You may feel as though you're pretty familiar
with Walmart.
The mega-retailer brand is a household name
and one of the most recognizable brands in
the country, if not the world — but there's
probably a lot you don't know.
This is the untold truth of the American giant,
Walmart.
Sam Walton, Walmart's famous founder, was
worth more than $8.6 billion when he died
in 1992, but like many American tycoons, he
started off small.
After graduating from college, he worked for
18 months with J.C. Penney to become familiar
with the retail industry, and in his early
years in the business he franchised a number
of Ben Franklin general stores.
In 1962, Walton opened his first retail location
that bore his name.
It wasn't in the cavernous warehouse-type
building where Walmart super centers are housed
today.
Instead, Walton's first five-and-dime was
a modestly-sized general store on the town
square in Bentonville, Arkansas with a 1950s-style
red and white facade and awning that has been
retained to this day.
Today the building houses the Walmart Museum,
where Walmart souvenirs are for sale, and
elaborate displays recounting the history
of the company are housed for visitors' perusal.
One artifact on display at the museum is the
official Walmart articles of incorporation,
the paperwork which legally records the creation
of a business — in this case, a pretty historic
one.
While much of Walmart's history has been marked
by profits and business successes, the company
has also been through plenty of missteps.
In 2006, the company had its fair share of
struggles, and made the decision to pull out
of both the German and Korean market.
Germany was Walmart's first attempt to enter
the European market, and it did not go over
well.
The stores were often located on the outskirts
of town and not easily accessible for those
without a car.
Before deciding to pull out of the German
market, the company decided to stop requiring
its sales associates to smile at customers
as some male shoppers apparently interpreted
it as flirting.
According to the secretary of a labor union
which represented the company's employees,
"Germans just don't behave that way."
Although the company had lost hundreds of
millions of dollars since 1998 as a result
of their expansion into Germany, a company
spokeswoman called it a "good, important lesson"
for the company as a whole.
In South Korea, where the company operated
just over a dozen stores, they decided to
sell out to their local competitor, and get
out of the Korean market as well.
With only one store in the capital of Seoul,
Walmart was unable to acquire the same name-brand
recognition they enjoy in the United States
and couldn't compete with established Korean
brands.
Walmart operates some 4,600 stores outside
of the United States, and uses 60 different
store names for its international locations.
While the company can change the names of
the stores it acquires, the choice is often
made to keep the names of the international
brands intact so that local shoppers have
a pre-existing name-brand association.
In Mexico, Walmart operates stores called
Bodega Aurrera and Bodega Aurrera Express.
Walmart entered the Mexican market in 1991
and has more stores there — over 1,600 locations
— than any other country besides the United
States.
Brazil is also one of the company's oldest
international markets, with Walmart having
had a presence there since 1995.
Among the company's holdings in this country
are stores such as Toda Dia, Maxxi Atacado,
Nacional, and Mercadorama.
Japanese Walmart locations operate under the
Seiyu brand, and in the United Kingdom the
stores are known as Asda and Asda Supercentre.
While you can buy some offbeat items at Walmart,
most people shop there to stock up on home
essentials at a cheap price.
This helps to explain why out of the hundreds
of thousands of products on sale at every
store, the company's best selling product
is bananas.
This has reportedly been the case for years.
A billion pounds of the fruit are sold every
year in its locations globally, which can
be broken down to 32 pounds of bananas every
second of every day of the year.
While this may seem like an insane number,
author Dan Koeppel, who wrote an entire book
about bananas, reports that Americans eat
more bananas every year than oranges and apples
put together.
Having a Walmart close by may help your wallet,
but it reportedly won't help your waistline.
A study carried out in 2010 by researchers
at the University of North Carolina and Samford
University found a correlation between Walmarts
and body weight.
Specifically, the study found a correlation
between the addition of Walmart stores and
an increase in the average body mass index
of an area.
The researchers' theory was simple — given
the store's business model which entails selling
cheap, bulk processed food, having a Walmart
in your neighborhood can have a significant
impact on your eating habits and by extension,
your body mass.
The study went further to suggest that even
though customers were saving money by shopping
at Walmart, they eventually negated these
savings with higher healthcare costs as a
result of their obesity.
According to the study:
"These results imply that the proliferation
of Walmart Supercenters explains 10.5 percent
of the rise in obesity since the late 1980s,
but the resulting increase in medical expenditures
offsets only a small portion of the consumers'
savings from shopping at Supercenters."
They say that the direct correlation between
the supersizing of Walmarts across the country
directly relates to the supersizing of our
waistlines."
Even if you don't have a Walmart in your general
vicinity, the study pointed out that because
other mega-stores follow a similar business
model, your diet is likely still being impacted
— so if these findings are true, it might
not be all Walmart's fault.
People tend to think of most retail locations
as a generally safe environment.
Walmart suffers from petty crime, of course,
as most retailers do.
Hundreds of thousands of police reports are
filed annually for petty crimes committed
at Walmart.
