As staggering as it is, Walmart's standing can be attributed to the way it started -- the approach taken by its founder Sam Walton, who opened his first five-and-dime store in 1950 with a business model that was focused on keeping prices as low as possible. That strategy of offering low prices hinged on another key cornerstone on which so much of Walmart's advantage is built: scale/volume. Walton was aware that even if his margins were slimmer than his competitors, he could make up for that through the volume of his sales. In time that volume would permit economies of scale, and a level of bargaining power that would enable Walmart to remake the supply sector and the retail landscape, to suit its own schemes.
