Wal-Mart began as a variety store in Newport, Arkansas by Sam Walton in 1945. He bought his first franchise; a variety store called Ben Franklin, without previous experience managing a business and made many rookie mistakes. He was originally supplied by the Butler Brothers, but eventually found vendors that cost less. He passed on the savings to his customers and made his profit based on sales in volume rather than gross margin. Walton grew his business as a discount retailer. (Tedlow, 2001)
Walton managed a twenty-eight percent compound annual growth rate in sales, and grew into the leading variety store in the state. Then, his lease was up and he was pushed out of the store. The store then became family owned. Eventually he returned to Newport with Wal-Mart No. 18 and a short while later, the small variety store he once owned went out of business. (Tedlow, 2001)
Within 5 years, Wal-Mart has eighteen stores and boasted sales of $9 million. After only seventeen years, Wal-Mart reached the $1 billion sales mark. This is the quickest ascent to the billion dollar mark any company has achieved. Sam’s Club, a wholesaler mainly marketed towards small business owners, is also owned by Wal-Mart. Eventually, Wal-mart opens its first
Hypermart, which is a general merchandise store combined with groceries and other services, which was the basic model for what most Wal-mart Supercenters are today. (Frontline, 2004)
In 1988, David Glass is named president and CEO. He proves to be less frugal than Walton and started spending more on technology and took on more debt in order to build more Supercenters.
The new technology helps their stores to be more efficient and end up saving time for employees. With the many large investments they are counting on a high return based on the revenue they will gain by having more stores. After seven years, the company achieved $100 billion in sales, but lost $7.7 billion in stock value. Wal-Mart, under Glass, has also had to resort

to importing goods from less expensive Asian markets in order to keep prices low. This has caused a lot of controversy in America. (Longo, 2011) This also contributed to Wal-Mart’s maintaining of supply and demand. Through the Asian Markets they were able to produce a lot and keep up with their volume of sales while keeping costs low.
As the largest retailer continues to grow, rival companies start to fight against the growth of Wal-
Mart. In Mundelein, Illinois homeowners were protesting the building of a new Wal-Mart in their town. The Wall Street Journal reveals that the opposition was actually sponsored by a local grocery chain. They hired Saint Consulting group to secretly run the anti-development campaign.
This sort of thing has happened in several small towns. A few larger retail chains such as
Supervalu and Safeway have hired Saint to block Wal-Mart. Over the years, Saint started jokingly calling its staff, “The Wal-Mart killers.” (Zimmerman, 2010)
Wal-Mart’s main competition strategy is basically just sell products at lower prices than the competition and make profits based on volume of sales. They face competition like Saint’s
“Wal-Mart Killers”, but just do their best to push through and build the stores. But even if they lose a store or two, they are so big that it barely affects them.

Appendix:
Rival Chains Secretly Fund Opposition to Wal-Mart
1.
Who? a.
Ann Zimmerman, Wall Street Journal. b.
Staff Reporter at Wall Street Journal. Graduated Lehigh University.
2.
Why? a.
Zimmerman publishes the information in order to inform the public of the reason
Wal-Mart faced opposition in many towns. b.
The article is published in order to inform. The information is pretty balanced and the information is mainly objective. c.
It is pretty well researched and published in the Wall Street Journal and I believe the information is pretty trustworthy.
3.
What? a.
It is a professional publication in a popular journal. b.
It is a sufficient source for information that suits my research needs very well.
4.
Can you trust it? a.
Her sources were interviews with professionals and are listed throughout the document. b.
The document was published June 7, 2010. c.
The URL suffix is .com.
5.
How does it compare? a.
There are many articles on the internet revealing secrets of the brutal business world.

b.
Compared to most of the articles and websites I visited, it is different because I was looking at timelines and biographies of the founder, Sam Walton.
6.
Summary a.
The article describes the measures some businesses take in order to keep Wal-Mart out of their town. While it seemed like local homeowners were behind the opposition, it was led by a consulting group called Saint who was hired by local retail chains. b.
This article addresses the question, ‘Who are their biggest competitors?’ c.
This article reveals how other chains secretly fund opposition to Wal-Mart.

Frontline. (2004, November 16). The rise of Wal-Mart . Retrieved June 13, 2012, from Frontline: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart/transform/cron.html
Longo, D. (2011). Wal-Mart hands CEO crown to glass - David Glass . Retrieved June 13, 2012, from Business Library: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3092/is_n4_v27/ai_6348147/
Tedlow, R. S. (2001, July 23). Sam Walton: Great from the start.
Retrieved June 11, 2012, from
Working Knowledge: The thinking that leads: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/2375.html
Wikipedia. (June, 11 2012). Wal-Mart.
Retrieved June 10, 2012, from Wikipedia: The free encyclopedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walmart
Zimmerman, A. (2010, June 7). Rival Chains Secretly Fund Opposition to Wal-Mart.
Retrieved
June 14, 2012, from The Wall Street Journal: Business: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704875604575280414218878150.html