unnecessary. Since we believe in fostering an environment of open communications and encouraging associates to express their ideas, comments, and concerns to their managers where they can be addressed in a personal and timely manner, a Walmart union is superfluous. Our direct relationships with our associates will provide the best protection for our alliance with our associates. Wal-Mart and our associates have consistently chosen not to have a union step into the middle of our partnership." [12]

Treatment of employees

Wal-Mart keeps its wages low, even by general industry standards. According to a government report, as of 2001, the average supermarket employee earned $10.35 per hour, sales clerks at Wal-Mart on the other hand made only $8.23 per hour on average, or $13,861 per year.

In January 2004, the New York Times reported on an internal Wal-Mart audit which found “extensive violations of child-labor laws and state regulations requiring time for breaks and meals.” One week of time records from 25,000 employees in July 2000 found 1,371 instances of minors working too late, during school hours, or for too many hours in a day. There were 60,767 missed breaks and 15,705 lost meal times.

Among the uninsured working families in America are a significant number of Wal-Mart employees, many of whom instead secure their health care from publicly subsidized programs. Fewer than half of Wal-Mart’s employees are insured by the company’s health care plan, compared nationally to 66 percent of employees at large firms like Wal-Mart who receive health benefits from their employer.

In recent years, the company increased obstacles for its workers to access its health care plan. In 2002, Wal-Mart increased the waiting period for enrollment eligibility from 90 days to 6 months for full-time employees. Part-time employees must wait 2 years before they may enroll in the plan, and they may not purchase coverage for their spouses or children. The definition of part-time was changed from 28 hours or less per week to less than 34 hours per week. At the time, approximately one-third of Wal-Mart’s workforce was part-time. By comparison, nationally, the average waiting period for health coverage for employees at large firms like Wal- Mart was 1.3 months.

The Wal-Mart plan itself shifts much of the health care costs onto employees. In 1999, employees paid 36 percent of the costs. In 2001, the employee burden rose to 42 percent. Nationally, large-firm employees pay on average 16 percent of the premium for health insurance, unionized grocery workers typically pay nothing.

Studies show that much of the decline in employer-based health coverage is due to shifts of premium costs from employers to employees.

[13]

At Wal-Mart, managers are judged in part on their ability to keep payroll costs at a strict percentage of sales, according to former managers. Some say that puts extra pressure on higher-paid workers to be more productive. "You keep people making $10 an hour to a high standard, putting more pressure on them for small mistakes.", says Lyndol Jackson, a former Wal-Mart manager. "Often, those workers quit and can be replaced less expensively.", adds Mr. Jackson. [14]

Founder Sam Walton once argued that his company should be exempt from the minimum wage, and took advantage of an exception in the minimum wage law that, at the time, excluded small businesses from having to pay the minimum wage. While the federal minimum wage in 1962 was $1.50 an hour, Walton regularly paid his employees only 50 to 70 cents per hour. (Palast, 121).

Wal-Mart is currently facing an $11 billion sex discrimination lawsuit that has been granted class action status by the district court hearing the case.

In 2000, Wal-Mart paid $50 million to settle a class-action suit that asserted that 69,000 current and former Wal-Mart employees in Colorado had worked off-the-clock. These employees, as well as several former managers, have testified that Wal-Mart had an unofficial policy requiring off-the-clock work, to keep the cost of payroll down. [15]

Under an arrangement, disclosed by The New York Times, Wal-Mart will be allowed 15 days to investigate and rectify employee complaints before the Department of Labor conducts any investigation. Upon receiving a complaint about a potential violation of wage and hour laws, DOL’s field offices around the country are now instructed to notify the DOL office in Little Rock, Arkansas, which will then notify Wal-Mart’s headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas of the complaint. The Department will not launch its own investigation during that time and it remains unclear under what circumstance it would launch an investigation after the 15 day period ends, Representative George Miller (D-California) requested an investigation by the DOL’s Inspector General to determine whether the arrangement represents a sweetheart deal between the Bush Administration and Wal-Mart. [16]

In the past, Wal-Mart took out corporate owned life insurance policies on low level employees, such as janitors, cashiers, cart pushers, and stockers. This type of insurance is usually purchased to cover a company against financial loss when an executive or other high ranking employee dies. In this case it is usually known as Key Man Insurance, but the policies that Wal-Mart took out on its rank-and-file workers are usually known as "Dead Peasant Insurance" or "Janitor Insurance". Critics charge that the company was trying to profit from the deaths of its employees, and take advantage of a loophole in a tax law which allowed them to deduct the premiums.

The practice was stopped in the mid-1990s when the federal government, which had previously called the financing scheme "tax arbitrage," closed the tax loophole and began to pursue Wal-Mart for back taxes. [17]

Locked-in workers have had to wait for hours off-the-clock for a manager to show up to let them go home after they completed their shift. One worker claims to have broken his foot on the job and had to wait four hours for someone to open the door. Another worker alleges she cut her hand with box cutters one night and was forced to wait until morning to go to the hospital, where she received thirteen stitches.

