Editing Sam Walton (section)

==First Walmart==
{{Main|History of Walmart}}

The first true [[Walmart]] opened on July 2, 1962, in [[Rogers, Arkansas]].<ref name="Forbes272">{{cite book | first1 = Daniel | last1 = Gross | author2 = [[Forbes|''Forbes'' Magazine]] Staff | year= 1997 | title = Greatest Business Stories of All Time | edition = First | publisher = [[John Wiley & Sons]], Inc | location = New York | isbn = 0-471-19653-3 | page = [https://archive.org/details/isbn_0471196533/page/272 272] | url = https://archive.org/details/isbn_0471196533/page/272 }}</ref> Called the Wal-Mart Discount City store, it was located at 719 West Walnut Street. He launched a determined effort to market American-made products. Included in the effort was a willingness to find American manufacturers who could supply merchandise for the entire Walmart chain at a price low enough to meet the foreign competition.<ref name="Made In America">{{cite web | date = December 26, 2006 | url = http://www.anbhf.org/laureates/swalton.html | title = Sam Walton: Walmart Corporation | author1 = Yohannan T. Abraham | author2 = Yunus Kathawala | author3 = Jane Heron | publisher = American National Business Hall of Fame | work = The Journal of Business Leadership, Volume I, Number 1, Spring 1988 |url-status=dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20020120164122/http://www.anbhf.org/laureates/swalton.html | archive-date = January 20, 2002 | access-date = January 2, 2014}}</ref>

As the [[Meijer]] store chain grew, it caught the attention of Walton. He came to acknowledge that his one-stop-shopping center format was based on Meijer's original innovative concept.<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2011/11/west_michigan_grocery_magnate.html | title = Fred Meijer, West Michigan billionaire grocery magnate, dies at 91 | work = MLive.com | date = November 26, 2011 | access-date = November 26, 2011 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20180410072436/http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2011/11/west_michigan_grocery_magnate.html | archive-date = April 10, 2018 | url-status = live }}</ref>
Contrary to the prevailing practice of American discount store chains, Walton located stores in smaller towns, not larger cities. To be near consumers, the only option at the time was to open outlets in small towns. Walton's model offered two advantages. First, existing competition was limited and secondly, if a store was large enough to control business in a town and its surrounding areas, other merchants would be discouraged from entering the market.<ref name=":0" />

To make his model work, he emphasized [[logistics]], particularly locating stores within a day's drive of Walmart's regional warehouses, and distributed through its own trucking service. Buying in volume and efficient delivery permitted sale of discounted name brand merchandise. Thus, sustained growth{{mdash}}from 1977's 190 stores to 1985's 800{{mdash}}was achieved.<ref name="Britannica" />

Given its scale and economic influence, Walmart is noted to significantly impact any region where it establishes a store. These impacts, both positive and negative, have been dubbed the "Walmart Effect".<ref name="The Walmart Effect">{{cite book | first = Charles | last = Fishman |date = 2006 | title = How The World's Most Powerful Company Really Works – and How It's Transforming the American Economy | publisher = [[The Penguin Press]], Inc | location = New York}}</ref>