“Walmart is saving money and living better”asserts Mariano FiscellaVice President of Walmart Supercenter and Walmart Express during the opening of store number 300 in the Macroplaza Petempich in the municipality of Solidaridad, Quintana Roo.
The inauguration of this establishment —held on September 30, 2022— announces the company’s purpose for the future: to become a Regenerative Company by the year 2040, to make use of technology to optimize the shopping experience and take care of its customers. workers.
However, it also hints at its history and its evolution. Since its arrival in the country in 1962 until today, Walmart has become a benchmark in the commerce sector. How is it that the multinational has achieved permanence and transcended temporality?
Mariano Fiscella tells in an interview for High Level that it is a story of entrepreneurship, of understanding and listening to the consumer and of reinventing itself day by day. This is the origin of the retail giant.
Sam Walton: The entrepreneur who reinvented the shopping experience
To know the history of Walmart —founded in 1962—, it is necessary to identify Sam Waltonan Oklahoma economist with a different perspective on convenience stores.
Back then, big retail companies were opening more and more stores in big cities. So Walton swam upstream; he decided to direct his business towards small communities that did not have access to quality products and brands”, says Fiscella.
In 1950, Sam buys a Luther E. Harrison store in Bentonville, Arkansas and opens Walton 5&10 in Ozarks Mountain, whose population was 2,900 inhabitants at that time. Soon after, it manages to become the headquarters of the largest retailer in the world.
The success came thanks to its low prices, a flexible treatment with the employees —whom from the first moment he called associates— and a checkout line that speeded up service times.
Later, in 1962, Sam opens his second store in Harrison, Arkansas and it is here that the name of the company that we know today begins to take shape. wal comes from Walton and Mart of the English word market. During Walmart’s first year, sales exceeded $975,000.
Just five years later, the company had 24 stores in Arkansas and $12.6 million in sales. Around 1968, Walmart leaves its original entity to also start operating in Sikeston, Missouri and Claremore, Oklahoma.
By 1972, the company was operating in five states: Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, and Oklahoma. A year later it reached Tennessee and in 1974 Kentucky and Mississippi. With this, in 1975, it added 125 stores with 7,500 associates and total sales of 340.3 million dollars.
In 1978, Sam’s company branches out into new markets: It launches its chain of drug stores, auto service centers, and jewelry divisions, while continuing to expand into America’s missing entities.
The arrival of Sam’s Club and the 25th anniversary of Walmart
In April 1983, Walmart goes for membership-based business and opens Sam’s Club in Midwest City, Okla. It is a discount store whose operation revolves around the same values as its first store.
After 25 years of operations, the company creates offices to track inventory, sales and communicate to all stores with each other. In addition to the professional ethics that characterized the store, it makes use of technology for the benefit of its business and it is in 1988 when it equips its establishments with bar code readers.
In the same year he opened Walmart Supercenter in Washington, Missouri. This concept encompasses all the company’s contents in a single store: optical center, banks, fast food businesses, among others.
In 1990, the company’s sales quadrupled to $32 billion in the United States. And it is from this moment that it makes its way through Mexico, Puerto Rico, Argentina and Brazil.
By 1995 Walmart had about 1,995 discount stores, 239 Supercenters, 433 Sam’s Clubs and 276 international stores with sales valued at $93.6 billion. His number of associates was 675,000.
The birth of the Walmart logo
10 years later, the multinational calculated sales of 312.4 billion dollars, more than 6,200 installations worldwide and more than 1.6 million employees. On average, 138 million customers visited the stores each week.
On June 30, 2008, after trying various designs throughout its history, Walmart added its new logo to its stores. A yellow ‘spark’ that traces the origins and values of the storeas Mariano Fiscella recalls.
The Spark represents our founder, Sam Walton. He was a person with an entrepreneurial spirit and with ideas different from those of his time. He represents his energy and also that of our associates.”
Present and future vision
In 2020, Walmart generated nearly $524 billion in revenue and currently serves more than 29 billion customers in 11,000 stores in 28 countries. In Mexico, it has managed to consecrate its 300th store, which marks a watershed in terms of sustainability for the company.
The property encompasses more than 20 regeneration initiatives; It has a water treatment system and another focused on efficient energy consumption, as well as containers for garbage separation, access for the disabled and different construction elements made of recycled plastic.
In terms of inclusion, Walmart Petempich will generate 145 direct jobs and about 100 indirect jobs, which are added to the more than 194,000 formal jobs in the country, where 56% belong to women.
The company states that there is neither a specific age range to work in the company nor physical or mental limitations.; there is room for those who want to join the family that originated in 1962, which since then has focused on five promises: Purpose, Challenge, Opportunity, Enjoyment and Inclusion.
In our 300th store, 4% of the talent has a disability and this is not a barrier. For example, whoever has motor impairments, can be accommodated in the administrative area and the same with other cases”, says Fiscella.
At the national level, Walmart is made up of more than 5,000 associates with motor, hearing, language, visual and intellectual disabilities.. This figure represents 2.5% of its total workforce and expects a 3% increase by 2023.
After 60 years of opening its first store, Walmart shows its adaptation and vision for the future not only on a business level, but also on ethical, labor and sustainable issues. What will come in the next 10 years for the retail giant?
In terms of inclusion, Walmart Petempich will generate 145 direct jobs and about 100 indirect jobs, which are added to the more than 194,000 formal jobs in the country, where 56% belong to women.
The company states that there is neither a specific age range to work in the company nor physical or mental limitations.; there is room for those who want to join the family that originated in 1962, which since then has focused on five promises: Purpose, Challenge, Opportunity, Enjoyment and Inclusion.
In our 300th store, 4% of the talent has a disability and this is not a barrier. For example, whoever has motor impairments, can be accommodated in the administrative area and the same with other cases”, says Fiscella.
At the national level, Walmart is made up of more than 5,000 associates with motor, hearing, language, visual and intellectual disabilities.. This figure represents 2.5% of its total workforce and expects a 3% increase by 2023.
After 60 years of opening its first store, Walmart shows its adaptation and vision for the future not only on a business level, but also on ethical, labor and sustainable issues. What will come in the next 10 years for the retail giant?
By Margith Alcantara Miranda
High level Alto Nivel is the Mexican outlet with more than 30 years of stories, content, and news on the economy, finance, business, and leaders.