Information AboutWal-mart |
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. () was founded by Sam Walton in 1962. It is the largest Retailer in the world and was the largest corporation in the world based on revenue as ranked by the Fortune Global 500 in 2005 . Wal-Mart's impact is article. BUSINESS .]] .]] Wal-Mart operates retail department stores selling a range of non-grocery products, though emphasis is now focused on the "supercenters" which include more grocery items. Wal-Mart also operates Sam's Club , a " Warehouse Club " (similar to Costco and BJ's ) that sells discounted bulk merchandise to dues-paying members. In addition to its wholly-owned international operations, Wal-Mart owns a 42% stake in The Seiyu Co., Ltd. in Japan , with a proposed $597 million to increase its stake to 50%. This purchase has been approved by Seiyu Group shareholders and The Seiyu will be consolidated into Wal-Mart International in FYE 2006. In September 2005, Wal-Mart acquired 33.3% of the Central American Retail Holding Company (CARHCO), and in March 2006, increased its holdings to 51%. Wal-Mart Central America was formed from the 375 supermarkets and other store formats, operating in 5 Central American countries: Guatemala , El Salvador , Honduras , Nicaragua and Costa Rica .
Wal-Mart stock is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol WMT. Competition in the United States Wal-Mart's chief competitors in low-end general merchandise nationally include Sears Holdings Corporation 's Kmart chain and Target . Many smaller regional chains, such as Meijer in the midwest, are also competitors. Wal-Mart's move into the grocery business has also positioned it against major grocery chains such as HEB , Kroger , Albertsons , Publix , Giant Eagle , Safeway and many other regional chains and independents. Chief competitors of Wal-Mart's Sam's Club division are Costco , with a slightly higher gross than Sam's Club outlets, as well as the smaller BJ's Wholesale Club chain operating mainly in the eastern U.S.. Some people believe that Wal-Mart has driven smaller businesses out of the market. Due to Wal-Mart's focus on more expensive items (and larger population areas), a niche has been carved out of Wal-Mart's dominance by several retail corporations Wal-Mart giant can be tamed .'' May 10 , 2004 . Wal-Mart Television Network The Wal-Mart Television Network is an in-store network showing commercials for products sold in the stores, concert clips and music videos for a recording artist's media sold in the stores, trailers for upcoming movie releases, and news. According to a '', February 21, 2005. Accessed April 29, 2006.. Contributions , Mexico .]] In 2004, cash donations to non-profit organizations by Wal-Mart, its employees, and its customers totaled more than US$170 million, a fraction of that years' domestic operating profits of US12.9 billion. Unlike most corporations, Wal-Mart does not provide a figure for its corporate contributions; instead Wal-Mart's reported contributions include those made by its customers and employees in a larger aggregate figure. The typical Supercenter channels $30,000 to $50,000 a year to local causes and events. More than 90 percent of cash donations from Wal-Mart Stores and the Wal-Mart & SAM'S CLUB Foundation target local communities. After the 2005 Hurricane Katrina disaster on the United States Gulf Coast , Wal-Mart donated $2 million 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. In addition, an estimated $3 million in merchandise was donated to victims in several states. An emergency contact website was set up by Wal-Mart to help locate displaced persons, accessible by Internet and at every store in the country. About $1.5 million in emergency aid was given to displaced employees, and employees displaced by the storm were offered work at Wal-Mart locations elsewhere in the country. According to the November 21 , 2005 issue of '' The Nation '', recently the Arkansas-based company has elevated its investments in non-profits and political causes. Walmart's company Political Action Committee , the second largest corporate investor in the GOP , gave away $2.1 million in 2004, compared to $100,000 in 1994. EXPERIMENTS Wal-Mart has experimented publicly with changes to certain of its business practices. Renewable energy .]] Recently, Wal-Mart has designed two experimental stores {Link without Title} , one in , consuming unnecessarily large amounts of land and locating on environmentally sensitive sites are among the complaints. Attracting upscale consumers In March 2006 Wal-Mart opened a new Supercenter in , March 22, 2006. Accessed March 22, 2006. Advertising in local newspapers After complaints by newspaper publishers in early 2005 that Wal-Mart did not advertise in smaller newspapers, the company placed ads in 336 Missouri and Oklahoma newspapers preceding the 2005 holiday shopping season. In April 2006 Wal-Mart claimed , "our test showed that it did increase product sales, but our margins are so thin that we didn't even come close to offsetting the cost of the ads." 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 is supposed to start with a store-wide meeting where managers discuss with hourly employees daily sales figures, company news, and goals for the day. This may or may not be true in practice.