How Walmart Went From Local Grocery Store To Global Superpower

What began as Walton's became global giant Walmart

What began almost 60 years ago as Walton's, a single five and dime store, has morphed into the world's largest retailer. Walmart is now valued at $396 billion and has more than 10,500 stores in 24 countries worldwide. Read on as we take a look back at how the father of Walmart Inc., Sam Walton, started the Walmart empire and how his family continues his incredible legacy today.

Sam Walton's early years

Sam Walton was born in Kingfisher, Oklahoma on 29 March 1918. His father Thomas Walton was a farm appraiser and mortgage agent. To further his career, he moved his wife Nancy and their sons to Missouri. Sam and his younger brother James, more commonly known as Bud, spent their formative years there. A conscientious pupil and keen sportsman, Sam graduated from Hickman High School in Columbia, Missouri, where he was a quarterback for the football team.

Walton graduates from the University of Columbia

Walton chose to go to college close to his family home and he majored in business at the University of Missouri in Columbia. Walton's mother Nancy is credited with instilling in him a sense of ambition and he worked his way through high school and college. To help pay for his university education Walton is said to have worked as a newspaper boy, lifeguard, and waiter.

Walton starts out at JC Penney

Walton began his retail career straight from college. He started off as a sales trainee at JCPenney, which was then a relatively small retailer. It was here that he found he had a knack for sales, regularly supplementing his basic salary with impressive commission.

Walton joins the military

When World War II broke out, Walton volunteered for military service. From 1942 to 1945 he served as an army officer but, because of a heart condition, he was stationed Stateside. He oversaw security at aircraft and ammunition plants. His brother Bud also served during the war. He was a navy bomber pilot based in the Pacific.

Walton weds

When he was stationed in Oklahoma in April 1942 Walton met his wife Helen Robson, who was from Claremore, Oklahoma. She was a graduate of the University of Oklahoma and had a degree in finance. They were married less than a year later on Valentine's Day 1943. Helen was one of Sam's closest business advisors. The couple had four children: Rob was born in 1944; John in 1946; Jim in 1948, and Alice in 1949.

Newly-weds settle in Arkansas

When Sam left the military in 1945 the couple moved to Iowa and then on to the cotton town of Newport, Arkansas. Keen to stay in retail, Walton began looking out for a suitable opportunity in the area.

Walton takes a Ben Franklin franchise

Walton reportedly obtained a $25,000 loan from his father-in-law – the equivalent of $379,000 in today’s money – to purchase his first retail store, which was a Ben Franklin franchise in Newport, Arkansas. He bought the store's name, fixtures and merchandise, signing a five-year lease on the building. Bud joined his brother in the business following his discharge from the army.

Sales more than double

Although Newport was a small town, the brothers managed to boost sales at the Ben Franklin franchise from $72,000 – the equivalent of $1.1 million in today's money – to $250,000, the equivalent of $2.8 million. They did this in just five years, making it the top-performing Ben Franklin store in the region. 

Walton moves on to Bentonville

When the lease on the Newport store came up for renewal, the building owner decided not to renew it and Walton opted to change location. The brothers opened another Ben Franklin franchise, which was called Walton’s 5&10, on the square in Bentonville, Arkansas in March 1950. Bentonville was chosen because Sam's wife Helen liked living in a small town and it offered a variety of hunting seasons for Sam.

Enter Wal-Mart

The dime store was a runaway success and this gave Sam the confidence to strike out on his own. In 1962, at the age of 44, Sam prepared to open up his first Wal-mart store, short for Walton Mart, in Rogers, Arkansas. Again, his brother Bud joined him in the venture. The chief aim of the new store was to offer customers value for money.

The first store opens

The ribbon was cut to celebrate the opening of the first Wal-mart store on 2 July 1962. From the very beginning Mr. Sam, as he was known by his staff, ran the business with two guiding principles: great value and great customer service.

Wal-Mart expands

Walton's philosophy of 'lowest prices anytime, anywhere' proved a big hit. By 1967, there were 24 Wal-Mart stores in America and they were taking around $12.7 million in sales. The company's first official logo was this Frontier font logo, which stayed until 1981.

Wal-Mart incorporates

Discounting had traditionally only been found in stores in large cities and customers were thrilled that it had arrived in small-town America. In 1968 the Discount City mark, shown here, was launched. It ran on in-store advertising, print advertising and employee uniforms. The company officially incorporated as Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. in 1969.

