Walmart vs Kmart

Wal-Mart versus Kmart: Diverging Paths

The battle between giant discounters Kmart and Wal-Mart began the year they both were founded, 1962. In the ensuing thirty years until his death, Sam Walton built Wal-Mart into the nation’s largest retail chain by breaking many of the rules of retailing. He popularized discount pricing, avoiding the periodic sales on which other retailers relied and used instead “low prices always” on many brand-name goods. He also built stores concentrating on small Southern and Midwestern towns that other retailers avoided.

Additionally he was successful with his cheerleading management style, determined cost-cutting, and devotion to hands-on management involving frequent visits to Wal-Mart stores. Wal-Mart also set industry standards in technology usage, with its sophisticated, companywide point-of-sale and satellite-communications systems, and in service, symbolized by the “greeters” stationed at the front doors of its stores.

A significant milestone in the battle between Kmart and Wal-Mart was 1987, the year Joseph Antonini took the reins of Kmart. He inherited some stores that were as much as seventeen years old, with water-warped floors, broken light fixtures, shelves placed too close together and cheap displays of merchandise. His predecessors had neglected to invest in the technology that was helping Wal-Mart track and replenish its merchandise inventory swiftly.

But at this point in time Kmart was still way ahead. It had nearly twice as many discount stores, 2,223 compared with Wal-Mart’s 1,198. It also had sales of $25.63 billion compared with $15.96 billion for Wal-Mart. Thanks to heavy advertising and its major urban presence, it also had greater visibility. Wal-Mart sat in open fields outside small towns and picked off the customers of aging mom-and-pop stores.

As Wal-Mart multiplied across the landscape, an invasion of urban America and a confrontation with Kmart was inevitable....