- Walmart's Sam Walton was an experienced pilot who would use his plane to make surprise store visits.
- Robert Doyle, a store manager in Texas, experienced one such drop-in firsthand in the 1980s.
- As a new assistant manager, Doyle told BI he thought someone was playing a practical joke on him.
Store visits by the CEO are a well-established tradition in the big box retail business.
But at Walmart, the tours had a completely different complexion in the early decades of the company.
This was because founder Sam Walton was an experienced pilot who would travel the country in a small private plane, sometimes dropping out of the sky to inspect his stores.
Robert Doyle, now a store manager in Texas, told Business Insider he experienced such a visit firsthand in the 1980s.
It was a big decade for the Bentonville-based retailer, which had its first billion-dollar sales year in 1980 before rocketing up to more than $25 billion in 1990, according to the company's annual report. The location count ballooned during that time as well, going from 276 stores to 1,402, with the first Supercenter opening in 1988.
Doyle was still learning the ropes as an assistant manager and happened to be in charge of the store one day while his boss was on vacation.
The phone rang.
"Hey Robert, this is Sam," Doyle recalled hearing. "I'm at the airport and I'd like to see your store. If you come and pick us up, we'll tour your store."
Doyle says he first thought someone was playing a practical joke on him because he wasn't yet familiar with Walton's voice.
It quickly became clear that it was indeed "Mr. Sam" on the phone and that someone needed to go get him, so Doyle got in his truck and hurried over.
After arriving at the store with Walton, Doyle said the founder followed a well-worn routine of visiting the service desk to announce his presence over the P.A. speakers and thank customers and employees.
Doyle then said they walked the store's "action alley," or the main aisle where key merchandise is displayed. Certain items at Walmart are designated "volume producing items," or VPIs, and Walton's preferred VPI was widely known to be Moon Pies.
"We always had to have a Moon Pie featured," Doyle said. "I made sure when we walked by to show him his VPI."
Following the tour, Doyle said Walton asked that the store's snack bar be opened up for employees and customers to have popcorn and soda while he chatted with the store's leadership.
"He would tell you what things were very good, and he would also be honest about things that were an opportunity, like we need to fix this," Doyle said.
Back at the airport, Doyle said Walton asked one of his travel companions for cash for the cost of the snacks.
"He said, 'Here's $50, that should cover it. If it doesn't cover it, you call me and let me know how much more I owe you,'" Doyle said. "And I'm like, 'Okay, sure, isn't it your company?'"
Back in 2007, retail consultant Kurt Barnard told the Associated Press that he had flown with Walton on multiple trips over the years.
Barnard said that on one occasion, Walton declared there weren't enough cars in a store's parking lot, so he immediately brought the plane down to find a manager. After learning of a local school festival that morning and receiving assurance that the lot would fill in the afternoon, Barnard said Walton hopped back into the cockpit.
"He was happy, he was satisfied, and he got back to the plane and we went up in the air," Barnard remembered. "Once we were at cruising altitude ... he looked at me and he said, 'For a moment there, I thought we were doing something wrong.'"
Walmart now has more than 4,600 US locations and even more around the world, so store visits nowadays tend to be more orchestrated events. (Corporate CEOs are also less likely to tour solo than they are to have an entourage of staff in tow.)
Store tours remain a regular fixture of current Walmart CEO Doug McMillon's schedule, including a stop this week in Augusta, Georgia, where he checked in with store workers who are assisting with the relief effort following Hurricane Helene.
Doyle said that if McMillon were to stop by the Supercenter in Cibolo, Texas, he'd likely be looking for the same things that Walton had his eye on nearly four decades ago: is the store clean, are products priced clearly and correctly, and are customers being taken care of.
"If Doug came into town, I'd be more than happy to go pick him up," he said.