Who's Sam Wharton?

Sam Wharton is a living example of the American dream in the second half of the 20th century. Wharton grew up in Oklahoma and Missouri during the Great Depression. At that time, he was still a little guy with lively and sharp eyes, but he had great ambitions. He is a "very young scout and quarterback of Missouri high school football champion team" and helps his family through the difficulties by selling newspapers and milk. After graduating from the University of Missouri, he joined the army and took part in World War II. Like hundreds of others, when the unstable peaceful economic period of 1954 came, he found a job and began to support his family.

In the next few decades, the working and living standards of Americans have been greatly improved. Wharton found himself at the center of great change. He has the talent to predict the development trend of the world, and can understand earlier than others that the social and demographic statistics sweeping across the country will have great application value in business. This intuition made him from an obscure little grocer to the largest retailer in the world and the richest man in America.

By the time Wharton died in 1992, his family had a net worth of $25 billion. He left a huge and extensive legacy to the American business community, which made him a monument to the business community. Among Fortune 500 companies, his Wharton chain store ranks fourth, with annual sales of nearly $654.38+02 billion, second only to General Motors, Ford Motor Company and Esso Oil Company.

Although this will oversimplify the complex business phenomenon, it can be said that by looking at the slogan printed on Wharton's truck, we can understand what kind of influence Wharton has brought to Americans. Wharton didn't invent discount retail, just like Ford didn't invent automobile, but just like Ford and his automobile changed America and its industrial production mode, Wharton's pursuit of the lowest price changed America and its service industry. Wharton not only changed the way Americans shop, but also changed the service model of most industries in the United States, that is, the focus shifted from manufacturing to customers.

Incredibly, when the "An He Hope" store on a hill in Kabalan produced discounted goods in 1950s, the retail association hated it very much, and the manufacturers didn't like it either. Because it threatens their monopoly position in the market. In a word, most businessmen have restricted it.

In the early 1950s, discount sales just appeared, and Wharton was in his forties. He is already rich and runs 15 stores in Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. They are all traditional small town shops with relatively high prices.

Wharton actively studied retail experience, and the whole family did not forget to visit local shops when they were on vacation. When Herbert Gibson, an exotic hairdresser, opened a discount store in Wharton's small town, Wharton realized that this was the future business trend. 1On July 2, 962, Wharton was 44 years old and opened the first Wharton supermarket. In the same year, S·S· Cleskey also opened his Kama Supermarket, and F·W· Woodworth and Dayton Hudson also opened similar supermarkets or chain stores. Discounted goods have changed the American way of life.

Once the discount was allowed, Wharton began to reform for the rest of his life, reducing the cost between shops, manufacturers and middlemen, and making commodity prices fall again and again.

In this way, the gross profit is minimized and the sales of Wharton Supermarket continue to grow. Wharton opened a shop wherever he could find an opportunity. Sometimes he studies the terrain on a low-flying plane. If he finds a piece of land at the junction of several towns, he will buy a vacant lot there and build a Wharton supermarket, so that his supermarkets can be spread all over the country.

When the national chain stores were completed, Wharton made a major adjustment in the management mode, and he once again walked in front of the times. As early as 1966, when he owned 20 chain stores, he went to IBM School in new york. His goal is to hire the brightest students in his class to calculate his business operation. He realized that without computerized business management, his chain store could not develop at the speed he expected. He is absolutely right about this. Wharton chain store has become a symbol of controlling inventory in time and maximizing the use of information to gain competitive advantage. Although few people remember it, Wharton can be said to be the first president of the real information age.

To Wharton's delight, for most of his career, he has not been concerned by the public and public opinion. In fact, before 1985, Forbes magazine thought Wharton was the richest man in the United States because he owned 39% of the shares, almost no one had heard of him. Since then, for the first time, the public has focused on Wharton Business School, a Democratic retailer. His extraordinary charm convinced hundreds of his employees that joining Wharton Business School would be successful, and many of them became rich by owning company shares. This is the American dream.

As Wharton's chain stores surpassed its competitors, such as Caton Supermarket and Sears Department Store, Wharton began to be slandered and besieged by conservative small-town businessmen. They held a nostalgic meeting in Manhattan, where they angrily accused Wharton of being the chief culprit in making small-town businessmen disappear.

Wharton thinks these arguments are just silly. He himself is a small-town businessman, but he saw the future trend of business clearly and chose the fate of "eating" instead of "being eaten". In any case, he believes that as long as those small-town businessmen can change and adapt to the trend, they are still very competitive. As it turns out, consumers strongly support Wharton, and he meets their needs-the lowest price every day.

There is no doubt that Sam Wharton didn't destroy the scenery of American countryside or force people to change their way of life. But he promoted these changes, and the progressive force he represented was unstoppable. His management style was imitated by later generations, and his method of reducing costs by using information technology was adopted by various industries. His advanced retail concept has created a number of new retailers known as "price killers", further promoting the low-cost and low-inventory sales methods. In fact, the current Internet is a continuation of this approach.