I present the Potentate Wal Mart Maximus
 

Got this in an email today. Can't, or haven't bothered to check into any of it. I knew you'd enjoy it though Whomper.

1. At Wal-Mart, Americans spend $36,000,000 every hour of every day.

2. This works out to $20,928 profit every minute!

3. Wal-Mart will sell more from January 1 to St Patrick's Day (March 17th) than Target sells all year.

4. Wal-Mart is bigger than Home Depot + Kroger + Target + Sears + Costco + K-Mart combined.

5. Wal-Mart employs 1.6 million people and is the largest private employer.

6. Wal-Mart is the largest company in the history of the World.

7. Wal-Mart now sells more food than Kroger & Safeway combined, and keep in mind they did this in only 15 years.

8. During this same period, 31 Supermarket chains sought bankruptcy (including Winn-Dixie).

9. Wal-Mart now sells more food than any other store in the world.

10. Wal-Mart has approx 3,900 stores in the USA of which 1,906 are SuperCenters; this is 1,000 more than it had 5 years ago.

11. This year, 7.2 billion different purchasing experiences will occur at a Wal-Mart store.
(Earth's population is approximately 6.5 billion).

12. 90% of Americans live within 15 miles of a Wal-Mart.

We don't have any Wal-Mart. [tongue] We don't even have these 'SuperCenters', while all around Western Europe they do, but the Dutch government applied strict rules against these huge supermarkets right after they saw then coming in France and Belgium.

But of course we do have Ahold. ;) (Which owns in the USA: Giant, Martin's, Tops and Stop&Shop.)

I live in Yankton, SD. It is a semi-rural community. I do most of my grocery shopping as well as general shopping at Wal-mart.
The other grocery options are Hy_Vee and convience stores. (Hy-vee is a midwestern grocery store). I buy all my food except produce at Walmart. Enviga green Tea (one of my weakness's, but an awesome calorie burner/energy drink) from the same Coke plant on the edge of town is $5.68 at Wal-mart. It is $7.79 at Hy-Vee. South Beach Diet frozen dinners (My lunches) are consistently $.5-$.75 cheaper at Walmart.
On average each trip I make to Walmart to buy groceries for a week for my lunches, I save nearly $10 on a purchase of only ~$40.
Ditto with clothes and electronics. To buy the exact same thing, I save $7.50 on my Hawaiin shirts.
Now I am just starting my MBA, but I don't need it to know that on my consumer level, Walmart is a good deal.
Just don't buy tools, plumbing supplies, or fresh produce there. Any boxed item I have not found cheaper elsewhere.
I normally stop at Walmart 4-5 times a week, so I can believe those stats.

Interesting stuff.
However it's still been a lousy investment versus Whole Foods and Sears so I'm glad I don't own it. I do own Sears and have traded Whole Foods and I may buy some more Whole Foods soon.

Wal Mart was $69/share in 1999 and $46.50 today whereas Whole Foods was $11.60 and today sits at $40/share (but down quite a bit over the last year and a half). Sears was taken over by Eddie Lampert (a modern day Warren Buffet imo) has taken the shares from $16/share in May of 2003 to $180/share today.

I think they're really trying to clean up their image by promoting fluroescents and that's good. For you rural folk it seems to be a good choice and has had a reasonably neutral impact on the communities they've gone into. I'm not sure they'll be able to grow sales in the cities the same way because of choice. Target seems to be able to compete and most city folk prefer the stores.

What will be interesting to watch is their venture in India. India is a fragmented market with lots of small businesses. They have a good partner and the question is how much they rile up the locals.

Just a fyi...Wal Mart has never been as dominant in the US as A&P was at their peak.

Yay for Whompill Lynch ;)

I'd buy veggies from Whole Foods if there were one around these here parts. There isn't though, so I get them from Brookshires. Like Romeo, I too buy everything else from Wal-Mart. Cept my clothes, I don't buy clothes. I get them as gifts.

A&P?? I am not connecting them with a company.
As an external investment, Walmart has not been a great one, but as a business model, they are superb. The market leverage, buying power, and distribution network are all top of the line. Walmart is the one business I think that could challenge Fed-Ex in the mass shipping distribution system that American Business seems to run on. (I use Fed-ex to cover both Fed-ex and UPS, but I do all my shipping with Fed Ex)
Anyway, Whomp's take is a good one, as I am looking to start investing and also looking to branch out from residential real estate (i.e. my house, I'm flipping it or trying to).

Sweet, you gonna be on HGTV?