[http://www.alternet.org/story/17193/ 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 some stores, these employees inspect the contents of the shopping carts of exiting customers. Wal-Mart only hires non-union labor. In 2004, Wal-Mart closed a store located in Quebec, Canada after that store's employees voted to become the only unionized Wal-Mart store in North America. {Link without Title} There has been heavy criticisms of Wal-Mart's treatment of its workers, including low pay and the controversial "lock-ins" The "lock-ins" were when night managers would lock the employees in the building overnight, supposedly to prevent theft. Workers in the building would be unable to leave. As of 2004, this practice was in effect in approximately 10% of Wal-Marts in the United States. In a case in Florida, an employee was "deathly ill" according to coworkers, yet the manager refused to come immediately to unlock the building, instead telling the employees to "Fine [''sic'' one of the mattresses. Have him lay down on the floor." WAL-MART BENEFITS According to an October acknowledged benefits could improve by claiming Wal-Mart employees can get better value from taxpayer funded health care than from Wal-Mart's own health plans: "''In some of our states, the public program may actually be a better value - with relatively high income limits to qualify, and low premiums.''" (Transcript Lee Scott Speech 4/5/05) On April 17th, 2006 Wal-Mart announced it was making a health care plan available to part-time workers after 1 year of service, compared to 2 years before. One criticism of the new plan is that it provides benefit only after a $1,000 deductible is paid ($3,000 for a family). These deductibles may financially be out of reach for eligible part-time workers. [http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060417/ap_on_re_us/wal_mart_health_care Wal-Mart estimates this change can add 150,000 workers to health coverage plans, if all who are eligible take part. [http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060417/ap_on_re_us/wal_mart_health_care] The State of Maryland passed a politically controversial bill in January of 2006 requiring that all corporations with more than 10,000 employees in the state spend at least 8% of their payroll on employee benefits, or pay into a state fund for the uninsured. Wal-Mart, with about 17,000 employees in Maryland, was the only known company to not meet this requirement before the bill passed. {Link without Title} UNIONIZATION Wal-Mart has largely thwarted unionization by its U.S. employees with aggressively anti-union tactics. For example, when meat cutters at the Jacksonville, Texas supercenter voted to unionize in 2000, Wal-Mart closed its meat department and began shipping in pre-packaged meats at all stores. Similarly, when workers at a Jonquières, Quebec Wal-Mart voted to unionize, Wal-Mart closed the store five months later, claiming it was due to weak profits. Critics allege Wal-Mart conspired to close the store as part of an anti-union scheme. Another store in St-Hyacinthe has unionized, and Wal-Mart has been unsuccessful in getting the list of union organizers (which, by Québec law, is confidential, in order to protect them against company retaliation) in order to punish them for unionizing the store. The corporation's anti-union policies are a matter of public record via internal documents leaked by present or past employees. 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. Wal-Mart went public on October 1 , 1970 . 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, reaching a low price of $42.31 on September 22 , 2005 . For the Fiscal Year ending January 31 , 2006 , Wal-Mart reported Net Income of US$11.2 Billion on US$316 billion of Sales revenue (3.5% Profit Margin ). It is the largest private Employer in the United States , Mexico and Canada . It holds an 8.9 percent retail store Market Share , with $8.90 out of every $100 spent in U.S. retail stores being spent at Wal-Mart. Different explanations have been offered for this success:
CRITICISM : ''Main article: Criticism Of Wal-Mart '' Wal-Mart is a target of much criticism. Critics, including community groups, grass roots organisations, trade unions, and environmental groups believe Wal-Mart's success derives from business practices harmful to employees, local communities, the economy and the environment. The article on Wal-Mart Employee And Labor Relations presents some of these issues. [http://walmartwatch.com/home/pages/issues In 2005, Wal-Mart officials embarked on a public relations campaign to counter some of the criticism it receives, through its public relations website as well as through television commercials which show employees who have had a medical emergency and have been sent by Wal-Mart to the Mayo Clinic . It was reported in the ''New York Times'' on November 1, 2005 that in response to increased criticism the Public Relations firm Edelman had been retained. Edelman has set up an internal " War Room ", a rapid-response public relations team, staffed with high-profile political operatives to respond to negative media attention. Operatives hired include Michael K. Deaver who formerly worked on behalf of Ronald Reagan, Leslie Dach who worked on behalf of Bill Clinton, and Robert McAdam who worked on behalf of the Tobacco Institute. {Link without Title} Wal-Mart's public relations effort has also included emailing favorable material to Blog gers, some of