Walmart

• 1. Introduction

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  Walmart operates in 20 countries and employs 2.1 million people, making it the largest private employer on earth. In February 2026, it became the first traditional retailer ever to be valued at more than $1 trillion. Yet the company traces back to a single discount store opened on the 2nd of July, 1962, on West Walnut Street in Rogers, Arkansas, by a former J. C. Penney employee named Sam Walton. How did a small-town Arkansas store grow into the world's largest corporation by revenue? What philosophy drove that expansion, and what happened to the towns and workers left in its wake? Those are the questions this documentary will answer.

• 2. The Philosophy of Cheap

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  In 1945, Sam Walton paid an unusually high price to buy a Ben Franklin store branch from the Butler Brothers, and his lease costs were equally steep. Rather than accept narrower profits, he hunted for suppliers charging less than any rival store was paying. The strategy worked immediately. Sales jumped 45% in his first year of ownership. Revenue kept climbing, from roughly $140,000 in the second year to $175,000 the year after, and by the fifth year the single store was pulling in $250,000. Walton described his approach as a crusade for the consumer: sell at lower prices, earn lower margins per item, but move far more volume.

  When the lease expired and Walton could not negotiate a renewal, he opened a new store in Bentonville at 105 N. Main Street. He called it "Walton's Five and Dime." That building now houses the Walmart Museum. The name "Wal-Mart" itself came from FedMart, a discount chain founded by Sol Price in 1954. Walton visited Ann and Hope in 1961, the same store that inspired Kmart founder Harry B. Cunningham, and came away with concrete ideas about the discount format. He later said he liked Sol Price's FedMart name and wanted something similar for his own chain.

  The first Wal-Mart Discount City opened at 719 W. Walnut Street in Rogers with that name and that mission. Within five years there were 18 stores across Arkansas with a combined $9 million in sales. In 1968, the company crossed its home state line for the first time, opening stores in Sikeston, Missouri, and Claremore, Oklahoma.

• 3. Growth Into a National Power

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  On the 31st of October, 1969, the company incorporated under Delaware General Corporation Law as Wal-Mart, Inc. The following year it opened a home office and first distribution center in Bentonville, reported 38 stores, 1,500 employees, and $44.2 million in sales, and began trading on the stock market. The first stock split came in May 1971 at $47 per share. By 1975, with Texas in the fold, there were 125 stores, 7,500 employees, and total sales of $340.3 million.

  By the 25th anniversary in 1987, the numbers had become extraordinary: 1,198 stores, $15.9 billion in sales, and 200,000 associates. That same year the company completed a $24 million satellite network linking every store to the Bentonville office via two-way voice and data and one-way video. At the time it was the largest private satellite network in existence, allowing corporate to track inventory in real time. The satellite investment sat alongside a pattern of expansion that analysts later cited as central to the company's success: building new distribution centers within driving distance of existing stores, using a hub-and-spoke approach that kept logistics costs low while stores spread outward in contiguous clusters.

  In 1988, David Glass replaced Sam Walton as CEO, though Walton remained as chairman. That same year the first Walmart Supercenter opened in Washington, Missouri, combining a full supermarket with general merchandise. The format would come to define the company. By 1989, Walmart had surpassed all rivals to become the largest U.S. retailer by revenue.

• 4. Going Global

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  Mexico in 1991 was Walmart's first international market, and Canada followed in 1994 when the company acquired 122 stores from the Woolco division of Woolworth Canada on the 14th of January. Vermont, reached in 1995, completed the fifty-state map inside the United States. That same year the company entered South America through stores in Argentina and Brazil. In July 1999, Walmart moved into Europe by acquiring Asda in the United Kingdom, a grocery chain headquartered in Leeds.

  Germany provided an early lesson in limits. Walmart had bought 21 Wertkauf stores for DM 750 million in 1997 and 74 InterSPAR stores for DM 1.3 billion the following year. By July 2006, sustained losses forced a retreat, and the stores were sold to German company Metro. Estimated losses on the German investment ran to around $3 billion, a bill the company never disclosed officially. South Korea ended similarly: after entering in 1998, Walmart sold all 16 of its outlets to local retailer Shinsegae in May 2006 for an undisclosed amount. Analysts pointed to Walmart's habit of trying to reproduce its U.S. model rigidly without adapting to local preferences.

  China offered a contrasting example. Customers there preferred to select live fish and seafood themselves, so stores installed fish tanks and displayed meat uncovered. Sales increased. Walmart China grew to 369 stores under the Walmart Supercenter and Sam's Club banners. India presented a different path entirely: foreign corporations could not enter Indian retail directly, so Walmart operated through a joint venture with Bharti Enterprises, opening its first store in Amritsar on the 30th of May, 2009. After that partnership ended, Walmart acquired a 77% stake in e-commerce company Flipkart for $16 billion in a deal completed on the 18th of August, 2018.

