100 Fun Facts About Walmart

In which Arkansas city does Walmart have its headquarters?

Bentonville had fewer than 3,000 people when the founder opened his five-and-dime there in 1950, and only about 11,000 when he died in 1992 at the head of America's biggest retailer.

Which skill brought 11-year-old Mason Ramsey fame when he was filmed performing a country classic in a Walmart in 2018?

Yodelling Hank Williams's 'Lovesick Blues' in the aisles turned the boy into a viral star: within weeks he had sung at the Coachella festival and signed a record deal.

In which Arkansas town did the first Wal-Mart store open in 1962?

Rogers saw a late start: the founder was already 44, with seventeen years of running variety stores behind him, when he opened the first Wal-Mart there.

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

Sam's Club began in 1983 as Sam's Wholesale Club, pitched first at small-business owners buying in bulk; 'Wholesale' was later dropped from the name.

Roughly how many people worked for Walmart worldwide in 2025?

2.1 million, a hundred times the 21,000 it employed in 1980: no other private employer in the world had a bigger payroll that year, and about 1.6 million of those jobs were in the United States.

Which chain's name did Walmart's founder say he 'really liked' when naming Wal-Mart?

FedMart belonged to Sol Price, and the founder admitted he had 'borrowed' as many ideas from Price as from anyone, later copying his warehouse-club format as well.

Before starting Walmart, its founder ran a group of stores under which five-and-dime name?

Ben Franklin. When its executives turned down his idea for a chain of discount stores, he went ahead and built one himself.

Walmart's founder trained at which department-store chain before buying his first store?

J. C. Penney hired him straight from college as a $75-a-month management trainee in Des Moines; he left early in 1942 because he expected to be called up for the war.

The five-and-dime that Walmart's founder opened in 1950 later became what?

The Walmart Museum. He had picked the town because his wife insisted on small-town life and its spot near four state lines gave him more quail-hunting seasons.

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

Great Value reached shelves in 1993 as the cheaper companion to a premium house label, a price-driven line built to undercut the name brands on the same shelves.

Which dog-food brand is Walmart's own store label?

Ol' Roy is named after the founder's own bird dog, and by 2003 the store label had overtaken Purina as the top-selling dog food.

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

'Save money. Live better.' ended a 19-year run for the old motto and echoes one of the founder's last speeches, which promised to help the world 'save and have a better life'.

Walmart's 2008 logo dropped the star between 'Wal' and 'Mart' and added which symbol?

A spark. The star had stood in for the hyphen in Wal-Mart since 1992; ten years after the logo closed up the name, the company's legal name dropped the hyphen too.

Where in New York did Walmart's founder dance the hula in a grass skirt?

Wall Street. He had pledged to dance there if the company's pre-tax profit topped 8 percent, and when it did he put on the skirt and paid up.

What did Walmart's first Supercenter add in 1988?

A grocery store. Selling food beside general merchandise turned a small-town discounter into one of America's biggest grocers, and groceries became the core of its business.

Which famous investor bought the grocery distributor McLane from Walmart in 2003?

Warren Buffett. He agreed the deal in a single two-hour meeting and a handshake, and skipped the usual checks because he trusted Walmart's numbers.

The Walmart cheer ends by asking 'Who's number one?', to which staff shout back what?

The customer. The founder brought the cheer home in 1975 after watching workers at a tennis-ball factory he visited in Asia perform one together.

Walmart's small-format grocery stores, launched in 1998, go by what name?

Neighborhood Market stores are about a fifth the size of the chain's giant outlets, built to fill the gaps between them with groceries and a pharmacy.

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

Vermont. Opposition from preservationists and local businesses held the chain off, so the state was still without a store when the other 49 each had one.

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

Mexico. The first store was a members' warehouse club in Mexico City, opened with local retailer Cifra, a partner Walmart later took over and renamed after itself.

Walmart bought the Woolco chain's stores in 1994 to enter which country?

