60 Fun Facts About Walmart

In which US state is Walmart headquartered?

The Home Office is in the same small town where the founder opened his five-and-dime in 1950.

Who founded Walmart along with his brother in 1962?

His brother James, known as Bud, was a wartime pilot and co-owned the family's early stores.

In which town did the first Wal-Mart Discount City open on July 2, 1962?

That original building is now a hardware store and antiques mall; Store #1 moved to a Supercenter a few blocks west.

What is the name of Walmart's chain of membership warehouse clubs?

The first one opened in 1983 in Midwest City, Oklahoma, as Sam's Wholesale Club.

Roughly how many people did Walmart, the world's largest private employer, employ in 2024?

It also topped both the Fortune 500 and the Fortune Global 500 in 2024.

Which company's name inspired the founder to call his chain 'Wal-Mart'?

He said he 'really liked' Sol Price's name for his 1954 discount chain and borrowed the format.

Before starting his own chain, the founder ran a franchise of which variety-store brand?

He bought his first one in Newport, Arkansas in 1945 with a $20,000 loan from his father-in-law and $5,000 in Army savings.

The founder had worked for which department-store chain before buying his first store?

He worked at a DuPont munitions plant and served in Army Intelligence before deciding retail was his calling.

The founder's downtown five-and-dime store, opened in 1950, later became what?

He named it 'Walton's Five and Dime' after losing the lease on his first store in Newport.

What is Walmart's best-known store-brand grocery label?

About 40 percent of what Walmart sells is private label, including the Equate health brand.

Walmart's first private-label brand, launched in 1991, was a line of what?

Sam's Choice was so popular that by 1993 it was the third-best-selling beverage brand in the United States.

Which advertising slogan replaced 'Always Low Prices, Always' in 2007?

The old tagline had been in use since 1988.

When Walmart dropped the hyphen from its logo in 2008, what symbol replaced the star?

Critics wondered whether the new mark was as bold as Target's bullseye or as iconic as the 18-year-old design it replaced.

Walmart's 2018 crowdsourced delivery service using drivers' own cars shares its name with what?

In 2021 it was opened up to other businesses as a white-label service to compete with Postmates.

In which year did the first Walmart Supercenter open, in Washington, Missouri?

Its precursor was the short-lived Hyper-Mart, four 1980s stores that mixed groceries, pharmacies and even video arcades.

The largest Supercenter in the world, spread over two floors, is in which city?

It covers 260,000 square feet at Crossgates Commons, versus a typical store's 178,000.

Roughly how many items does a typical Supercenter stock?

Walmart's online store, by contrast, lists around 35 million products.

Walmart's smaller grocery format is about a fifth the size of a Supercenter. What is it called?

The concept debuted in 1998 with three stores in Arkansas, but the company did not lean into it until the 2010s.

Which was the last US state to get a Walmart, in 1995?

Five years earlier the company had no stores at all on the West Coast or in the Northeast.

Walmart's first international store opened in 1991 in which country?

That division is still the largest outside the US, with more than 2,800 stores including Bodega Aurrera.

Walmart entered Canada in 1994 by buying 122 stores from which chain?

Its Canadian Supercentres, spelled the Canadian way, did not open until 2006.

Which British supermarket chain did Walmart buy for $10B in 1999?

A planned 2018 sale to Sainsbury's was blocked by UK regulators; Walmart sold a majority stake in 2021 instead.

From which European country did Walmart withdraw in 2006 after years of losses?

It had captured just 2 percent of the local food market, far behind Aldi, and losses were estimated at around 3 billion euros.

Which Asian market did Walmart exit in 2006, selling all 16 outlets to local retailer Shinsegae?

It had entered that market in 1998; the sale fetched US$882 million.

Which Indian e-commerce company did Walmart buy a 77% stake in for $16B in 2018?

The deal beat a rival bid from Amazon and remains one of the biggest e-commerce acquisitions ever.

Walmart's Japanese subsidiary, wholly owned by 2008, was which supermarket chain?

It later sold most of it to a KKR and Rakuten joint venture, keeping 15 percent and a board seat.

Which South African retailer did Walmart buy in 2010 for over $4B, its first foothold in Africa?

The purchase brought stores across a dozen African countries under the Walmart umbrella.

Which e-commerce site did Walmart buy for $3.3B in 2016, then shut down in 2020?

Co-founder Marc Lore stayed on to run Walmart's US e-commerce operation after the deal.

Which television maker did Walmart acquire for $2.3B in December 2024?

The goal was to grow its advertising business through the TV maker's smart-TV platform.

