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wal-mart ? where did they got the idea for the name?

2007-01-08 09:01:15 · 9 answers · asked by Antoine F 1 in Business & Finance Corporations

9 answers

It was named after it's founder Samuel Walton and the word market hence the name "Wal-mart".

2007-01-08 09:09:48 · answer #1 · answered by Loo 4 · 0 0

Sam Walton originally started Wal-Mart. His name was the name inspiration.

2007-01-08 09:04:08 · answer #2 · answered by flamingojohn 4 · 1 0

The Waldon family are the founders of Wal -Mart. The name is derived from their last name.

2007-01-08 09:09:46 · answer #3 · answered by mthurm 1 · 0 1

Wal is from Sam Waltons name and Mart is from the latin word for "screw your employees while you make billions".

2007-01-08 09:32:54 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

This article doesn't actually mention the name source, However it is safe to assume it comes from Waltons Market.


First published in the April, 2006 issue of Washington Monthly




In the late 1940s, when Sam Walton was franchising a Ben Franklin's variety store in Newport, Ark., he had a simple but momentous idea. Like any retailer, Walton was always looking for deals from suppliers. Typically, though, a retailer who managed to get a bargain from a wholesaler would leave his store prices unchanged and pocket the extra money. Walton, by contrast, realized he could do better by passing on the savings to his customers and earning his profits through volume. This insight would form a cornerstone of Walton's business strategy when he launched Wal-Mart in 1962.

The quest for low prices came naturally to Walton: He was freakishly cheap. Although he was ranked as the richest man in the United States by the 1980s, he continued, it is said, to have his hair cut by the local barber, a $5 expense that he never supplemented with a tip. (Perhaps he wasn't satisfied.) Cost-cutting was, as one might also expect, an obsession in the Wal-Mart culture, and Walton was almost as chintzy with his executives as he was with his cashiers. On business trips, everyone, including the boss, flew coach, and hotel rooms were always shared. Even a cup of coffee at the office required a 10-cent contribution to the tin.

But coffee taxes only went so far. Walton understood that a major requirement for keeping costs down was controlling the payroll. As he would write in his 1992 autobiography, Made in America, "No matter how you slice it in the retail business, payroll is one of the most important parts of overhead, and overhead is one of the most crucial things you have to fight to maintain your profit margin." Not only did Walton prefer to hire as few people as possible, but he also dreaded paying them more than he had to. Unions were particularly feared, and Walton did everything he could to fight them, almost always successfully.

If such a regimen seems stifling, Walton's employees nevertheless accepted it. In part, it was because Walton framed his cheapness as a crusade on behalf of the lowly consumer and as a quest for a better life for all Americans. It was also because he lived an outwardly modest life, driving an old truck with his hunting dogs in the back. Mostly, it was because he had charisma. Even when Wal-Mart grew outsized, Walton made a point of keeping in touch with his employees on the ground or, as he termed them, his "associates." This would often involve flying from store to store -- Walton had a pilot's license -- for impromptu visits.

But Walton's ability to keep his staff happy also relied on a sense of when to let penny-pinching take a backseat to other priorities. In 1985, amid anxiety about trade deficits and the loss of American manufacturing jobs, Walton launched a "Made in America" campaign that committed Wal-Mart to buying American-made products if suppliers could get within 5 percent of the price of a foreign competitor. This may have compromised the bottom line in the short term, but Walton understood the long-term benefit of convincing employees and customers that the company had a conscience as well as a calculator. He also made sure to give his staff a stake in the company. In 1971, he introduced a profit-sharing plan that allowed employees to put a certain percentage of their wages towards the purchase of subsidized Wal-Mart stock. For employees who stuck around, this could mean quite a bit of money. According to a truck driver named Bob Clark, quoted in Walton's autobiography: "[Walton] said, 'If you'll just stay with me for twenty years, I guarantee you'll have $100,000 in profit sharing' … Well, last time I checked, I had $707,000 in profit sharing, and I see no reason why it won't go up again."

2007-01-08 09:10:40 · answer #5 · answered by True B 3 · 0 0

it was founded by sam walton in 1962 so maybe thats where the wal part comes from....

2007-01-08 09:04:49 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

http://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/54/biz_06rich400_Jim-C-Walton_JI38.html

The name of the family who created walmart is the the Walton family, hence walmart. Click on the link above and you'll see most of the

2007-01-08 09:07:59 · answer #7 · answered by jsjry 2 · 1 0

its form mr sam walton's name

2007-01-08 09:04:12 · answer #8 · answered by moonlightkitten 2 · 0 0

dont know sorry.

2007-01-08 09:13:58 · answer #9 · answered by bigandra 1 · 0 0

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