Canada. The deal gave Walmart well over a hundred ready-made stores in a country where it had none, and Canadian TV news had to explain to viewers what Walmart was.

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

Asda. Walmart agreed to merge it with rival Sainsbury's in 2018, but competition regulators blocked the deal, so it sold control to new owners in 2021 instead.

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

Germany. After nine years of losing out to Aldi and other local discounters, Walmart handed all 85 of its stores there to the rival chain Metro.

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

South Korea. Shinsegae, which owned the country's biggest discount chain, had all 16 stores trading under its own E-mart name within months.

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

Flipkart was started in 2007 by two former Amazon employees as an online bookshop, and Walmart had to outbid Amazon itself to buy it.

The supermarket chain Seiyu, which Walmart owned outright from 2008, trades in which country?

Japan. Walmart built its holding up from a minority stake to full ownership, then reversed course and sold most of the chain to KKR and Rakuten in 2021.

Buying control of the retailer Massmart in 2011 gave Walmart its first stores on which continent?

Africa. South African government ministries fought the takeover through the courts over fears for local suppliers and jobs, and the last challenge failed only in 2012.

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

Jet.com. Its co-founder Marc Lore was put in charge of Walmart's own US online business, and Jet's staff and shoppers were steadily moved over to Walmart.com.

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

Vizio. Walmart wanted its smart-TV screens as a place to sell advertising, then began pulling the sets from rival retailers to make Vizio a brand of its own.

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

Walmart+ arrived in September 2020 with free delivery from local stores and fuel discounts, and two years later threw in a Paramount+ streaming subscription at no extra charge.

Walmart's founder learned to do what to keep up with his scattered small-town stores?

Fly a plane. He bought a small second-hand aircraft to get round his scattered shops, then began choosing sites for new stores by flying low over towns.

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

Deterring shoplifting. A Louisiana store with a theft problem put a friendly greeter at the door, and the founder liked it so much on a visit that he copied it across the chain.

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

Customer hosts also had to lift 25-pound packages and climb ladders, which shut out many disabled greeters until a public outcry made Walmart pledge every effort to find them other roles.

In which state was Walmart's founder born in 1918?

Oklahoma. He was born on a farm near Kingfisher, but farming paid too little, so his father turned to appraising farm loans and the family soon moved away.

Which school awarded Walmart's founder a degree in economics in 1940?

University of Missouri. He worked his way through it during the Depression, running newspaper routes and waiting tables in exchange for his meals.

Walmart's billionaire founder was famous for driving what?

An old pickup truck. His own answer to why: 'What am I supposed to haul my dogs around in, a Rolls-Royce?'

What is the title of the memoir by Walmart's founder, published in 1992, the year he died?

Made in America. Written with the journalist John Huey, it was a 1992 bestseller that boils his method down to one lesson: cut the price and you sell enough extra to earn more.

Which honour did George Bush senior give Walmart's founder in March 1992, weeks before he died?

Presidential Medal of Freedom. Bush travelled to the company's home town to hand it over in person, in front of cheering staff, less than three weeks before the founder died.

Which future US Secretary of State sat on Walmart's board until 1992?

Hillary Clinton was the first woman on the board, appointed after the chairman came under pressure to name one, and stepped down as her husband ran for president.

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

Doug McMillon first joined Walmart as a teenager in 1984, unloading trucks at a warehouse for a summer job, thirty years before he was put in charge of it.

David Glass, Walmart's chief executive from 1988, later owned which baseball team?

Royals. Glass took charge of the Kansas City club in 1993 when its owner died, bought it outright in 2000 and saw it win the World Series in 2015.

Greg Penner, Walmart's chairman from 2015, became chief executive of which NFL team in 2022?

Denver Broncos. Penner married into the founding family, followed his father-in-law as Walmart's chairman, and then joined him in the group that bought the team.

Which cartoon mascot zoomed around Walmart's TV adverts slashing prices?

A smiley face. Smiley bounced through the adverts knocking down prices until a new campaign swapped him for ordinary-looking shoppers, then returned about a decade later.