The membership programme launched in February 2020 to compete with Amazon Prime is called what?

It has been bundled with Paramount+ streaming as a further lure.

The Walmart greeter concept is credited to Lois Richard, an invoice clerk at a store in which state?

Her Crowley store was losing merchandise to shoplifting, and a person at the door was meant to deter it.

What was the original purpose of stationing a greeter at the front door?

After a police sting showed how much merchandise could walk out, Richard pitched the idea to her manager the next day.

In 2019 Walmart announced greeters at 1,000 stores would be replaced by workers with which job title?

The new role required climbing ladders and lifting 25-pound packages, which drew protests from disabled greeters.

In which state was the founder born in 1918?

He was born in Kingfisher, and later became the youngest Eagle Scout in Missouri's history while in eighth grade.

Which school awarded the founder a degree in economics in 1940?

He attended as an ROTC cadet and was president of a large Bible class there.

Which country singer's debut album became the first album widely stocked in Walmart, in 1967?

The founder was a longtime country fan and especially admired her.

According to Forbes, the founder was the richest person in the United States for which years?

He lost the top spot to John Kluge only when Forbes began splitting his fortune among his four children.

Which honour did President Bush give the founder in March 1992, a month before he died?

He died of multiple myeloma at 74, three months before the company's thirtieth anniversary.

Which future US Secretary of State served on Walmart's board from 1985 to 1992?

She joined while her husband was governor of Arkansas.

Who became Walmart's fifth chief executive on February 1, 2014?

He had been running Walmart International and had started as a summer associate in a distribution centre.

Who succeeded the founder as CEO in 1988?

The founder stayed on as chairman, and Soderquist later became known as the 'Keeper of the Culture'.

Greg Penner, Walmart's board chairman from 2015, is related to the founding family how?

That makes him the founder's grandson-in-law.

What share of Walmart do the founder's heirs collectively own?

Most of it is held through Walton Enterprises, making Walmart the world's largest family-owned public company.

Walmart left the New York Stock Exchange in December 2025 for which exchange?

It had been listed on the NYSE since 1972 and remains part of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

In which year was Walmart added to the Dow Jones Industrial Average?

By then it had already been the largest US retailer by revenue for seven years.

In 1987 Walmart's $24M private network linked every store to head office using what?

At the time it was the largest private network of its kind, letting the corporate office track inventory instantly.

In 2002 Walmart topped the Fortune 500 for the first time. Roughly what were its revenues that year?

It has held the top spot every year since except 2006, 2009 and 2012.

How much did Walmart donate in cash after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, alongside 1,500 truckloads of goods?

Its trucks reached the Gulf Coast before FEMA did, and it promised a job to every displaced worker.

A 2006 pilot programme sold generic prescription drugs at what price?

The move pushed rival pharmacies to match it and reshaped generic pricing in the US.

Which comedian sued Walmart after a 2014 crash involving one of its tractor-trailers?

Fellow comedian James McNair died in the pile-up; Walmart settled with his family for $10 million.

The 2004 South Park episode satirising the company was called what?

The title riffs on Ray Bradbury's novel Something Wicked This Way Comes.

In February 2026 Walmart became the first traditional retailer to reach what stock-market valuation?

It also holds nearly 8,900 patent filings, a surprising number for a shopkeeper.

In 2016 Walmart, IBM and Tsinghua tracked which product's Chinese supply chain using blockchain?

A Food Safety Collaboration Center opened in Beijing the same month.

Which streaming company did Walmart buy for about $100M in 2010?

It later explored a low-cost subscription video service to take on Netflix and Amazon.

Walmart's short-lived 2012 subscription box, Goodies, delivered what for $7 a month?

Subscribers got five to eight samples a month; it shut down in late 2013.

In 2015 Walmart was the biggest US commercial producer of which kind of energy?

Its 142 megawatts of capacity sat mostly on store rooftops, with more planned for parking-lot canopies.

What was Walmart's 1980s precursor to the Supercenter, complete with video arcades, called?

Only four were built, and all were later closed or converted into Supercenters.

What was the peak number of Walmart Discount Stores, reached in 1996?

By late 2022 only 365 remained as the company converted stores to Supercenters.

Which store did Walmart's founder visit in 1961 for design inspiration, as Kmart's founder also did?

Kmart's Harry Cunningham made the same pilgrimage to the Rhode Island discounter.

Which fast-fashion-adjacent men's apparel brand did Walmart buy for $310M in 2017?

That year it also bought outdoor retailer Moosejaw and delivery start-up Parcel.