Walmart and "Made in China" are practically synonymous; Walmart imports some 70 percent of its merchandise from China. Walmart is now also rapidly becoming a major retail presence there, with close to two hundred Walmarts in more than a hundred Chinese cities. What happens when the world's biggest retailer and the world's biggest country do business with each other? In this book, a group of thirteen experts from several disciplines examine the symbiotic but strained relationship between these giants. The book shows how Walmart began cutting costs by bypassing its American suppliers and sourcing directly from Asia and how Walmart's sheer size has trumped all other multinationals in squeezing procurement prices and, as a by-product, driving down Chinese workers’ wages. China is also an inviting frontier for Walmart’s global superstore expansion. As China's middle class grows, the chain's Western image and affordable goods have become popular. Walmart's Arkansas headquarters exports to the Chinese stores a unique corporate culture and management ideology, which oddly enough are reminiscent of Mao-era Chinese techniques for promoting loyalty. Three chapters separately detail the lives of a Walmart store manager, a lower-level store supervisor, and a cashier. Another chapter focuses on employees' wages, "voluntary" overtime, and the stores' strict labor discipline. In 2006, the official Chinese trade union targeted Walmart, which is antilabor in its home country, and succeeded in setting up union branches in all the stores. Walmart in China reveals the surprising outcome.

Essay from the year 2007 in the subject Business economics - Marketing, Corporate Communication, CRM, Market Research, Social Media, grade: 70, Oxford Brookes University, 71 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: China, a country with population of 1.3 billion people and is currently experiencing rapid growth in economy since it open itself to the world for investment. In the year of 1994, Wal-Mart made its first move to China by selecting CITIC (China International Trust and Investment Corporation) group as local partner for the investment. Opening its first store in Shen-Zen in the year of 1996 and since then has grown to 81 stores in 20 more cities around china. In China, Wal-Mart is using adaptation strategy where it locally sourced its product although the organizational culture is standardized with the home country. Adaptation strategy does not apply only to the product wise, in term of the store formats are also adapted to the local cultures where racks height, and stores layout are also changed to meet local taste. From the macro-environment view of the china retailing industry, Wal-Mart will face threats on the political side where the government is not transparent enough in the policy making. Moreover, it is currently anticipating the economic big turnover by tightening the regulations on the land although China is still encouraging foreign investment. In China, Wal-Mart will face strong competition from its arch-rivals Carrefour and other strong local competitor such as Lian-Hua supermarkets and China Resources Enterprise of which both are the pioneers in the China retailing industry. The current position of Wal-Mart in China is still far away to be as the same level with them as Wal-Mart is unable to apply its superiority in logistics that win the competition in USA. Although it is a vast market, not all the populations have great spending power. It is a country of haven and have not, where the income disparity become a large issue. Th

Since Sam Walton's death in 1992, Wal-Mart has gone from being the largest retailer in the world to holding the top spot on the Fortune 500 list as the largest company in the world. Don Soderquist, who was senior vice chairman during that time, played a crucial role in that success. Sam Walton said, "I tried for almost twenty years to hire Don Soderquist . . . But when we really needed him later on, he finally joined up and made a great chief operating officer." Responsible for overseeing many of Wal-Mart's key support divisions, including real estate, human resources, information systems, logistics, legal, corporate affairs, and loss prevention, Soderquist stayed true to his Christian values as well as Wal-Mart's distinct management style. "Probably no other Wal-Mart executive since the legendary Sam Walton has come to embody the principles of the company's culture-or to represent them within the industry-as has Don Soderquist," Discount Store News once reported. In The Wal-Mart Way, Soderquist shares his story of helping lead a global company from being a $43 billion company to one that would eventually exceed $200 billion. Several books have been written about Wal-Mart's success, but none by the ones who were the actual players. It was more than "Everyday Low Prices" and distribution that catapulted the company to the top. The core values based on Judeo-Christian principles-and maintained by leaders such as Soderquist-are the real reason for Wal-Mart's success.