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

Nasdaq. Walmart had traded in New York since 1972, and said it moved because the technology-heavy exchange better suited a retailer that now calls itself tech-powered.

Which older retailer did Walmart replace in the Dow Jones Industrial Average in 1997?

Woolworth. The original five-and-dime chain lost its Dow seat to the discounter in March 1997 and shut its last American stores four months later.

Walmart's private network, completed in 1987, linked every store to head office using what?

Satellites. The system was the largest private one of its kind in the US, and it let head office see what each store was selling and send more before the shelves emptied.

Which company did Walmart knock off the top of the Fortune 500 in 2002?

Exxon Mobil. Walmart's sales had passed the oil giant's the year before, which made a discount chain from a small Southern town the biggest company in America.

After which hurricane did Walmart promise a job to every one of its displaced workers?

Hurricane Katrina. One Walmart warehouse in Mississippi had 45 trucks full of goods loaded and waiting before the storm even made landfall in 2005.

Walmart's 2006 pilot programme sold generic prescription drugs at what price per prescription?

$4. The average generic then cost $29 to fill, yet Walmart insisted it was not selling at a loss, saying its bulk distribution made the low price pay.

Which comedian sued Walmart after one of its trucks hit his limousine in 2014?

Tracy Morgan was badly hurt and his friend, the comedian James McNair, was killed; the lawsuit said the truck's driver had not slept for 24 hours.

The 2004 South Park episode that satirised Walmart was called what?

Something Wall-Mart This Way Comes spoofs Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes, and when the boys find the store's evil 'heart' it is a mirror: the shoppers themselves.

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

$1 trillion. That put a discount chain in a club made up mostly of tech firms, as investors rewarded the boom in its online sales.

Which tech company joined Walmart in 2016 to trace pork through its Chinese supply chain using blockchain?

IBM. Its pitch was that blockchain records cannot be quietly changed, so Walmart tried the idea first on pork in China, the world's biggest pork market.

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

Vudu. Walmart ran the film rental and download service for ten years, then sold it to the ticketing company Fandango, which eventually dropped the Vudu name.

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

Food samples. The box undercut rival snack-box start-ups on price, but Walmart's tech lab treated it as an experiment and shut it down after about a year.

In 2015 Walmart led all US companies in on-site capacity for which kind of energy?

Solar power. Its 142 megawatts of panels, mostly on store rooftops, grew out of a pledge first made in 2005 to run the business entirely on renewable energy.

Walmart's Hypermart USA stores of the late 1980s copied a giant one-stop format from retailers in which European country?

France. Walmart built four of the vast stores on the model of chains like Carrefour, found them too big and costly to run, and switched to the smaller Supercenter instead.

Which rival chain opened its first discount store in 1962, the same year as the first Walmart?

Target. Kmart and Woolco began that year too, but while those chains chased cities and suburbs, Walmart set up in small rural towns its rivals had overlooked.

A huge class action against Walmart, rejected by the Supreme Court in 2011, claimed the company underpaid which employees?

Women. Store worker Betty Dukes led a case on behalf of about 1.5 million staff, but the justices ruled their claims were too varied to be tried as one.

Which menswear brand did Walmart buy for $310 million in 2017?

Bonobos. Walmart kept the online trouser specialist for nearly six years, then sold it on in 2023 for $75 million, under a quarter of the price paid.

In which 2000 film does Natalie Portman play a pregnant teenager secretly living inside a Walmart?

Where the Heart Is follows Novalee Nation, abandoned by her boyfriend at the store when they stop to buy shoes. She goes into labour there during a thunderstorm.

Walmart tentatively agreed in 2020 to buy 7.5% of which video app, alongside Oracle?

TikTok was to be spun into a new US-based company, with Walmart and Oracle taking 20% of it between them. Walmart's chief executive was lined up for one of its five board seats.

Walmart's official policy lets which road users park on store lots where the manager agrees?