Wal-Mart goes public

The Waltons initially funded their business by reinvesting profits and borrowing, but in 1970 they decided to fund further growth by going public. Wal-Mart listed on the New York Stock Exchange with the stock symbol WMT and the stock opened at $16.50 per share. The initial public offering is said to have generated $5 million and the Walton family retained a 61% stake in their business.

The first distribution center opens

The IPO enabled Wal-Mart to expand rapidly, necessitating a new head office and the refining of its product distribution process. In 1971 a site in Bentonville, Arkansas became Wal-Mart's first distribution center and headquarters. By 1972 the chain had 51 stores and was recording sales of $78 million.

The Walmart Foundation is established

As Wal-Mart became a landmark in towns and cities across America, the company established the Walmart Foundation to give back to communities. Launched in 1979, the Walmart Foundation have gone on to donate enormous sums throughout the last four-and-a-bit decades. In 2021 alone, Walmart.org has donated more than $1.4 billion in cash and goods across the world. Walmart employees, or associates as they're known, are also encouraged to give generously. Over 12,000 employees spent more than 278,000 hours volunteering in 2020.  

Sales reach the billion-dollar mark

In 1980 Walmart recorded its first $1 billion in annual sales. The business reached this milestone faster than any other company at the time. By this point Walmart had 276 stores throughout America and employed 21,000 associates.

The Walton Family Foundation is established

Sam and Helen Walton (pictured) established the Walton Family Foundation in 1980 to enable the family to give back some of their own wealth to worthwhile causes. It works in three areas: improving school years education; protecting rivers and oceans and the communities they support, and investing in their home region of northwest Arkansas and the Arkansas-Mississippi Delta. The Foundation is now run by Helen and Sam's children and grandchildren.

Sam's Club opens

In 1983 Walton opened his first Sam's Club in Midwest City, Oklahoma. The membership-only wholesale retail club now has a substantial online presence and almost 600 locations across the US and Puerto Rico, as well as outlets in Brazil, China and Mexico.

Walmart goes high tech

In 1983 Walmart made a huge investment in technology and replaced all of its traditional cash registers with computerized point-of-sale systems. This sped up the check-out systems and helped improve stock control.

Walmart connects up the world's largest private satellite system

In 1987 Walmart announced that it had implemented a satellite communication system across its business. Reported to have cost $24 million, it was the largest private satellite communication system in America (and possibly the world) at the time. It linked the company's operations through voice, data and video communication, improving training facilities, enhancing stock control, and making it much faster for stores to liaise with each other. 

Sam does the hula on Wall Street

The hula hoop was a craze with American kids in the 1950s and, to ensure that none of his customers' children missed out, Sam had a stack made for his five-and-dime store. Move on a few decades and Sam promised that if Walmart ever made what he saw then as an unattainable 8% pre-tax annual profit he would do a hula on Wall Street. Well, Walmart made that profit – and on 15 March 1984, Sam made good on his promise, as shown here. The hoop he used is now in the Walmart Museum in Bentonville. 

Walmart goes super

In 1988 the first Walmart Supercenter opened in Washington, Missouri. This hypermarket offered a range of other goods alongside a full-scale supermarket to provide a one-stop shopping experience. Shown here is one such store in Ontario, Canada.

 

Walmart reaches the top spot

By 1990 Walmart had become the number one retailer in America and the company began to look to expand overseas and make its cut-price business a global affair.

Walmart launches in Mexico

In 1991 Walmart entered into a joint venture with Mexican retailer Cifra and the first Sam's Club was opened in Mexico City. Walmart now has around 2,675 retail units, 288 Walmart Supercenters, 165 Sam's Clubs and various other outlets in Mexico.

Sam receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom

In 1992 Sam was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, a moment that's said to be the highlight of his career. As Sam was in poor health, President George HW Bush and First Lady Barbara Bush flew into Arkansas to bestow it on him personally. President Bush said: “We come here to honor a man who shows that through hard work and vision and treating people right, many good things can happen.” 

Sam's death

Soon after receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1992, Sam died from cancer in Little Rock, Arkansas. At this point the company had 1,928 stores, 371,000 associates and annual sales of almost $50 billion.