An award-winning journalist breaks through the wall of secrecy to reveal how the world's most powerful company really works and how it is transforming the American economy.

Wal-Mart is under attack--from labor unions, urban planners, globalization critics, and community activists. Looking at Wal-Mart, the authors review conditions before and after Wal-Mart entered a local market and look more broadly at Wal-Mart's impact on wages, productivity growth and inflation. Vedder and Cox show that the retailer has been a force for good.

Research Paper (undergraduate) from the year 2006 in the subject Business economics - Offline Marketing and Online Marketing, grade: 1.0, Western Carolina University, course: Marketing Management & Mature Consumers, language: English, abstract: Wal-Mart, the largest retail company in the world, specializes in the operation of mass merchandising and supermarket stores. The company operates through three segments, namely the Wal-Mart stores, Sam’s Club, and the International segments in Asia, Europe, and South America. Wal-Mart is headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas. Wal-Mart recorded total revenues of $287.9 billion during the fiscal year ended January 2005, an increase of 11.3% over fiscal 2004. The company recorded a net income of $10.2 billion in fiscal 2005, an increase of 13.4% over 2004. There are several issues that impresses me about this company and of course some that I find unimpressive. First of all, a question that I asked myself for so many times was: How could it be that it is so easy to get in but so hard to get out? I can imagine that ever since they built a “super” WALMART here in Cullowhee, the place has really livened up (I can not tell how it was before. I just spent a year in Cullowhee as an international student). I mean where else can a guy go at 2 o’clock in the afternoon and find more people than there are open registers. It is literally amazing to me for the simple fact that every experience is a new one. You walk in and there is just as much hustle and bustle as Santa’s workshop, or Hugh’s Mansion. So you grab a cart and immediately jump in the fast lane. Not a good move in my opinion, once I had a fender bender with an elderly woman. She rammed into the back of my leg in a motorized cart and before I could say excuse me she said, “That’s how people get run over.” But as usual I kept on truckin’ and the first place I go is to the toiletries section. I always go there first because no matter what you always need something. From that point on, you are infected with the Wal-Mart virus. This infection deteriorates the bankbook and can result in permanent financial trauma. My advice is to practice safe Wal-Mart spending and bring somebody who has no money. The worst part of the whole experience comes upon exiting the building when you have to pass the security checkpoint at the door wearing a rubber glove. I really hate this part because it makes you feel like you did steal something. The person politely asks for your receipt and looks at it to make sure you got everything. What are they going to do, look at it and say “excuse me sir are you aware that you stole this?”

The definitive account of how a small Ozarks company upended the world of business and what that change means Wal-Mart, the world's largest company, roared out of the rural South to change the way business is done. Deploying computer-age technology, Reagan-era politics, and Protestant evangelism, Sam Walton's firm became a byword for cheap goods and low-paid workers, famed for the ruthless efficiency of its global network of stores and factories. But the revolution has gone further: Sam's protégés have created a new economic order which puts thousands of manufacturers, indeed whole regions, in thrall to a retail royalty. Like the Pennsylvania Railroad and General Motors in their heyday, Wal-Mart sets the commercial model for a huge swath of the global economy. In this lively, probing investigation, historian Nelson Lichtenstein deepens and expands our knowledge of the merchandising giant. He shows that Wal-Mart's rise was closely linked to the cultural and religious values of Bible Belt America as well as to the imperial politics, deregulatory economics, and laissez-faire globalization of Ronald Reagan and his heirs. He explains how the company's success has transformed American politics, and he anticipates a day of reckoning, when challenges to the Wal-Mart way, at home and abroad, are likely to change the far-flung empire. Insightful, original, and steeped in the culture of retail life, The Retail Revolution draws on first hand reporting from coastal China to rural Arkansas to give a fresh and necessary understanding of the phenomenon that has transformed international commerce.