RV owners are welcome because Walmart counts them among its best shoppers, though it offers no electrical hook-ups. Each store manager decides, depending on space and local law.

Walmart Land, a virtual world launched by Walmart in 2022, was built inside which gaming platform?

Roblox players could dress their avatars in virtual merchandise, nicknamed verch, and ride a physics-defying Ferris wheel. A sister world, Universe of Play, was built around the year's best toys.

What do Walmart staff call the signature move performed in the middle of the company cheer?

The squiggly is a moment of levity partway through spelling out the company name. The founder's son Rob Walton said the smile it raises was part of the point.

Who lent Walmart's founder $20,000 to buy his first variety store in 1945?

His father-in-law, Leland Robson, put up most of the money. The rest was $5,000 the young veteran had saved from his Army pay.

Around 1990 Walmart finally outsold Kmart and which Chicago giant to become America's top retailer?

Sears and Kmart both rang up bigger sales until late 1990 or early 1991. Walmart had already been the most profitable retailer in the country since 1988.

Which country star leased his entire back catalogue to Walmart in 2005, making it his sole retailer?

Garth Brooks struck the deal after splitting from Capitol Records, and sold millions of albums through it. Few musicians had ever tied their music to a single retailer before.

Which term does Walmart use for all its employees, from shelf stackers to senior executives?

Associates was the founder's way of signalling that staff shared in the firm's success. He credited them, and not only low prices, for Walmart's rapid growth.

Which band's 2009 album was kept out of Walmart when the group refused to supply a censored version?

Green Day issued 21st Century Breakdown only with a Parental Advisory sticker, and Walmart has refused to stock such albums since 1991. It still topped the charts in 24 countries.

Which rock band gave Walmart exclusive North American rights to sell its 2008 album Black Ice?

AC/DC reasoned that many heartland towns no longer had a record shop but did have a Walmart. The chain answered with more than 3,000 in-store displays devoted to the band.

Whose 1996 self-titled album did Walmart ban over a lyric criticising the chain's gun sales?

Sheryl Crow's song Love Is a Good Thing caused the row, yet the album went on to win the Grammy for Best Rock Album.

Which daughter of Walmart's founder opened Crystal Bridges, a gallery of American art, in 2011?

Alice Walton founded it with an endowment that keeps general admission free. Walmart itself gave $20 million towards that promise.

Walmart announced in August 2022 that most of its stores would not be going back to what?

24-hour opening ended early in the pandemic, and Walmart said it had no plans to bring it back, with most stores settling on 6am to 11pm instead.

Which three-letter ticker have Walmart shares carried since their 1972 stock-exchange listing?

WMT first appeared on the New York Stock Exchange two years after the company went public at $16.50 a share. The chain had just 51 stores at the time.

Which Walmart store brand covers over-the-counter medicines, skin lotion and shaving cream?

Equate was created by the Perrigo company in 1986 and sold to Walmart in 1993. The label even stretches to pregnancy tests.

Which Walmart house brand is reserved for the chain's own personal electronics and accessories?

Onn sits alongside Overpowered, a separate house label Walmart launched in 2018 for pre-built gaming desktops and laptops.

Stan Kroenke, married to a niece of Walmart's founder, moved which NFL team to Los Angeles in 2016?

The Rams left St. Louis under Kroenke, who married the Walmart heiress Ann Walton in 1974. He also owns Arsenal, the English football club.

Walmart's founder settled near a four-state corner partly for its varied seasons in which pastime?

Hunting seasons differed across the four state lines near his adopted home town, so there was more of the year to enjoy them. His wife Helen's wish for small-town life settled the choice.

In 2022 Walmart added which video streaming service to its paid membership programme as a perk?

Paramount+ was bundled in to help the retailer's subscription scheme compete with Amazon.

In eighth grade, Walmart's founder became the youngest person in his state's history to earn what?

Eagle Scout rank had never gone to anyone so young in the state. As an adult he also received the Boy Scouts of America's Distinguished Eagle Scout Award.

