He became convinced American consumers wanted a new type of store. Trusting his vision, Sam and his wife Helen put up 95 percent of the money for the first Walmart store in Rogers, Ark. 1972 – Walmart goes public Discounters such as Kmart quickly expanded in the 1960s, while Sam only had enough money to build 15 Walmart stores. In 1972, Walmart stock was offered for the first time on the New York Stock Exchange. With this infusion of capital, our company grew to 276 stores in 11 states by the end of the decade.
The company opened the first Sam’s club in 1983 to serve small businesses and first Wal-Mart Super Center opened in 1988 to combine a supermarket with general merchandise. By 1990, the company was number one national retailer. In 1991, Wal-Mart went global and opened a Sam’ club store in Mexico. Wal-Mart set up international division in 1993 and had strategic goals to expand its business and maintained its price leadership worldwide. By 1997, Wal-Mart became the largest private employer in the world.
Wal-Mart’s growth increased rapidly in recent years (2006), by adding almost one new store every day. By February 8, 2007, the Wal-Mart Corporation’s total retail store count had reached 6,782 units world wide. As Wal-Mart’s presence continued to grow, so did it’s sales, by the end of fiscal year 2007 Wal-Mart sales reached an all time record high of 345 billion dollars. As the business continued to grow and expand world wide, so do its problems. The Wal-Mart Corporation’s immense development brought with it massive conflicts and controversy.
This leader began its massive international expansion of stores from “2,181 in 2006 to 2,757 in 2007 and 3,121 in 2008. In the United Kingdom, there are approximately 342 stores” (www.walmartstores.com). Unforgettably so, Wal-Mart has the second biggest net sales in the world and is because of their aggressive growth strategy. This industry leader has a competitive advantage over other retailers because of their large size, the ability to provide very low prices yet still earn revenue gains every year. In most cities, a few Wal-Marts can be found.
Concerning revenue, during 2014 the industry brought in an incredible 62.64 billion dollars, compared to a 45.72 billion from 2002. According to statista.com, “more than one third of all sporting goods purchased in the U.S. are handled by major sporting goods store like Dicks Sporting Goods, Bass Pro Shops, and Cabelas." The website also states, “even though online sales have skyrocketed, still more than 105 million people go to sporting goods stores to do their shopping.” (www.statista.com, 2014) Introduction to Artemis Sports Group Artemis Sports Group, a sports marketing and consulting group from Boston, started out from its founder's
The company’s first store was in Bentonville, Arkansas. Since the first day of operations, the company has continuously grew to not only become the largest retail company, but the largest company in the world. Competitors continuously try to gain more market share in the retail business, but none can create as much success as Walmart. Competitors such as Home Depot and Best Buy capture customer needs in the home renovation and electronic retail market respectively. While other competitors, such as Target, operate in the same market trying to attract consumers looking for low prices and conveniently giving customers the access to a one stop shopping store.
It has since become a landmark on Fifth Avenue as well as an international symbol of design, with customers that ranged from President Abraham Lincoln to Princess Diana (Tiffany & Co., 2008). Tiffany & Co.’s tarnished image with affluent shoppers resulted in the expansion of the company into Europe, with its first store in London in 1986. The company went public in 1987 and today, more than 150 Tiffany & Co. stores and boutiques serve customers in the U.S. and the international markets (Tiffany & Co., 2008). When President Michael Kowalski became CEO, Tiffany & Co. opened its first online store in 1999 and in that same year, Tiffany paid $72 million for a 14.6 percent stake in its diamond supplier, Aber Diamond Corporation. Nowadays, Tiffany & Co. has recorded sales up to $2.65 billion and net profit of $253.9 million at the end of the year 2007 (Datamonitor, 2007).
INTRODUCTION Wal-Mart , a discounted retailer store, was started in the 1962. It growth remained stagnant since 1970s except in 1990s when its growth rate was moderate. Its revenue has reached more than US$ 400 billion and has more than 2 million employees. It has opened up its stores in 15 different countries and in addition to being a retailer, it has become the largest seller of groceries in United States. As an owner of Sam’s Club, it provides products in bulk to people who pay for a membership, much like Costco.
Running head: Dollar General 1 Dollar General Columbia College RUNNING HEAD: Dollar General 2 Dollar General Dollar General is the leader when it comes to discount dollar stores with an annual profit of more than $12.73 billion a year. The major competition in the dollar discount stores for Dollar General in order are Family Dollar and the Dollar Tree. Another key player in discount stores is Walmart, although not a dollar discount store Walmart dominates all markets with $419.24 billion in revenue. 2011 brought on a year of expansion for Dollar General with plans to open up 650 new stores and remodel another 550 creating 6.000 new jobs in additional employees. Dollar General in owned by Koldberg Kravis Roberts & Co. L.P (KKR) who own more than 79% of all shares in Dollar General.
Even though it started with furniture of Swedish style at the beginning, it now provides various types of furniture for worldwide customers. The outcomes of globalization have been visible through several decades. Despite the world economy crisis, IKEA gained $7 billion of profit in 2011. One of the reasons that contributed to its global success was global sourcing of component from all over the world. Because of the high cost of branching new stores in different regions, IKEA first decided to transfer production to lower-cost suppliers in Poland.