Fortune File
The frugal Wal-Mart has expanded rapidly in just a few decades. At present, Wal-Mart has 1,72 chain stores, 952 supermarkets and 479 "Sam Club" storage supermarkets in the United States. It also has 188 chain stores overseas. In 2, Wal-Mart's global sales reached US$ 191.3 billion, even surpassing General Motors, ranking second in the world after Exxon Mobil. In 21, the five Waltons swept the 7th to 11th places in Forbes' list of the world's richest people, and their total assets reached $93.1 billion, which was $34.4 billion higher than that of Bill Gates, the richest man in the world.
enterprise type
retail industry.
growth record
in people's eyes, the American Wal-Mart retail chain group is like a business myth. When Fortune magazine began to select the top 5 in 1955, it didn't exist at all. It started from a small grocery store in Bentville, Arkansas in 1962, and its sales last year reached $193.2 billion. It has been ranked second among the top 5 companies in the world by Fortune magazine for several times. In 21 and 22, the wealth of the leaders of Wal-Mart Group finally surpassed that of Bill Gates and topped the list.
As the founder of the company and now the father of the president, sam walton not only founded Wal-Mart, but also became the spiritual pillar of Wal-Mart. His philosophy of Wal-Mart is a treasure book for every merchant. Even his biggest and oldest rival, Harry Cunningham, commented on him like this: "Sam is the greatest entrepreneur of this century. The Wal-Mart corporate culture he established is the key to all success and is unparalleled. "
Seven-year-old newspaper vendor
sam walton was born in Jinfeishe Town, Oklahoma, USA in 1918. He was a native of the countryside. Since I was a child, my family was not very rich. My father worked as a bank clerk, a farm loan appraiser, an insurance agent and a broker. He was a good bargainer and always became friends with the counterparty.
Sam is more influenced by her mother. Although she is just an ordinary working woman, she has developed many good living habits. She loves reading, is enthusiastic about others, works hard and takes good care of her family. Moreover, due to her poor family, her mother has always been frugal. These qualities were later inherited by Sam, which laid the foundation for his future success.
At the age of seven, Sam began to do odd jobs. He earned his pocket money by delivering milk and newspapers, and raised rabbits and pigeons for sale. At the age of 18, Sam entered the University of Missouri to study for a bachelor's degree in economics, and served as the president of the university student union. After graduation, when World War II broke out, Sam resolutely joined the army and served in the Army Intelligence Corps.
After World War II, Sam returned to his hometown. He borrowed $2, from his father-in-law, opened a small shop with his wife Helen, and learned how to purchase, price and sell. By chance, Sam learned the benefits and benefits of chain and retail. He said: "if I buy something at a unit price of 8 cents and sell it at a price of 1 dollar, its sales will be three times that of 1.2 dollars!" From the perspective of one commodity alone, I earned half less money, but I sold three times the goods, and the total profit was actually much larger. " Until today, this price philosophy is still well inherited.
At the beginning of Sam's business, there were a large number of large-scale companies such as Kmart and Gibson in the retail market. These companies aimed at big towns, and they "looked down" on small towns, thinking that the profits here were too small to be worth investing.
But Sam keenly grasped this favorable business opportunity. He thought that there were also many business opportunities in small towns in the United States. Especially with the development of the city, the urban area is increasingly crowded, and the population in the city center begins to shift to the suburbs, and this trend will continue, which brings a good opportunity for the retail development of the town; At the same time, cars entering ordinary families have increased the mobility of consumers and broken through the restrictions of regional population. In Sam's words, "If they (consumers) want to buy something big, they will not hesitate to drive to a store 5 kilometers away as long as it is $1 cheaper".
In order to win customers in small towns, Sam takes "selling at low prices and ensuring satisfaction" as its business purpose, and writes this principle on both sides of Wal-Mart's signboard. He insisted that every commodity was cheaper than other stores. In order to achieve this goal, Sam began to advocate the business idea of low cost, low cost structure, low price and giving profits to consumers.
in order to realize this management idea, Sam has made painstaking efforts. In the case of lack of funds at the beginning of his business, he led his employees to rebuild the rented old factory buildings themselves, studied ways to reduce inventory, and tried his best to reduce costs, laying a cost foundation for real discount sales. At the beginning, the company's profit target was set at 3%, but later it was reduced to 22%, while other competitors still maintained a profit of 45%. In this case, naturally attracted a large number of customers, as Sam had expected, there are also many city people.
Of course, Sam's lowest price principle does not mean that there is any situation of cutting corners in the quality of goods or services. He is extremely proud of his employees' satisfactory service: "As long as customers open their mouths, they will do anything at once." Low price and high quality are the basic core of Sam's work.
under such a business strategy, the small store quickly expanded in scale, and cheap goods and excellent services attracted customers from all directions. In 1962, sam walton founded the company and opened the first Wal-Mart department store in Rogers City, Arkansas. On October 31st, 1969, Wal-Mart Stores Limited was established.
The world's largest chain retail kingdom
This result can't satisfy Sam. His future strategy is as follows: first, enter the town, occupy the market of the town, and then gradually advance to the whole country, so as to form the trend of single spark can start a prairie fire. In this process, Sam insists that even the town with less than 5, people will be open, which provides more opportunities for the expansion of Wal-Mart in the future, and these opportunities are given to large and cheap stores like Kmart.