Get a $100 Walmart Gift card...!
Walmart Inc. is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets, discount department stores, and grocery stores. Headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas, the company was founded by Sam Walton in 1962 and incorporated on October 31, 1969. It also owns and operates Sam's Club retail warehouses. As of January 31, 2018, Walmart has 11,718 stores and clubs in 28 countries, operating under 59 different names. The company operates under the name Walmart in the United States and Canada, as Walmart de México y Centroamérica in Mexico and Central America, as Asda in the United Kingdom, as the Seiyu Group in Japan, and as Best Price in India. It has wholly owned operations in Argentina, Chile, Brazil, and Canada.
Walmart is the world's largest company by revenue – approximately US$480 billion according to Fortune Global 500 list in 2016 – as well as the largest private employer in the world with 2.3 million employees. It is a publicly traded family-owned business, as the company is controlled by the Walton family. Sam Walton's heirs own over 50 percent of Walmart through their holding company, Walton Enterprises, and through their individual holdings. Walmart was the largest U.S. grocery retailer in 2016, and 62.3 percent of Walmart's US$478.614 billion sales came from U.S. operations.
The company debuted on the New York Stock Exchange in 1972. By 1988, Walmart was the most profitable retailer in the U.S., and by October 1989, it had become the largest in terms of revenue. Originally geographically limited to the South and lower Midwest, by the early 1990s, the company had stores from coast to coast: Sam's Club opened in New Jersey in November 1989 and the first California outlet opened in Lancaster in July 1990. A Walmart in York, Pennsylvania opened in October 1990: the first main store in the Northeast.
Walmart's investments outside North America have seen mixed results: its operations in the United Kingdom, South America, and China are highly successful, whereas ventures in Germany and South Korea failed.
Walmart U.S. is the company's largest division, accounting for US$298.38 billion, or 62.3 percent of total sales, for fiscal 2016. It consists of three retail formats that have become commonplace in the United States: Supercenters, Discount Stores, Neighborhood Markets, and other small formats. The discount stores sell a variety of mostly non-grocery products, though emphasis has now shifted towards supercenters, which include more groceries. As of January 31, 2018, there are a total of 4,761 Walmart U.S. stores.
The president and CEO of Walmart U.S. is Greg Foran.
Walmart Discount Stores, also branded as simply "Walmart", are discount department stores with sizes varying from 30,000 to 206,000 square feet (2,800 to 19,100 square meters), with the average store covering 105,000 square feet (9,800 square meters). They carry general merchandise and limited groceries. Some newer and remodeled discount stores have an expanded grocery department, similar to Target's PFresh department. Many of these stores also feature a garden center, pharmacy, Tire & Lube Express, optical center, one-hour photo processing lab, portrait studio, a bank branch, a cell phone store, and a fast food outlet. Some also have gasoline stations. Discount Stores were Walmart's original concept, though they have since been surpassed by Supercenters.
In 1990, Walmart opened its first Bud's Discount City location in Bentonville. Bud's operated as a closeout store, much like Big Lots. Many locations were opened to fulfill leases in shopping centers as Walmart stores left and moved into newly built Supercenters. All of the Bud's Discount City stores had closed or converted into Walmart Discount Stores by 1997.
As of January 31, 2018, there were 400 Walmart Discount Stores in 41 states and Puerto Rico. Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, District of Columbia, West Virginia, and Wyoming are the only states and territories where a discount store does not operate.
Get a $100 Walmart Gift card..!
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April 24, 2018
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