Today’s world is full of competitions, as a result, everyone wants to win. Every path of life is full of challenges. If you also want to be a winner and think about how you can also overcome challenges like Walmart did then you are in the right place. Before telling about the case study I would like to give my introduction so that you don’t feel that I’m a stranger to you.
My name is Faruque Azam and I’m a professional data engineer and web scraping expert. As head of “wScraper – Web Scraping Services”, I lead all web scraping, automation & bot development projects and manage client relationships.
I provide my web scraping services to clients of all sizes. I work with individuals, eCommerce retailers, start-ups, corporates, SME/SMBs, academics and non-profits. I’m here to preserve your valuable time and money by exporting data to various usable formats by using web scraping technology.
I can aid your project by paving the way to your goal with more clarity and a higher probability of success.
ABOUT WALMART
Founded more than 80 years ago, Walmart was set up by Sam Walton in 1962. Since then it has only expanded in the USA with almost five thousand stores in the country; moreover, it is the largest retail company. Furthermore, It has many departments, from selling clothing items to bakery products, they have it all. So big with numbers, Walmart also has large data to store. They have a café in their headquarters in Arkansas where all of it is kept.
Since it was set pretty back, Walmart used the traditional way of dealing with its customers and merchants. But the world is evolving and then Amazon came into the picture. Walmart didn’t pay heed to the threat Amazon will bring to its way.
HOW WALMART’S BORN
The only true competitor that remains is Amazon. Walmart battled this fight by allowing customers to shop online as well. Hence Walmart’s online store was born. It used big data analytics to keep up with the new technology and also provide the best customer experience. Moreover, made predictions for every customer visiting the site. It turned out to be a smart move as people tend to buy more goods when shopping online; hitting the mark for increased sales during festival holidays; it also employs many Americans who are looking for part-time jobs. If it shuts down, it would also mean that youngsters who survive on this job will face repercussions, continues to be the lion of this jungle and always tries to overcome its challenges.
HOW WALMART USES ITS DATA
Inside the data café, Walmart handles its data by big data analytics. However, by using this, Walmart analysis the usage of keywords and optimizes the shopping experience of customers, online and offline. As a result, it has a certain sales percent set for every department. If that number is not reached then that particular department is alerted and marketing measures are taken to resolve the issue. Many products have lost their charm and are just lying on the shelf, unknown to the manager. Big data analysis lets us find such products and discontinue it to save money wasted on it. It also helps in giving a head start to launching new products.
Similarly, Walmart also makes use of data mining. Data mining in computing terms means that it scans the already existing data and generates new information. How Walmart utilizes this is by recommending customers new products based on their search history and what product they last purchased. Not just depending on customers, It also takes into account weather, upcoming festivals, social media trends and more other factors to increase their sales. These factors are analyzed by big data algorithms. Taking up these methods, it has increased its revenue.
WHEN WALMART CRUMBLED APART
Since Walmart is such a big company, it needs labor more than other companies. Apart from data scientists, the demand for staff to work in their stores is unfulfilling. To solve this issue, it did the mistake of doing the crime of recruiting children to work. Child labor is frowned upon and the world did not take this step of Walmart lightly.
They have faced many allegations like racial and gender discrimination; poor salary to staff; moreover, misuses employees ‘ personal information. When working a job, the job environment and satisfaction is important to the wage-earner. Walmart had its own rules like- having less to no time for lunch breaks; not paid to employees who work over-time; Moreover, forced to work off-duty. Managers keep the keys so that the night duty workers get forced to stay inside the store Besides that, the company gives an explanation that they were decreasing the rate of night shoplifting.
WHY WALMART APPEAL AT COURT
Walmart served products to customers at a low price. The critics then mentioned that Walmart was doing so to hide their wrongdoings. Many lawsuits have been filed against Walmart. All were accusing Walmart of purposely pricing their goods at a very low price to throw its competitors out of business. Walmart won the appeal at court in many of these lawsuits. The whole world was made known about Walmart’s behavior towards its workers. Their staff became protestors and also criticized by many.
HOW WALMART CRAWLED BACK ITS WAY TO THE TOP
With its employees protesting and Walmart not ready to lose its game, it increased the daily wage of its laborers. Walmart started at a time when there were only small grocery and convenience stores. It had less to no competition. Hence the reason why it grew so quickly and with so much profit. People were still buying from Walmart stores no matter how many criticisms it faced in the Early 2000s until 2015.
The local stores tried to compete with Walmart’s pricing but were forced to shut their doors. Walmart dominated the streets and kept opening new stores in its place. It started to give out Walmart coupons to the people to gain attention. As of now, its only competition is Target and the e-commerce website, Amazon. Target also faced some problems a few years ago and therefore is out of the race.
OVERCOME YOUR CHALLENGES
Even though Walmart has made many mistakes in the past, it has done nothing but learns from. From the lawsuits they lost to the backlash it faced by its employees, it remained true to its policies and grew stronger. Customer satisfaction was the company’s top priority and it did maintain it.
Similarly, when you think your business is falling apart and everything is going on, take a deep breath. Try new strategies, brainstorm your mind for new ideas and get back into the game. One way is to make use of web scraping. Since Walmart has data on all of its customers, you can use web scraping to extract data on what the crowd demands. You can paint your business based on their interests. How Walmart deals with its data is by doing Big Data analysis and Data Mining. It helps the company to keep its Walmart online store updated and be in the level of the customers’ interests. Never get hopeless as there is always a way to overcome any type of challenges in your life as Walmart did.