According to recent reports, ten percent of Wal-Mart’s stores are subjected to a nighttime lockdown. [18]

Illegal use of undocumented workers

Among the lowest paid workers in the U.S. economy are undocumented immigrants. As was reported in the fall of 2003, these workers are not foreign to the floors of Wal-Mart stores. On October 23, 2003, federal agents raided 61 Wal-Mart stores in 21 states. When they left, the agents had arrested 250 nightshift janitors who were undocumented workers. Following the arrests, a grand jury convened to consider charging Wal-Mart executives with labor racketeering crimes for knowingly allowing undocumented workers to work at their stores. The workers themselves were employed by agencies Wal-Mart contracted with for cheap cleaning services. While Wal-Mart executives have tried to lay the blame squarely with the contractors, federal investigators point to wiretapped conversations showing that executives knew the workers were undocumented. Additionally, some of the janitors have filed a class-action lawsuit against Wal-Mart alleging both racketeering and wage-and-hour violations. According to the janitors, Wal-Mart and its contractors failed to pay them overtime totaling, along with other damages, $200,000. One of the plaintiffs told the New York Times that he worked seven days per week for eight months, earning $325 for 60-hour weeks, and he never received overtime. A legal question now being raised is whether these undocumented workers even have the right to sue their employers. This recent raid was not the first time Wal-Mart was caught using undocumented workers. In 1998 and 2001, federal agents arrested 102 undocumented workers at Wal-Marts around the country.

Wal-Mart eventually settled the lawsuit the government brought against them, for $11 million dollars.

[19]

Workforce diversity

Wal-Mart has received low scores on the Corporate Equality Index, published by the Human Rights Campaign, a measure of how companies treat gay and lesbian employees and consumers. The company received a 57% rating in the 2005 edition, a 43% rating in the 2003 and 2004 editions, and a 14% rating in the 2002 edition. [20] [21]

Product controversy

Wal-Mart is accused of allowing right wing, conservative and religious viewpoints to influence its product selection. Critics claim that this effectively forces the company's opinions on morality onto customers and suppliers. Wal-Mart points out that these products are readily available from other suppliers, however, the items that Wal-Mart has excluded from its product lineup usually don't make up enough of a competitors sales to keep the competitor in business, and therefore, Wal-Mart might be the only source for music, movies, books, magazines, and video games within a large distance.

Examples of items that Wal-Mart refuses to sell are music with explicit lyrics, certain magazines such as "Maxim", and a number of different types of birth control.

Originally, Wal-Mart did not label their compact discs as being edited, and did not accept returns due to copyright concerns. Only after critics claimed this to be a ploy by Wal-Mart to push the sales of censored products, did Wal-Mart start labeling these discs "EDITED". [22]

Supplier relations and predatory pricing

Wal-Mart has been prosecuted for predatory pricing behavior, temporarily lowering prices in order to drive competitors out of business and develop local monopolies. The chain has been found guilty of predatory pricing in lower courts, but those convictions have been overturned on appeal. There are also several ongoing cases alleging predatory pricing. There have been no successful federal or state actions to sanction Wal-Mart for practicing predatory pricing.

Most grocers charge several fees in order to carry a supplier's product. A slotting fee is charged for placing a product on the shelf. In addition to slotting fees, retailers may also charge promotional, advertising and stocking fees. According to an FTC study, the practice is "widespread" in the supermarket industry. According to retailers, fees serve to efficiently allocate scarce retail shelf space, help balance the risk of new product failure between manufacturers and retailers, help manufacturers signal private information about potential success of new products, and serve to widen retail distribution for manufacturers by mitigating retail competition. Vendors charge that slotting fees are a move by the grocery industry to profiteer at their suppliers' expense. [23] Wal-Mart pays the supplier only for the actual cost of the goods themselves, and the supplier pays no fees to Wal-Mart. Template:Fn

In its negotiations with suppliers, Wal-Mart demands that prices go down from year to year. If a vendor does not comply with Wal-Mart's request for reduced prices, they risk having their entire brand removed from Wal-Mart's shelves in favor of a lower-priced competitor or a less expensive store brand. This can put pressure on suppliers to shift jobs to factories in third world countries or reduce the quality of the product. A CEO of one of Wal-Mart's suppliers said that the price Wal-Mart requested from his company for a particular product was so low that he couldn't afford to keep production in America, even if he didn't have to pay his workers anything. [24]

Local community impacts

Economic impact
Community activists often organize campaigns against proposed new store locations, but the effects of Wal-Mart stores on the communities in which they operate is a topic of some controversy.
Critics of Wal-Mart and some academic studies, particularly out of the University of Iowa, demonstrate that Wal-Mart displaces locally-owned stores resulting in the reduction of locally-owned corporate assets and real estate, and the destruction or displacement of higher paying jobs. Other studies, including several recently from the University of Missouri, have found that Wal-Mart stores either do not have negative impacts or have been found to positively impact a community by affecting lower prices, increased employment and increased establishment counts.
Wal-Mart claims that their entry into local grocery markets lowers prices, and that this is equivalent to an increase in consumers' real incomes in the local economy.
Political cartoon regarding Wal-Mart's store in Teotihuacan, roughly translated it reads "If the Conquistadores put churches on the top of the pyramids, why no letting Wal-mart put a supermarket?"
Cultural impact
When Wal-Mart opened a Superstore in Teotihuacan, community members protested the opening as being, "like planting the staff of globalization" ([25]), because of its proximity to cultural landmarks such as the Pyramid of the Moon. Archaeological experts were on hand during construction, and assisted in recovering a Pre-Columbian altar, to make way for the store's parking lot.

