The Fall of a Giant: Wal-Mart
The fall of Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart has been a global retailing behemoth. The rise of Wal-Mart is an amazing story, but it seems like the fall will be equally spectacular. Just a few decades, after Sam Walton from Bentonville Arkansas, started building the worlds largest retail empire. The same empire is today facing an existential crisis.
Wal-Mart used to have absolutely no competition. The company had revenues of $445 billion per year which is greater than the GDP of most third world countries. At one point in time, the sales made by Wal-Mart used to account for over 3% of the American GDP.
However, things have changed rather quickly. Wal-Mart is facing a major onslaught from online retailer Amazon. To the surprise of everybody, it seems to be losing this battle. From the beginning of 2000, Wal-Mart always emphasized the importance of e-commerce and would regularly state that the company will try to increase its footprint in the field. However, Wal-Mart has done too little too late, and in the meanwhile, a new retail giant has risen!
In the early 2000s Wal-Mart had revenues that were 16 times the size of Amazons revenues. Today, just 17 years later, the tables seem to have turned. Amazon today is worth twice as much in the capital markets. Wal-Mart has a net worth of $220 billion. Amazon, on the other hand, has a net worth of $430 billion. Investors have been driving Wal-Marts share prices to the ground as prices have been falling continuously for about two years. The more Wal-Mart is coming in contact with Amazon, the more losses it is facing.
Causes of this Debacle
To sum it up, Amazon seems to be firmly in the lead as far as the battle between retail and e-tail is concerned. Wal-Mart seems to be heading towards irrelevance as its business gets taken over by the new kid on the block.
Related Articles

Authorship/Referencing - About the Author(s)
The article is Written By Prachi Juneja and Reviewed By Management Study Guide Content Team. MSG Content Team comprises experienced Faculty Member, Professionals and Subject Matter Experts. We are a ISO 2001:2015 Certified Education Provider. To Know more, click on About Us. The use of this material is free for learning and education purpose. Please reference authorship of content used, including link(s) to ManagementStudyGuide.com and the content page url.