After serving in the Army in World War II, Sam Walton knew he wanted to get into the business of retail. He started out by running a store in the Ben Franklin franchise where he learned about buying, pricing and passing good deals on to customers.

He credits a manufacturer's agent from New York, Harry Weiner, with his first real lesson about pricing:

"Harry was selling ladies' panties for $2 a dozen. We'd been buying similar panties from Ben Franklin for $2.50 a dozen and selling them at three pair for $1. Well, at Harry's price of $2, we could put them out at four for $1 and make a great promotion for our store.

"Here's the simple lesson we learned ... say I bought an item for 80 cents. I found that by pricing it at $1.00, I could sell three times more of it than by pricing it at $1.20. I might make only half the profit per item, but because I was selling three times as many, the overall profit was much greater. Simple enough. But this is really the essence of discounting: by cutting your price, you can boost your sales to a point where you earn far more at the cheaper retail than you would have by selling the item at the higher price. In retailer language, you can lower your markup but earn more because of the increased volume."

Sam's adherence to this pricing philosophy was unshakable, as one of Wal-Mart's first store managers recalls:

"Sam wouldn't let us hedge on a price at all. Say the list price was $1.98, but we had paid only 50 cents. Initially, I would say, 'Well, it's originally $1.98, so why don't we sell it for $1.25?' And, he'd say, 'No. We paid 50 cents for it. Mark it up 30 percent, and that's it. No matter what you pay for it, if we get a great deal, pass it on to the customer.' And of course that's what we did."

And that's what we continue to do - work diligently to find great deals to pass on to our customers. Thanks to the legacy of Sam Walton, Wal-Mart is a store you can count on every day to bring you value for your dollar. And that's why at Wal-Mart, you never have to wait for a sale to get your money's worth!

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