Trade with China

Some have criticized the company for buying so many products from businesses in the People's Republic of China, contributing to the enormous U.S. trade deficit with China. Wal-Mart accounted for $12 billion dollars of the $103 billion dollar US trade deficit in 2002. [26] Critics say this trade helps support China's oppressive government and helps them fund their military to further threaten Taiwan, and leads to joblessness and poverty in the United States. Others would note, however, that as economic development has occurred in China, affluence and greater appetite for civil liberties have grown as well.

Industry observers also note that most major retailers purchase goods produced in China as well as other countries, because the cost of labor is less than in the United States.

Wal-Mart is satirized in The Simpsons as Sprawl-Mart. In a 2005 episode ("On A Clear Day I Can't See My Sister"), the Springfield Sprawl-Mart carries the sign "Not a parody of Wal-Mart".

Wal-Mart is featured in an episode of South Park, in which a Wal-Mart is built in town and causes all of the other stores within South Park to close. Wal-Mart is seen as a seperate entity, building itself across the nation to take over everything, and forcing the employees to work there in order to be able to afford to buy anything at all in the towns. Stan and Kyle eventually destroy the Wal-Mart by killing its heart, which is located in the electronics department.

Statistics

Key employees

Executive Board
S. Robson Walton Chairman of the Board
H. Lee Scott, Jr. President, CEO, Director (2004 Compensation: $12,444,790 USD)
Thomas M. Schoewe CFO (2004 Compensation: $2,681,682 USD)
Non Executive Board
David D. Glass Chairman of the Executive Committee, Director
James W. Breyer Director
Michele M. Burns Director
Roland A. Hernandez Director
John D. Opie Director
Paul J. Reason Director
Jack C. Shewmaker Director
Jose H. Villarreal Director
Christopher J. Williams Director
Senior Management (non-exhaustive list)
John B. Menzer EVP and President and CEO, Wal-Mart International Division
Michael T. Duke EVP and President and CEO, Wal-Mart Stores Division
Eduardo Castro-Wright EVP and COO, Wal-Mart Stores Division
Linda M. Dillman EVP and CIO
Rollin L. Ford EVP, Logistics and Supply Chain
Lawrence V. Jackson EVP, People Division (Chief HR Officer)
Charles M. Holley, Jr. SVP, CAO, Controller
Thomas D. Hyde EVP, Legal and Corporate Affairs, Corporate Secretary
Karen Stuckey SVP of Product Development, Wal-Mart Stores USA
C. Douglas McMillon EVP; President and CEO, SAM'S CLUB USA

See also

Wal-Mart

Other

Wal-Mart corporate web sites

Articles & reports

Documentaries

Books about Wal-Mart

  • The Bully of Bentonville: How the High Cost of Wal-Mart's Everyday Low Prices Is Hurting America, by Anthony Bianco (2006)-ISBN 0385513569
  • Data Warehousing: Using the Wal-Mart Model, by Paul Westerman (2000)-ISBN 155860684X
  • How Wal-Mart Is Destroying America and the World: And What You Can Do about It (3rd edition), by Bill Quinn (2005)-ISBN 1580086683
  • In Sam We Trust: The Untold Story of Sam Walton and Wal-Mart, the World's Most Powerful Retailer, by Bob Ortega (1998)-ISBN 0812963776
  • Selling Women Short: The Landmark Battle for Workers' Rights at Wal-Mart, by Liza Featherstone (2004)-ISBN 0465023169
  • Wal-Mart: A Field Guide to America's Largest Company and the World's Largest Employer, by Nelson Lichtenstein (2006)-ISBN 1595580212
  • Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, by Disinformation Company (2005)-ISBN 1932857249
  • The Wal-Mart Decade: How a New Generation of Leaders Turned Sam Walton's Legacy into the World's #1 Company, by Robert Slater (2003)-ISBN 1591840066
  • The Wal-Mart Triumph: Inside the World's #1 Company, by Robert Slater (2004)-ISBN 1591840430
  • The Wal-Mart Way: The Inside Story of the Success of the World's Largest Company, by Don Soderquist (2005)-ISBN 0785261192
  • What I Learned from Sam Walton: How to Compete and Thrive in a Wal-Mart World, by Michael Bergdahl (2004)-ISBN 0471679984

Other Books and References

Critics

Blogs

Data

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