Who Is Walmart?

In 1962, the first Walmart store opened. Created not too long after the Interstate Highway Act and during the rapid flight from cities to the suburbs, the firm targeted deep discounts and suburban locations. In the past 55 years, Walmart has become the world’s largest company by revenue, with 2.2 million employees and almost half a trillion in sales in 2014. This makes Walmart the largest employer in the U.S., with 1.4 million American workers.

Company’s rapid growth is not completely positive for the communities that are affected. A 2008 study from MIT indicates that Wal-Mart’s explosive expansion during the end of the 20th Century was responsible for 40-50% of the decline of small discount stores. This is especially significant as small businesses

Large chains and large establishments pay considerably more than small mom-and-pop establishments.

Given the outsized role that chain retailers play in the U.S. economy, media coverage often focuses on business issues, such as the wave of closures hitting J.C. Penney and other firms, or the rise of “small-box” urban stores. Workplace issues are also important, such as why openings at the company often attract hundreds of applicants and the company’s February 2015 announcement that it would raise the entry wage to at least $10 an hour by February 2016.

Typically, big retailers (such as Target) want to maximize profits in any specific region. An easy way to do this is to avoid competition. In other words, they aim to drive local stores out of business.Typically, a large company will open a store in a new market offering extremely low prices. Target has sold goods for below its own acquisition costs, as it can afford it for the time being. Local merchants face losing customers if they don’t match the prices and losing money if they do. In time, local businesses will begin to go out of

These shops, which exemplifies a community's character, have often been referred to as non-"value-added" small businesses,that generates a zero or negative return on the investment of resources and usually can be eliminated without impairing a process. This is due primarily to a focus on high-profit and/or high-growth small business start-ups. Additionally, the Mom-and-Pop shops have been redefined as "economic redistribution" entities, meaning that their contribution to economic development is limited to merely moving money around the community as compared to generating cash flow into the