The Wal-Mart Effect: How the World's Most Powerful Company Really Works--and How It's Transforming the American Economy | 
| Author: Charles Fishman
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
Buy New: $4.30
You Save: $21.65 (83%)
New (9) Used (10) from $4.30
Avg. Customer Rating:  103 reviews
Sales Rank: 11215
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.6 x 6.4 x 1.1
Dewey Decimal Number: 381.1490973
Publication Date: January 19, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
An award-winning journalist breaks through the wall of secrecy to reveal the many astonishing ways Wal-Mart's power affects our lives and reaches all around the world.
The Wal-Mart Effect: The overwhelming impact of the world's largest company--due to its relentless pursuit of low prices--on retailers and manufacturers, wages and jobs, the culture of shopping, the shape of our communities, and the environment; a global force of unprecedented nature. Wal-Mart is not only the world's largest company; it is also the largest company in the history of the world. Americans spend $26 million every hour at Wal-Mart, twenty-four hours of every day, every day of the year. Is the company a good thing or a bad thing? On the one hand, market guru Warren Buffett estimates that the company's low prices save American consumers $10 billion a year. On the other, the behemoth is the #1 employer in thirty-seven of the fifty states yet has never let a union in the door.
Though 70 percent of Americans now live within a fifteen-minute drive of a Wal-Mart store, we have not even begun to understand the true power of the company and the many ways it is shaping American life. We know about the lawsuits and the labor protests, but what we don't know is how profoundly the "Wal-Mart effect" is shaping our lives.
Fast Company senior editor Fishman, whose revelatory cover story on Wal-Mart generated the strongest reader response in the history of the magazine, takes us on an unprecedented behind-the-scenes investigative expedition deep inside the many worlds of Wal-Mart. He reveals the radical ways in which the company is transforming America's economy, our workforce, our communities, and our environment. Fishman penetrated the secrecy of Wal-Mart headquarters, interviewing twenty-five high-level ex-executives; he journeyed into the world of a host of Wal-Mart's suppliers to uncover how the company strong-arms even the most established brands; and journeyed to the ports and factories, the fields and forests where Wal-Mart's power is warping the very structure of the world's market for goods. Wal-Mart is not just a retailer anymore, Fishman argues. It has become a kind of economic ecosystem, and anyone who wants to understand the forces shaping our world today must understand the company's hidden reach.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 98 more reviews...
 Insightful, scary and impressive November 14, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Charles Fishman has managed to both intrigue and scare me with The Wall-Mart Effect. This book is worth reading for anyone interested in the economy, corporate growth models, supply chain management, manufacturing or sales. Even those with no interest in any of those topics should read the book, just to understand why you SHOULD be interested in this company.
Not being focused on traditional retail or physical product manufacturing in my daily life, the book was still able to get my mind racing with thoughts about how to work with or against the massive force that Wall-Mart exerts on all of us.
Must read October 14, 2008
Really enlighting. I don't go there anymore. (didn't go very much before) .Maybe I'm narrow minded
 Walmart shaping life everywhere. September 6, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
A well written book exploring the biggest retailer in the world and how the 'WalMart effect' shapes lifes everywhere. A lot of research has gone into this book and Mr. Fishman asks, how did a shop manage to get the power to change our world. Looking at it from a business perspective one cannot help but be in awe of the strategies put in place by the Waltons and their associates. Their commitment to "Always Low Prices, Always' is not in any means half-hearted. It will be interesting to explore the new strategies Walmart executes to counter the claims made in this book. Overall a very insightful read and a must for every retailer to read.
The Walmart Effect August 30, 2008
This book is a good study on what makes Wal-Mart a business success but a real detriment to our ecomony. The ethics of this corporation are so poor that our environment and society will only suffer as long as we support them. This books states true examples of how cheaper doesn't equal better.
Very informative August 24, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Fishman was able to present the Walmart "phenomenon" in a very straightforward way. The global effect of Walmart was explained through many real-life examples; the flow of the book, I have to say, is excellent. I finished it in 3 days. Walmart effect on supply chain efficiency is an area that the book overlooked compared to some other topics that were redundant.
|
|
|
|