Why did Walmart's founder have to give up his thriving first variety store in 1950?

His lease was not renewed because the landlord wanted the booming shop for his own son. The setback pushed the family to a new town and the five-and-dime that led to Walmart.

Which TV presenter's Walmart clothing line was linked to sweatshop labour by a rights group in 1996?

Kathie Lee Gifford was earning $9 million a year from the label at the time. She went on to appear at the White House in support of new curbs on sweatshop abuses.

Walmart became the first corporate partner to raise $1 billion for which hospital fundraising charity?

Children's Miracle Network counts the retailer among its corporate fundraising partners, alongside Costco, Dairy Queen and Delta Air Lines.

Walmart was for years the title sponsor of the FLW Tour, a professional circuit in which pursuit?

Bass fishing's FLW circuit took its initials from Forrest L. Wood, the Ranger Boats founder credited with developing the modern bass boat.

Buying a majority of the retailer D&S in 2009 took Walmart into which South American country?

Chile's largest supermarket group took its new owner's name the following year, though its shops kept trading under the Lider banner.

Walmart's founder credited his wife Helen with the idea for which staff benefit plan?

Profit sharing with the workforce was Helen Walton's suggestion, by her husband's account. She held a finance degree and married him on Valentine's Day in 1943.

Which Arkansas-based fuel chain built its first stations exclusively beside Walmart stores?

Murphy USA had more than 1,100 of its 1,700 sites near a Walmart as of 2024, though it began expanding independently in 2016.

The Arkansas Razorbacks' basketball arena is named after which relative of Walmart's founder?

His brother Bud Walton gave $15 million towards building it. The two had started out in retail together, running variety stores.

After butchers at a Texas Walmart voted to unionise in 2000, the chain switched to selling what?

Prepackaged meat replaced in-store cutting nationwide, a move Walmart said was long planned and unrelated to the vote. A labour judge ordered the department restored in 2003.

Which prepaid mobile phone brand did TracFone launch in partnership with Walmart in 2009?

Straight Talk rents its airtime from a bigger carrier instead of running its own masts. Its parent company was bought by Verizon in 2021 for about $6.9 billion.

Which outdoor-gear retailer did Walmart buy for $51 million in 2017 and sell to Dick's in 2023?

Moosejaw brought ties to more than 400 brands, including Patagonia and The North Face. Dick's shut all but three of its shops within months of taking over.

Who was Walmart's third chief executive, leading the company from January 2000 to January 2009?

Lee Scott joined in 1979 and twice made Time's list of the hundred most influential people while in charge. He handed over to Mike Duke.

Which warehouse method, used by Walmart since the late 1980s, moves goods directly between trucks?

Cross-docking cuts the cost of storing goods between shipments. Freight is sorted at a terminal with dock doors on two sides and very little storage space.

In which Arkansas town did Walmart's founder run his first variety store from 1945?

Newport lies some 220 miles from the town he moved to in 1950, a gap that forced the cash-strapped young owner to learn to delegate.

Which filmmaker directed the 2005 documentary Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price?

Robert Greenwald made it with Brave New Films, cutting statistics between interviews about the chain's effect on people and their towns.

Walmart became title sponsor in 2011 of a Northwest Arkansas tournament on which golf circuit?

LPGA Tour players first met there in 2007, when bad weather cut play to a single round and left the event unofficial.

Walmart announced in 2021 that it would start paying 100% of which costs for its US staff?

College tuition and books are covered through a partnership with Guild Education, so staff can earn a degree at no cost.

Which Hollywood actress is behind Beautiful, a home decor brand sold by Walmart?

Drew Barrymore had already launched a cosmetics range under the Flower name in 2013. She also co-wrote a bestselling cookbook, Rebel Homemaker.

Tasty kitchen tools launched as a Walmart exclusive under licence from which digital media company?

BuzzFeed built Tasty as a comfort-cooking video series for Facebook, where it had 100 million followers by December 2019.