Sam's eldest son takes over the helm

Sam's eldest son Rob had joined the company in 1969. He held several positions within Walmart, including senior vice president, corporate secretary, general counsel and vice chairman. Before joining Walmart, he was a partner with the law firm Conner & Winters in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He joined the Walmart board in 1978 and, following his father's death in 1992, took over as chairman of the board of directors.

A billion-dollar sales week

In 1993, 31 years after the first Wal-Mart store was inaugurated in Rogers, Arkansas, the company celebrated its first $1 billion sales week. It was a phenomenal growth story.

Walmart moves into Canada

Following the acquisition of 122 Woolco stores, Walmart expanded north of the border into Canada in 1994. Walmart Canada now operates over 400 stores and serves more than 1.2 million Canadian customers daily. It carries nearly 120,000 products including fresh groceries, clothing, home decor and electronics. It also offers specialty services such as pharmacies, photo centers and garden centers. 

Walmart arrives in China

In 1996, Walmart launched in China, opening a supercenter and Sam’s Club in Shenzhen. In China, Walmart now has a global sourcing office, a global e-commerce headquarters and stores under a number of formats and banners. The average Walmart Supercenter store in China is nearly 164,000 square feet. Sam's Club has proved particularly popular in the country. The Chinese additions helped Walmart record its first $100 billion sales year in 1997.

Walmart launches Neighborhood Market

In 1998 Walmart introduced the Neighborhood Market format with three stores in Arkansas. This smaller format grocery store would compete against small local grocery stores. There are now several hundred Neighbourhood Market stores across America.

Walmart swallows up Asda in the UK

In 1998 Walmart entered the UK market, paying a reported $9.5 billion in cash for British low-cost supermarket retailer Asda, although it sold it in 2021. In the same year it also moved into mainland Europe, opening up in Germany.

Walmart goes online

Walmart.com was launched in 2000, allowing American customers to shop online. At this point Walmart was employing more than 1.1 million associates in 3,989 stores and Clubs worldwide. Just two years later, Walmart made it to the top of the Fortune 500 for the first time, marking it out as America's largest company.

Walmart arrives in Japan

Seiyu is one of Japan's largest supermarket chains. In 2002, Walmart acquired a 6.1% stake in Seiyu and three years later it took a majority stake in the company, making Seiyu a Walmart subsidiary. It is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Walmart. In 2018 Walmart announced that it would be launching an online grocery delivery service in Japan, following a deal with e-commerce provider Rakuten Inc.

Walmart provides disaster relief

Following Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita in 2005, Walmart came to the aid of the victims of the devastation by contributing $18 million and 2,450 truckloads of supplies to the relief effort. In the same year, as part of its giving back program, Walmart also announced that it was committing to environmental sustainability. It introduced goals to create zero waste, use only renewable energy and sell products that sustain people and the environment.

Not everything Walmart touches turns to gold

In 2006, Walmart was forced to admit that it had failed to win over the German market. It sold its 85 stores in the country to local retailer Metro at an estimated loss of $1 billion. It is thought that Walmart found it hard to compete with German-owned discounters Lidl and Aldi. These two groups have now also entered the US market and are attempting to give Walmart a run for its money.

Helen Walton passes away

Sam's wife Helen passed away in 2007. She was instrumental in shaping the Walmart business and had introduced the profit-sharing model that meant that staff felt they were a part of the company. She devoted much of her time to philanthropy and ran the Walton Family Foundation. At the time of her death she was said to be worth $16.4 billion.

Walmart moves into Chile

In 2009, Walmart bought a majority stake in one of Chile's largest food retailers, Distribución y Servicio D&S S.A. Analysts have valued the deal at around $1.5 billion. Walmart Chile now runs hypermarkets, supermarkets and discount stores in the country under the Lider, SuperBodega aCuenta, Ekono and Central Mayorista brands. In the same year, Walmart also announced that it had exceeded $400 billion in annual sales for the first time.

Walmart enters India

Walmart launched in India in 2009. Walmart India owned and operated 28 Price Modern Wholesale stores in eight states across the country. Local trading regulations restricted Walmart from opening supermarkets in the area and in July 2020 e-commerce retailer Flipkart acquired a 100% stake in Walmart India.

Walmart moves into South Africa

In 2011 Walmart stepped into the South African market by acquiring a 51% stake in Massmart Holdings Limited. This deal, reportedly valued at around $2.4 billion, gave Walmart control of more than 10,000 retail units around the world. Massmart operates over 400 stores in South Africa and a dozen other sub-Saharan countries. It is the second-largest distributor of consumer goods in Africa.