• 5. The Small-Town Question

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  As Walmart expanded through the 1990s, its effect on existing communities became a serious area of study and debate. Kenneth Stone, a professor of economics, found that some small towns could lose nearly half of their retail trade within ten years of a Walmart store opening. Stone also placed that finding in a longer historical context, comparing it to the disruptions caused by railroads, the Sears Roebuck catalog, and shopping malls. His conclusion was that shop owners who adapted to shifts in the retail market could survive and even thrive after a Walmart arrived.

  A later study conducted in collaboration with Mississippi State University reached a more nuanced result, finding both positive and negative effects on stores near a new Supercenter. Research on food prices showed that between 2000 and 2010, Walmart's entry into new areas tended to lower local food prices at competing stores. Studies also found that supermarkets in direct competition with Supercenters showed significant decreases in profit margins, with the effect strongest among unionized competitors. Dollar stores such as Family Dollar and Dollar General carved out niches and competed successfully against Walmart, partly because they did not try to match Walmart's product range directly.

  By 2005, estimates put Walmart's share of the U.S. retail grocery and consumables market at roughly 20%. Charles Fishman's 2006 book "The Wal-Mart Effect" examined the company's supply chain and the upstream consequences of its relentless cost pressure. The book attracted wide attention; by the time it was published, Walmart had more than doubled in size since the period it described.

• 6. Labor, Scandal, and Disaster Response

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  In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in September 2005, Walmart deployed its logistics network faster than the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The company donated $20 million, sent 1,500 truckloads of merchandise, supplied food for 100,000 meals, and promised a job to every one of its displaced workers. An independent study by Steven Horwitz of St. Lawrence University found that Walmart, along with The Home Depot and Lowe's, used their knowledge of supply chains and local infrastructure to reopen stores well before FEMA began its formal response. Critics noted, however, that the company's labor relations remained a point of contention even as its disaster response was praised.

  An April 2012 investigation reported allegations that Walmart had paid bribes to officials in Mexico in exchange for construction permits and other favors beginning in September 2005. Follow-up reporting published on the 17th of December, 2012, detailed evidence that permits for 19 stores had been obtained through bribery. Walmart internally found evidence of broken Mexican and American laws but was accused of suppressing those findings. By December 2012, the company was spending $99 million on internal investigations that expanded to cover operations in China, Brazil, and India. In June 2019, Walmart and its Brazil-based subsidiary agreed to pay $137 million to resolve the case.

  On the labor side, some employees went on strike in June 2014 in major U.S. cities to demand higher wages. In July 2014, actor and comedian Tracy Morgan filed a lawsuit against Walmart after a multi-car collision allegedly caused by one of its truck drivers who had not slept for 24 hours. The crash killed fellow comedian James McNair. Walmart settled with the McNair family for $10 million while admitting no liability, and reached a separate settlement with Morgan in 2015 for an undisclosed amount.

• 7. Digital Ambitions and Store Formats

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  Walmart's online ambitions accelerated on the 8th of August, 2016, when it announced a deal to acquire e-commerce company Jet.com for $3.3 billion: $3 billion in cash and an additional $300 million in stock vested over time. Jet.com co-founder Marc Lore stayed on to run both Jet.com and Walmart's U.S. e-commerce operation. He argued that Walmart's nearly 5,000 physical stores could double as warehouses for online orders without adding overhead. The strategy led to a series of further acquisitions: Moosejaw for approximately $51 million in February 2017, Bonobos for $310 million in June 2017, and Parcel, a same-day delivery company in Brooklyn, in September 2017. By May 2020, Walmart shut down Jet.com entirely, directing all traffic to its own site.

  On the physical side, the Supercenter format became Walmart's dominant store type. Averaging about 178,000 square feet, Supercenters stock general merchandise alongside a full supermarket and often include pharmacies, tire centers, optical centers, and fast food outlets. The largest in the world, covering 260,000 square feet across two floors, sits in Crossgates Commons in Albany, New York. A typical Supercenter carries approximately 120,000 items; Walmart's online store lists around 35 million products. As of January 2025, there were 3,559 Supercenters across the United States, and 90% of the U.S. population lives within 10 miles of a Walmart store.

  In December 2025, Walmart transferred its stock listing from the New York Stock Exchange to the Nasdaq Global Select Market in what was described as the largest stock exchange transfer on record. It began trading on Nasdaq on the 9th of December, 2025, and joined the Nasdaq-100 on the 20th of January, 2026, underscoring how central technology has become to the company's identity.