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
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Avg. Customer Rating:  101 reviews
Sales Rank: 379067
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
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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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 96 more reviews...
 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.
 Nothing new or insightful August 1, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Fishman spends the first 30 pages hinting that Wal-mart forced its suppliers out of business by demanding lower prices. This may sound horrifying to you, but demanding lower costs is industry standard for retailers. If you owned a store, would you voluntarily offer your supplier more money?
If your knowledge of Wal-mart and retailing is limited to what you've heard on the 6 o'clock news, this book gives you a peek into that world. But it falls far short of it's claims to expose "how the world's most powerful company really works". The author openly admits that there is almost no information on Wal-mart, so what he has is anecdotal and fragmented and not particularly convincing.
Unfortunately, Fishman is unable to break out of the standard Wal-mart bashing arguments around "low wages" (which are not unreasonably low at ~$10/hr), "forcing local business to close" (any large, well-run retailer could have caused it), and "cheap goods made in deplorable conditions" (unfortunately, some factory owners don't have the same morals as we do. Paying more won't for something won't result in better standards, just more money for the owner).
Verdict: Borrow at your library.
Is Walmart Good or Bad? Answer: It's both!! July 31, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is a very good book, well-researched and well-reported, about a subject that affects us all, the biggest company in history, Walmart.
Is Walmart good or bad? The answer according to Charles Fishman is: "Yes, it is both". I just didn't realize how big Walmart is and how much it does affect us.
Walmart is a monster player in the economy, the largest company in history, and nobody outside of Walmart knows much about it. It is committed to low prices like a missionary is committed to the Word of God, but is unfortunately short on a sense of repentance for its shortcomings and a little short on the joy that a true missionary should ideally have. It might however finally be coming around if its generous response to Katrina is any indication.
I read this book, believe it or not, to learn a little more about the economy through the prism of Walmart. Sometimes it is easier to me to learn something indirectly: by learning how Walmart functions and interacts with the economy is to learn about the economy itself. I would also like to know how Walmart creates so much economic weather. I think I've only been in a Walmart once and had the impression it was way too big and too far to walk for everyday shopping. Also, it seems to get a lot of press about how it could be more employee-aware and environmentally correct. Charles Fishman seems to think they finally get this message and is cautiously optimistic about their correcting some things.
One of the things I learned about the economy is how interconnected it is with everything around us. For Walmart, it involves customers, suppliers, the government, other countries, and, of course, the economy itself. This book, to its credit, is not short on statistical information, especially since studying the impact of Walmart requires a lot of digging; the company is simply NOT forthcoming.
I think I was most impressed by the scale of all things Walmart and the great veil of secrecy that surrounds it. The world doesn't understand it and it doesn't really understand why the world can have any problem with low prices. But the good news is that it is apparently trying to understand and do better. We can all learn from that.
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