When I stressed my interest in retailing, it was suggested that I use my job background and write about Wal-Mart. More specifically, “Has Wal-Mart gotten too big?” At first it seemed like an easy paper to write, I could rely on my time there and what knowledge I had of the store. I soon realized that while I knew a lot about Wal-Mart at a store level, I was clueless when I tried to look at it from both the retailing and corporate point of view. If I chose to write this paper based on my own my own experiences, I knew that this paper would be a biased point of view of the company. To truly answer the question posed, I needed to look at the question from all angles.

To start out, let us look at Wal-Mart’s sales. When Sam Walton retired as CEO in 1988, the company had sales of $16 billion. Now

In regards to expansion, the amount of stores that the company has is staggering. They currently have 2,985 stores in the United Sates of America. These include their Discount Stores, Supercenters, and SAM’S Clubs. Internationally, Wal-Mart has another 1,004 stores. This brings their grand total to 3,989 stores, in the United Sates and in ten other countries (Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, Korea, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the United Kingdom. In the next year, Wal-Mart plans to open 79 new stores and 11 new distribution centers. They also plan to remodel, expand or relocate 253 of their existing stores. Internationally, they plan to add between 90 to 100 new stores within the next year.

Has Wal-Mart gotten too big for its own good? I would have to answer NO. I’m not just saying this because they employ me. On the contrary, I sometimes feel that they have gotten way too big. Wal-Mart is the very epitome of retailing. They are the best at what they do. There are reasons for being named Retailer of the Century by Discount Store News (Wal-Mart 12). They strive towards customer service, putting the customer above all else and do an excellent job of doing so, just ask most customers. They listen to all employees, from stockman to executive. I believe that Wal-Mart has not yet gotten too big. There are stilly some areas of retailing that need to be conquered. When Wal-Mart has mastered all there is to master in retailing, then and only then will they stop growing. They wont be stopped by some one else, or someone better. They will simply stop, when they have nothing more to conquer. Then perhaps they will expand into some other market. Or we can all bask in the light of the Greatest

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