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
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 policies. The company gives its managers a 53-page handbook called 'A Manager’s Toolbox to Remaining Union-Free' which provides helpful strategies and tips for union-busting. Last week, Walmart settled a long
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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 and down the aisles, scanning for out-of-stock items, items put in the wrong place by customers, incorrect prices and wrong or missing labels. They alert human employees of errors it sees, thus automatin
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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 choice of paying to take an anti-shoplifting course rather than facing arrest and prosecution. The effort - rolled out in 1500 stores - is in its early days, but the company has seen a 35% reduction in
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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 effort, getting 100,000 meals, 100 truckloads of supplies, $20 million in cash donations and promise of jobs for every displaced worker with a speed that outmatched even the government. A logistical fe
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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 analysis, Walmart revealed 2017’s hottest-selling items in every state in the US. Here are a few: New York: Cheerios, New Hampshire: Cinnamon-flavored toothpaste, Connecticut: Ghost in the Shell DVD, Maryland
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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 scientists. For many years, retailers opened early with mega promotions at 6am Friday, with mega promotions until they began pushing it back. It was taken to a new extreme when retailers began opening on
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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 a small food selection. Many shoppers felt that the merchandise selection wasn’t quite right (it stocked multiple brands of the same items, for example). Also, the fact that they were usually located w
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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 sector directly, Walmart operated through franchises and handled the wholesale end of the business. The first store opened in Amritsar in 2009 under the name Best Price Modern Wholesale. In November 2012,
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9/11
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 art and breeding horses. In his 1992 autobiography ‘Made in America’, Sam Walton remarked that Alice was ‘the most like me - a maverick - but even more volatile than I am’. She spearheads the Walton Fa
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10/11
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 in real time, and accept or reject it before paying for it online. This service could solve one of customers' biggest gripes about online grocery shopping: that they don't get to select their produce and