Walmart partners with JD.com in China

In June 2016 Walmart announced that it had entered into a strategic alliance with China’s largest e-commerce company by revenue, JD.com. As part of the deal, Walmart received 144,952,250 newly issued JD.com Class A ordinary shares, equivalent to around 5% of total shares.

Walmart restructures

In 2018 the company officially changed its legal name from Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. to Walmart Inc. It also restructured its US operations, consolidating its six divisions into four. It's thought Walmart made this move to streamline its online and offline services, helping the company to compete with online giants such as Amazon. It's certainly paid off over the last 18 months…

Pandemic boom

Walmart has witnessed an unparalleled boom during the coronavirus pandemic. In the fiscal year 2020 the company made an incredible $559 billion profit as Americans rushed to stock up on groceries. That's even more than e-commerce behemoth Amazon, which raked in $386 billion. Walmart has always thrived during times of crisis, and its heavy investments in technology that improve customer experience and provide online grocery shopping options have sent revenue through the roof.

Walmart offers COVID-19 vaccines

Walmart hasn’t just been supplying Americans with groceries during the COVID-19 outbreak – stores have also played a crucial part in the country’s vaccine rollout scheme. In December 2020 Walmart announced that it was preparing to administer vaccines once they had been approved and it started administering the first doses to healthcare workers in New Mexico before the end of that month. By April 2021 Walmart was offering jabs at more than 3,800 stores and clubs across 48 states.

Walmart remains a family firm

It is thought that the Walmart family still hold at least 50% of the Walmart stock through Walton Enterprises. Sam and Helen's second son John was killed in a plane crash in 2005. A generous philanthropist, he was a member of the Walmart board. The three other children Alice, Jim and Rob Walton, shown here, are all major shareholders.

The eldest Walton

Eldest son of founder Sam Walton, Rob retired as chairman of the board in 2015 but remains a director of the company. Thanks to stock in the family company, Rob currently has a net worth of $59 billion, according to Forbes. 

The wealthiest Walton

Jim Walton is the youngest and richest of the three Walton siblings, with a staggering net worth of $60.1 billion. Jim spent more than a decade on the Walmart board before he handed his seat to his son, attorney and businessman Steuart, in 2016. Jim remains chairman of the family’s Arvest Bank, which has assets totaling more than $20 billion. 

The artsy Walton

Alice Walton has an estimated net worth of $59.2 billion, according to Forbes, making her the second richest woman in the world. She isn’t as involved in the family business as her siblings – instead, she is one of the world's most prominent art collectors. In 2011 she opened the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Walmart's home town of Bentonville, Arkansas. It's hung with Warhols, Rothkos, Pollocks and works by other less famous American artists. It's funded by the Walton Family Foundation and Alice is the chair of the museum's board of directors. 

Improving America's healthcare system

As well as her art endeavors, Alice Walton is passionate about fixing the American healthcare system, which she described as “piecemeal at best and still not affordable for many”. Last year Alice unveiled plans to open an independent, non-profit medical school as part of her Whole Health Institute, which is a new venture seeking to improve the healthcare system in Arkansas and eventually across the States. There will be capacity for 40-50 students and the first cohort will start classes in 2024.

A future in robots?

Regularly updating its shopping technology has been at the forefront of Walmart’s success, and the Waltons' wealth. But it hasn’t always gone to plan. In November 2020 the company announced it would be abandoning plans to install robot staff working in supermarket aisles. Trials of the automated employees rolled out across 500 stores, but Walmart ended up with a surplus of human staff, who could do the same tasks much quicker. It swiftly ended the partnership with Nova Robotics, which had been making the new additions to the staff rota.

Drones are on the horizon

Walmart hasn’t given up on its innovative tech ideas though, and drone deliveries are on the horizon. The company has announced partnerships with three drone companies – Flytrex, Zipline and DroneUp – as it looks to make its delivery services faster and more convenient for customers. So far trials have included contactless deliveries of COVID-19 test kits to customers in Las Vegas and grocery and household goods deliveries in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

Walmart’s future finances

Following a period of huge financial gains, Walmart anticipates sales will slow down as shopping habits stabilize. The company now plans to “invest more aggressively in capacity and automation”, according to Chief Executive Doug McMillon, as Walmart looks to continue its decades-long reign as America’s favorite supermarket and one of the most valuable companies on the planet.

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