These include shoplifting, graffiti, and vandalism.
However, there are much larger crimes going
on at Walmart locations as well.
The crimes documented as having been committed
inside a Walmart range from attempted kidnappings,
to murders, to even the operation of a meth
lab inside a 6-foot drainage pipe in a parking
lot outside the store.
Some local police departments say that their
deputies are unable to respond to all of the
calls that come from their local Walmarts,
because there are simply too many.
"Port Richey Police say nearly half of the
city's crime is happening in one place: the
local Walmart."
So what makes Walmart a violent crime magnet?
It may have something to do with the company
cutting staff in multiple departments.
As a cost-cutting measure, greeters who worked
at the front door while also serving as a
loss-prevention team, were cut.
Over time, cashiers were also phased out and
replaced with self-checkout systems.
One new employee is hired for every 524 square
feet of store space, which is a 19 percent
increase from ten years prior.
In other words, there's a lot of empty space
inside a Walmart where it seems no one is
looking.
When criminals think that there aren't enough
employees around to catch them, they're more
liable to commit crimes.
The company's CEO, Doug McMillon, began working
at Walmart unloading trucks during the summer
of 1984.
His summer job paid $6.50 per hour and he
used the money to pay for college.
He reportedly chose Walmart because the pay
was better than McDonald's.
He worked his way through the ranks of the
company and became CEO in 2014.
He earned more than $22 million in 2017, a
pretty far cry from the Walmart median wage
of $19,177.
Though the story sounds a bit like a fairy
tale, McMillon's case isn't entirely out of
the ordinary, as the company claims that more
than 75 percent of its management teams in
stores began working as hourly employees themselves.
With 2.1 million employees, Walmart trails
only the United States Department of Defense
and the Chinese People's Liberation Army as
the largest employer in the world.
Because first and second place are occupied
by government/military jobs, that means Walmart
ranks as the world's largest private employer.
In the United States, it's the largest private
employer in 21 of 50 states, most of which
are in the Midwest and southeast.
Texas, for example, where Walmart is the state's
largest private employer, was home to over
168,000 Walmart employees in 2019.
In Florida, they employed over 107,000 during
that same time period.
Many people have talked about the income of
Walmart being larger than that of other countries
on earth, but it's often stated as more of
a general conversation point rather than a
truly technical discussion of economics.
It turns out, that argument might actually
hold some water.
A 2017 paper written by a student at Fayetteville
State University examined this theory.
His research found that comparing annual sales
from Walmart as laid out in the company's
annual report to the gross domestic product
of countries across the world ranked by the
International Monetary Fund, The World Bank,
and the United Nations, showed that Walmart
was ranked 24th in the world.
Walmart beat out, among other countries, Greece,
Pakistan, South Africa, Singapore, Israel,
Hong Kong and Thailand, but was worth less
than Turkey, Russia, Spain, Mexico, France,
Brazil, Argentina, and Taiwan.
It's a great example of the influence Walmart
holds.
It's not just a store — it's a global superpower.
Though you might not expect it, Walmart has
taken an interest in using solar power to
run its stores.
The reasoning behind this, according to the
company, is to lower energy costs, cause less
damage to the environment, and keep prices
low for the company's many customers.
In 2015, it was the biggest corporate installer
of solar power, but has since given up that
title to its competitor company Target, and
also fell well behind Ikea.
However, in 2018 Walmart announced a plan
to bring solar power to a total of 500 of
its stores in 22 states and Puerto Rico.
This would bring solar power to around 10
percent of its U.S. stores compared to 90
percent at Ikea and 20 percent at Target stores.
But the company hasn't given up on its renewable
energy aims, with a goal to have renewable
power in use at half of its locations by 2025.
Walmart has also announced that it plans to
use power created from wind farms in the Midwest.
The move to solar power hasn't been an entirely
smooth ride, though.
In 2019, the company sued Tesla for allegedly
providing faulty solar panels which set fires
on the roofs of at least seven Walmart stores
from 2012 to 2018.
Most companies as profitable as Walmart engage
in some sort of charitable giving.
In 2005, after Hurricane Katrina struck and
devastated large parts of the Gulf Coast,
the company donated enough food for 100,000
meals.
They've also stepped into help during similar
disasters and donate large amounts of money
annually as part of their philanthropy program.
According to Kathleen Mclaughlin, president
of the Walmart Foundation, the company's charitable
giving arm,
"Business exists to serve society... [and]
philanthropy enables Walmart to go even further
in addressing some of the world's toughest
social and environmental challenges."
To that end, Walmart donates around $1 billion
annually.
The company says its charitable giving is
concentrated into three main categories: creating
economic opportunity, enhancing sustainability
in supply chains, and strengthening community.
Grant-making examples include $1.3 million
given to enhance the livelihoods of lower-income
farmers in India; $25 million given over five
years to advance food safety in China; and
$40 million given since 2011 to advance job
training and education for veterans and military
families.
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