Walmart is a retail company that has discount department stores and warehouse stores. Walmart was founded in 1962 and it now a worldwide public company that has 11,718 stores and exists in 28 countries. Walmart headquarters are in Bentonville, Arkansas. The Current CEO of the company is Douglas McMillon. The revenue for the company is 514.40 billion and its profits are 6.67 million. Walmart has over 2.3 million employees. The main competitors of Walmart are Alibaba Group Holding Limited, Amazon Inc., Costco Whole sale Corporation, Dollar tree, Kohl’s, Macy’s, Sears, Target, and many other retailers and wholesale companies. Walmart claims that they have “everyday low prices on a broad assortment- anytime, anywhere” (Walmart Corporate).
Walmart Inc. helps people around the world save money and live better- anytime and anywhere- in retail stores and through eCommerce. Walmart is also known as everyone’s favorite big box store since they sell everything from groceries to cloths to instruments. Walmart’s strategy is to lead on price and to invest in being competition with their assortment of products and to deliver great experiences to their customers. The everyday low prices aspects are very appealing to many consumers. EDLP is something that Walmart claims they will never change. Walmart claims to create a “costumer-centric experience” through eCommerce websites (Walmart Corporate).
Walmart is one of the largest retailers in the world, because of their unmatchable scale of operations and strong power in the market. They have great brand recognition because they have millions of costumers visiting Walmart on a daily basis. It is the most recognized retail brand in the world. Walmart purchased an ASDA and has also joined joint ventures with Bharti. These are both global expansions that will be successful for the company. Walmart is in the top five retailers in the world and makes the most revenue and employs the most out of the top five in the world.
Walmart achieves this through the scale of the economy, efficient use of sources, implementing good practices, experimentation, and market power over suppliers and competitors. But Walmart does depend a lot of their sales in the US market. Seventy-six percent of the company’s revenue and eighty-five percent of operating income comes from the United States. Relying on US can be damaging to the companies since they have international locations. They have also been criticized and had lawsuits filed regarding their workforce.
One of the lawsuits was for gender discrimination in jobs opportunities. Female employees are discriminated in regards to promotions and pay scales according to this law suit. Walmart has low wages, inadequate health care, and poor working conditions. The cost leadership strategy that Walmart uses can also make thin profits margins for the company. Since the company is so well known and worldwide it could easily be copied by other companies, since it doesn’t have any competitive edge over it rivals other than its pricing and its business size.
Walmart’s eCommerce has risen and the market forecast looks like it will reach 4.5 trillion US dollars by 2021. Walmart currently operates in six of the ten largest eCommerce markets in the world, even including China, U.S., U.K., Japan, Canada, and Brazil. If the company expands its eCommerce operations in other countries. This will help the expansion out of America. If they continue to improve their human resource practices then that can make opportunities for Walmart, since Walmart highly relies on its work force. The standard of quality in products to can be improved.
Since they have low prices it also comes with low quality at times. If they improve their quality consumers will be more likely to buy the product, and less concerned with health concerns. Walmart can expand to other markets that have not yet been reached like China or middle east Countries. If Walmart forms strategic alliances is will be given the opportunity to merge with other global retailers. If Walmart joins a small company it can make a profit for Walmart. But if Walmart expands into other countries for new opportunities it might also run into problems like data breaches. If Walmart collects, stores and protects credit and debit card information from each consumer who makes purchases in his stores or online shops. Walmart serves millions of consumers every day in twenty-eight countries.
But in 2017 there was a high record of 1,579 identity thefts that were reported on the Walmart site. Not only could it run into online problems but there have also been other controversies. Like the Impeach 45 controversy when Walmart was selling t-shirts with the words “Rope. Tree. Journalist. Some assembly acquired”. This shirt promoted violence and luckily Walmart was about to blame it on the Walmart market place not Walmart itself, since it came from a third-party seller. There have been other controversies like selling fake craft beer. They were sued for it since it was made by a WX brand but was labeled as “Trouble Brewery”. This brewery was not an actual company and that got Walmart into some trouble.
If Walmart is not careful with what it is selling git could become bigger problems for the company. Knowing the product, you sell is a very important aspect to realizing, even in big business. Walmart also has many primary competitors and a target market. Their direct competitors offer the same product with high quality, like Costco and other stores. Some of these other companies have great reputations because they treat their employees well and have high quality product. Since Walmart does not have a good track record with quality and employment, these companies could gain the upper hand if costumers are willing to pay higher prices.