Sam Walton's 'Made in America': A Biography and Business Analysis

This essay provides a detailed exploration of Sam Walton's biography, focusing on his journey to build Wal-Mart into a retail giant. It discusses his early life, business ventures, and the innovative strategies he employed, such as discount pricing and customer-centric approaches. The essay also examines instances where Walton faced failures and how these experiences shaped his business acumen. Furthermore, it analyzes the economic principles applied by Walton, emphasizing the importance of understanding consumer behavior and incentives. The essay concludes by highlighting the key lessons that aspiring entrepreneurs can learn from Walton's life and career, including humility, perseverance, and the importance of prioritizing customer satisfaction. Desklib offers a wide range of study tools and solved assignments to support students in their academic pursuits.

Running head: BIOGRAPHY OF SAM WALTON
Biography of Sam Walton
Name of the student
Name of the University
Author Note

1BIOGRAPHY OF SAM WALTON
Table of Contents
ANSWER 1................................................................................................................................2
ANSWER 2................................................................................................................................3
ANSWER 3................................................................................................................................3
ANSWER 4................................................................................................................................3
ANSWER 5................................................................................................................................4
ANSWER 6................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCE LIST...................................................................................................................5

2BIOGRAPHY OF SAM WALTON
ANSWER 1
The book Made in America by Sam Walton tells how Walton with his innovative
thinking led to Wal-Mart into a market leader. The book consists of an autobiography of Sam
Walton about his life and his works. In this book he talks about his childhood and how the
Great Depression affected his life at that time (Copeland, Nick and Labusk 2013). His
childhood ambition was to become a salesman however, after college he started working with
the retailer J C Penney. In this book he tried to give plenty of advices to any small business
owner how to manage work against all the challenges. After working in the retail industry he
married Helen Walton and then they opened a variety store in Newport. Though there was a
strong competition that time however, Sam still managed to have profits. However, due to a
legal mistake in the contract Sam and Helen had to leave Newport. After leaving Newport,
they opened a new variety store in Bentonville where they faced comparatively less
competition from the other stores. After that he continued to buy more stores out there and
continued to grow. His sells continued to expand although his profit margins were
low( LeCavalier and Jesse 2016). His concept was quite popular and in this way he built an
empire of a large number of variety stores. In the year 1962, Sam Walton opened Wal-Mart.
When Wal-Mart was first opened. After that he went on increasing his stores over the years.
Although he made a lot of money, he was humble throughout his life.

3BIOGRAPHY OF SAM WALTON
ANSWER 2.
Like all other entrepreneurs Sam Walton also used to face failures. He was a
successful retailer in 1950. As Sam was quite young and unexperienced when he opened the
variety store, he had faced loss (Walton, Sam and Huey 1993). Therefore, after a legal
mistake in the contract he had to close down his store. Sam realizes that he used to pay a high
rent for the variety store after a very long time. Sam also worked in a retail store after
graduating from the college. After that Sam bought a Benjamin Franklin store, however due
to lack of legal know how he had to close down his store.
ANSWER 3.
The Newport experience of Sam of legal mishap I turned out to be a blessing for him.
The success took off when Sam started opening discount stores. He used of keep his price as
low as possible and therefore this resulted in increase of sales quite fast. He also applied the
same concept while opening Wal-Mart. Sam also did a quite a lot of research and then started
opening discount stores ( LeCavalier and Jesse 2016). He knew that the discounting concept
would dominate the market. He also started his business in a small market. Also, he made his
wife and children partners in the business in order to keep the business in the family. Sam
also maintained a strong relationship with the customers. In order to provide best service to
his customers he would ask his employees to act like customers.
ANSWER 4.
Sam Walton had great business ideas. He built Wal-Mart into a million dollar empire
with all his hard work. His autobiography is like a bible for all small businessman. However,
had I been in their position I would have also followed their steps in order to succeed. I

4BIOGRAPHY OF SAM WALTON
would also provide incentives to the employers so that they get motivation to work more I
would also have invested money for advertising as advertising also plays a major role to earn
profits in business.
ANSWER 5.
There were some economic principles which are used in the business. One of the
economic principle that was used is that rational people think at the margin that is customers
usually tend to purchase those goods from which they will get the maximum level of
satisfaction in terms of price(Copeland, Nick, and Labusk 2013). His the reason why Sam
Walton used to give huge discounts and kept his profit margins low initially. People always
response to incentives which is another economic principle, for this reason the number of
sales for Wal-Mart was high as Walton used to sell his goods at a much low price.
ANSWER 6.
There are lot of things which can be learnt from the book Made in America by Sam
Walton. It acts as a bible for the small businessman. He offers plenty of advices to the new
and small business man (Ellickson, Paul and Grieco 2013.). One of the lessons that we can
learn is that though Sam was the richest man at that time he used to lead a very humble life.
Despite his fame and money he focused on helping others. The second lesson is that we
should not dwell on disappointments. He always used to experiment with his ideas. Although
in the initial years his variety stores did not run, Sam did not give up in opening new stores
and starting new businesses. Another lesson which can be learned is that customers should
always be given the priority and therefore he always used to ask his employees to act like the
customers.

5BIOGRAPHY OF SAM WALTON
REFERENCE LIST
Copeland, Nick, and Christine Labuski. The world of Wal-Mart: discounting the american
dream. Routledge, 2013.
Ellickson, Paul B., and Paul LE Grieco. "Wal-Mart and the geography of grocery retailing."
Journal of Urban Economics 75 (2013): 1-14.
Ghazzawi, Issam A., Marie Palladini, and Teresa Martinelli-Lee. "The Wal-Mart stores, Inc.:
An American dream that touched the world." Journal of the International Academy for Case
Studies 20, no. 1 (2014): 9-32.
LeCavalier, Jesse. The Rule of Logistics: Walmart and the Architecture of Fulfillment.
University of Minnesota Press, 2016.
Shabbir, M. S. "Why manufacturers are less powerful than retailers in trade circles? A case
study of Wal-Mart retailing business." Journal of Global Economics (2016).
Walton, Sam, and John Huey. Sam Walton, made in America: my story. Bantam, 1993.