Impact of Walmart Supercenter Conversion - MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about the Impact of Walmart Supercenter Conversion. Answer: Introduction: Walmart is the biggest retailer in the world. The company began as a small store with the main idea of selling more things for less amount of money but in the last 50 years, the company has undergone tremendous changes which have seen it dominate the retail business all around the globe. On a weekly basis, the company gets a turnout of over 270 million customers who visit its store in 28 countries. The stores in total are 11,695 exclusives of the e-commerce websites which operate in 12 countries. Almost 2.3 million associates are employed by Walmart across the globe and that is nothing compared to their annual revenue which is expected to amount to 490 billion dollars by the end of 2017. As of now, Walmart is in the lead when it comes to employment, philanthropy at the corporate level and finally sustainability. Its commitment is to create opportunities while bringing value to its customers from all corners of the world (Pope, D.G. 2015, 5). In the United States of America alone, there are thousands of Walmart stores and has expanded to other regions of the world. What has enabled Walmart to grow is the innovation which they embraced and as we speak Walmarts customers can shop anywhere at any time using the internet from the comfort of their homes and even inside the stores. Basically, what Walmart does is bringing value and convenience to communities and customers. This is possible whereby Walmart offers a one-stop shop where customers can get all range of products from the grocery, sporting goods, and entertainment. The Walmart stores are divided into three major types or formats which are customized for a given neighborhood and they include Walmart Supercenter, Walmart discount Store, and Walmart Neighborhood Market. The adoption of Supercenters started in 1988 and they are called Supercenters because each of them is 182,000 square feet and employ over 350 associates. What is interesting is that inside these megastruc tures, one can find a combination of the grocery store with fresh farm products, electronics, bakery, toys, and furniture and dairy products. They are open 24 hours a day and have specialty shops like restaurants, banks and hair salons (Joseph, L. 2015, 350). The Discount Store is the pioneer of the Walmarts empire. Sam Walton opened the very first discount store in 1962 and as of 2017, it has built very many supercenters across the United States and one discount store employs approximately 200 associates who ensure everything is in order because the stores offer hardware, health, beauty, furnishing and electronic products. The Neighborhood Stores were first built in 1998 and the main target population was the communities who are in constant need of affordable food and access to a pharmacy for medicine. The Neighborhood Store measures almost 40,000 square feet and employs approximately 100 associates. Pharmacy, health and beauty aids, household items, bakery, meat and fresh products are offered at the Walmart Neighborhood Store (Hwang, M. 2015, 820). Walmart also has the ability to move goods from one distribution center to the next through roads and lastly it is actively involved in social and environmental initiatives at the community l evel. References Hwang, M. and Park, S., 2015. The Impact of Walmart Supercenter Conversion on Consumer Shopping Behavior. Management Science, 62(3), pp.817-828. Joseph, L., 2015. A Geographic Perspective on the Walmart Neighborhood Market. Papers in Applied Geography, 1(4), pp.348-355. Pope, D.G. and Pope, J.C., 2015. When Walmart comes to town: Always low housing prices? Always?. Journal of Urban Economics, 87, pp.1-13.