Wal-Mart Stores

Wal-Mart Stores
After serving in the US army during the Second World War, Walton opened a franchised Ben Franklin five and ten cent variety store in Newport, Arkansas in 1945.

Over the next five years he ran a succession of Ben Franklin stores in various rural communities in the state of Arkansas.

These were traditional small town stores with relatively high price marks up on the merchandise.

Walton suggested to Ben Franklin company executives that they introduce the stores into the urban market as a discount chain.

When they rejected his proposal Walton decided to start a chain on his own. He opened the first Wal-Mart store in Rogers, Arkansas in 1962, selling a wide variety of brand name merchandise at low price.

At that time, American manufacturers disliked discount retailing because it threatened their control of the market place, and traditional retailers hated the practice because it meant having to sell more goods for the same return.

However, Walton could see where retailing was going. In the same year that he opened his first Wal-Mart, S. S Kresge launched its discount K-Mart chain in the United States, F. W. Woolworth started Woolco, and Dayton Hudson launched its Target chain.

The big American chain located their discount stores in or near large cities, but Walton set out to prove that discounting could also work in small town.

Once committed to the concept, he resolved not just to imitate the other franchised chains but to become a leader in the discount retail field.

Volume buying directly from manufacturing and a cheap and efficient delivery system enabled Wal-Mart to sell high quality, low cost merchandise in locations where there was little competition from other retail chains. ‘Low process every day’, became Walton’s slogan.

Walton strategically situated his stores in rural locations where they could simultaneously serve two or three small communities. He built large warehouse within one day’s driving distance from these out of the way locations to keep the stores constantly supplied with merchandise, using Wal-Marts own trucking system.

The Wal-Mart chain rapidly expanded across rural America, with 190 stores by 1977 and 750 stores by 1984.
Wal-Mart Stores