Uncle Sam's army: Walmart in the American imagination

Walmart began as a small mom and pop store in Arkansas in the 1950s and has evolved into one of the largest retailers in the world today. The chain’s major hallmark: selling goods at prices lower than...

May 16, 2018, 18:16 IST7 min
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Walton had made a promise to his employees (whom Walmart calls associates) that he would do the hula on Wall Street if the company reached a pre-tax profit of 8% for the fiscal year. Walmar...
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In the 1980s, Walmart invested in a sophisticated inventory tracking system that uses their own satellite network. In addition to track inventory, the system allows technicians and executiv...
Image by Courtesy Walmart
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Today, Walmart is the largest employer in the world, with the estimated number of employees being close to 2.3 million globally (as of Feb 2018), of which over 60% of the workforce are wome...
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Walmart has faced a torrent of lawsuits and issues involving workers’ low wages, poor working conditions, inadequate health care, and issues involving the company's strong anti-union polici...
Image by Jeff Haynes/ Reuters
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Walmart introduced a batch of new employees at 50 stores recently, but they're not there to flash you a smile. These 6 feet tall, autonomous robots (made by Bossa Nova) continuously go up a...
Image by Courtesy Walmart
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Walmart loses about $3 billion a year from shoplifting, and have a ‘restorative justice’ programme that avoids calling the police. People deemed low-risk, first-time offenders are given the...
Image by Courtesy: Walmart
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Since Sam Walton's death in 1992, Walmart's charitable giving has increased and now approach US$1 billion each year. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Walmart spearheaded the relief...
Image by Courtesy Walmart
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Each week nearly one-third of the US population visits Walmart’s U.S. stores. The company tracks shoppers' purchases across Walmart.com and its more than 4,700 US stores. In a recent analys...
Image by Courtesy Jay, Barry &Chuck’s OM blog
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The Black Friday shopping phenomenon - the day following Thanksgiving Day in the US which falls on the fourth thursday of November - sees shoppers turn into raging hordes, baffling social s...
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The company’s retail experiment called Walmart Express failed miserably. Launched in 2011, Walmart Express were small-sized stores carrying general merchandise like toilet paper, toys, and ...
Image by John Gress/Reuters
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In November 2006, Walmart launched its wholesale cash-and-carry business in India in a joint venture with Bharti Enterprises. As foreign corporations were not allowed to enter the retail se...
Image by Ajay Verma/Reuters
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With a 2018 net worth of $46 billion according to Forbes, the founder’s daughter Alice Walton is the wealthiest woman in the world. A Trinity grad, the heiress spends her fortune collecting...
Image by Jacob Slaton/Reuters
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Walmart has built a Tinder for grocery shopping. It filed a patent in Jan 2018 for ‘Fresh Online Experience’, that allows an online shopper to view the actual 3D images of their groceries i...
Image by Courtesy Walmart
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Walmart has just filed a patent for autonomous, robot bees, according to a World Economic Forum report. The patent specifically covers 'pollination drones': tiny robots that act just like b...
Image by Thierry Falise/LightRocket via Getty Images

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