whom have disseminated it without disclosing that it was written by the company. ( ''New York Times'', March 7, 2006 ) :"Under assault as never before, Wal-Mart is increasingly looking beyond the mainstream media and working directly with bloggers, feeding them exclusive nuggets of news, suggesting topics for postings and even inviting them to visit its corporate headquarters." {Link without Title} April 2006 entries appearing on the websites Whitedust and Slashdot insinuated that Wal-Mart's public relations wing has been involved in an Edit War of the company's Wikipedia article for the past two years. Tactics cited include removing unfavorable information, shunting unfavorable information off to separate articles, and including copious passages of positive information. {Link without Title} {Link without Title} ECONOMIC IMPACT STUDIES IN THE UNITED STATES As Wal-Mart is an enormously large business, it has a significant impact on economies wherever it operates. At least two dozen studies have been conducted to determined the nature and extent of this effect, most of which are indexed here or here (both sites emphasize negatives of big boxes). , Stone collaborated with Georgeanne Artz , also of Iowa State University and Albert Myles of Mississippi State University to show that there "are both positive and negative impacts on existing stores in the area where the new supercenter locates." {Link without Title} In 2002 , the state of Georgia's survey of children in the state's subsidized health care system, PeachCare , found that Wal-Mart employed more of the parents of these children than any other employer. More than 10,000 children who qualified for the program had parents working at Wal-Mart. The next largest employer employed the parents of less than 800 children in the program. A 2002 study {Link without Title} by Emek Basker of the University Of Missouri examined the impact of Wal-Mart on local employment. Basker found that Wal-Mart's entry into a county increased net retail employment in that county by 100 jobs in the short term. Half of this increase disappeared as other retail establishments close or reduce employment over a five-year period "leaving a long-run statistically significant net gain of 50 jobs." In 2004 , the University Of California, Berkeley published a study which asserted that Wal-Mart's low wages and benefits resulted in an increased burden on the social safety net, costing California taxpayers $86 million. {Link without Title} A 2005 study {Link without Title} ("CPI Bias from Supercenters: Does the BLS Know that Wal-Mart Exists?") by Jerry Hausman of MIT and Ephraim Leibtag of the USDA found that because the BLS does not take into account lower prices at discount retailers, like Wal-Mart, that food at home Inflation was overstated by as much as 15% per year. Another 2005 study {Link without Title} ("Consumer Benefits from Increased Competition in Shopping Outlets: Measuring the Effect of Wal-Mart") by Jerry Hausman of MIT and Ephraim Leibtag of the USDA measures the effect on Consumer Welfare of the presence of discount retailers. A 2005 study by Global Insight commissioned by Wal-Mart found the company has had a positive net economic impact on the U.S. economy From 1985-2004, Wal-Mart "can be associated with a cumulative decline of 9.1% in food-at-home prices, a 4.2% decline in commodities (goods) prices, and a 3.1% decline in overall consumer prices," and that this has saved consumers $263 billion in that time frame ($2329 per household). Also in that time period, it is responsible for the creation of 210,000 net jobs for the economy. The study indicates that "nominal wages are 2.2% lower, but given that consumer prices are 3.1% lower, real disposable income is 0.9% higher than it would have been in a world without Wal-Mart." Other papers presented at the conference [http://reclaimdemocracy.org/walmart/2005_conference_studies_links.php (indexed here) contradict some of Global Insight's claims. See also( ''Global Insight Study'' ) WAL-MART IN POPULAR CULTURE
STATISTICS Retail operations See Also: List of assets owned by Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Wal-Mart operates 5 major retail formats under 3 retail divisions:
Store counts and revenue Current store counts and revenue for Fiscal Year Ending January 31, 2006 (revenue amounts in U.S. Dollars):
ASDA in the United Kingdom is the largest of the international businesses by sales. In Germany, however, after eight years in the market, Wal-Mart's yearly revenue is still less than one-tenth of the leading retailer, EDEKA . The presence of unions, the difficulty of obtaining building permits and high competition are some possible reasons for this lack of success. With Aldi and Lidl there are also two established discounters in the market that drive the same price policy as Wal-Mart. CORPORATE GOVERNANCE Former members of the board of directors of Wal-Mart include , who went on to be vice chairman [http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060131/ap_on_bi_ge/wal_mart_coughlin]. He has since plead guilty to five counts of wire fraud and one count of filing a false tax return related to embezzlement and theft from Wal-Mart while serving as a member of its board. [http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/01/31/walmart.plea.ap/index.html] SEE ALSO
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