It’s that time of year again.  No, not spring and warm weather and birds and bees doing their thing.  I’m talking about the Walmart Annual Shareholders Meeting scheduled for June 5.

This year’s meeting will be held in Fayetteville, at the University of Arkansas’ Bud Walton Arena.  Attendance is not open to the public.  The only people who can go are those who are Walmart shareholders as of April 10, 2015.

In preparation for the meeting, the world’s largest retailer issued its 2015 Annual Report, which included these highlights:

Walmart will continue to cement itself as the low-price leader through “improvements in supply chain, processes and other efficiencies.”

• Walmart will continue to cement itself as the low-price leader through “improvements in supply chain, processes and other efficiencies.”

• The company is focused on a balance between store and online shopping, and will make global investments to enhance mobile capabilities and other methods of connecting with customers.

• In response to customers’ wanting more and more variety, Walmart is on target this year to feature more than 10 million items on Walmart.com.

• To improve customer experiences in Walmart stores and Sam’s Club outlets, the company is looking to increase employee wages and provide better training and development processes.

At the meeting, shareholders will vote on various issues.  These include 15 director nominees, five shareholder proposals and three company proposals.  Shareholders who aren’t able to attend the meeting (i.e., the majority of shareholders) can watch it live on the Walmart Investor Relations website.

A number of things will be decided at this year’s annual meeting, and those decisions will in one way or another affect people’s shopping experiences at Walmart and Sam’s Club.  It will probably be trickle-down, so we might not see the effects of the decisions for some time in our local stores, but it’s good to know the company is always focused on improvement.

Ellie and I aren’t Walmart shareholders, but I wish we were.  I wish our parents had bought us a load of Walmart stock when we were still little kids 20-plus years ago.  One can only imagine how much that stock would be worth today.

Nick & Ellie