Detailed Analysis of Walmart Retail Store's Business Strategies

This report provides a detailed analysis of Walmart, the world's largest retailer. It begins with an overview of Walmart's growth and global presence, highlighting its weekly customer turnout and substantial revenue. The report then delves into Walmart's commitment to innovation, customer value, and community engagement. It further examines the three primary store formats: Walmart Supercenter, Discount Store, and Neighborhood Market, detailing their characteristics, offerings, and target demographics. The Supercenters, known for their vast size and diverse product range, the Discount Stores which were the pioneer of Walmart's empire, and the Neighborhood Markets, designed to cater to local communities with affordable food and pharmacy services are also discussed. Finally, the report touches upon Walmart's distribution capabilities and its involvement in social and environmental initiatives, providing a comprehensive understanding of Walmart's business model and operational strategies.

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WALMART RETAIL STORE
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WALMART RETAIL STORE
Walmart is the biggest retailer in the world. The company began as a small store with the
main idea of selling more things for less amount of money but in the last 50 years, the company
has undergone tremendous changes which have seen it dominate the retail business all around the
globe. On a weekly basis, the company gets a turnout of over 270 million customers who visit its
store in 28 countries. The stores in total are 11,695 exclusives of the e-commerce websites which
operate in 12 countries. Almost 2.3 million associates are employed by Walmart across the globe
and that is nothing compared to their annual revenue which is expected to amount to 490 billion
dollars by the end of 2017. As of now, Walmart is in the lead when it comes to employment,
philanthropy at the corporate level and finally sustainability. Its commitment is to create
opportunities while bringing value to its customers from all corners of the world (Pope, D.G.
2015, 5).
In the United States of America alone, there are thousands of Walmart stores and has
expanded to other regions of the world. What has enabled Walmart to grow is the innovation
which they embraced and as we speak Walmart’s customers can shop anywhere at any time
using the internet from the comfort of their homes and even inside the stores. Basically, what
Walmart does is bringing value and convenience to communities and customers. This is possible
whereby Walmart offers a one-stop shop where customers can get all range of products from the
grocery, sporting goods, and entertainment. The Walmart stores are divided into three major
types or formats which are customized for a given neighborhood and they include Walmart
Supercenter, Walmart discount Store, and Walmart Neighborhood Market. The adoption of
Supercenters started in 1988 and they are called Supercenters because each of them is 182,000
square feet and employ over 350 associates. What is interesting is that inside these

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megastructures, one can find a combination of the grocery store with fresh farm products,
electronics, bakery, toys, and furniture and dairy products. They are open 24 hours a day and
have specialty shops like restaurants, banks and hair salons (Joseph, L. 2015, 350).
The Discount Store is the pioneer of the Walmart’s empire. Sam Walton opened the very
first discount store in 1962 and as of 2017, it has built very many supercenters across the United
States and one discount store employs approximately 200 associates who ensure everything is in
order because the stores offer hardware, health, beauty, furnishing and electronic products. The
Neighborhood Stores were first built in 1998 and the main target population was the
communities who are in constant need of affordable food and access to a pharmacy for medicine.
The Neighborhood Store measures almost 40,000 square feet and employs approximately 100
associates. Pharmacy, health and beauty aids, household items, bakery, meat and fresh products
are offered at the Walmart Neighborhood Store (Hwang, M. 2015, 820). Walmart also has the
ability to move goods from one distribution center to the next through roads and lastly it is
actively involved in social and environmental initiatives at the community level.

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References
Hwang, M. and Park, S., 2015. The Impact of Walmart Supercenter Conversion on Consumer
Shopping Behavior. Management Science, 62(3), pp.817-828.
Joseph, L., 2015. A Geographic Perspective on the Walmart Neighborhood Market. Papers in
Applied Geography, 1(4), pp.348-355.
Pope, D.G. and Pope, J.C., 2015. When Walmart comes to town: Always low housing prices?
Always?. Journal of Urban Economics, 87, pp.1-13.