Product Description

It's coming to a town near you. Wal-Mart is the biggest company on earth, ever. Each year 7.2 billion people shop there that's more than one visit for every person on the planet. It's expanding across the globe from Brazil to Eastern Europe to the UK in the form of Asda. Everyone loves its low prices. But what's the real cost of getting a bargain? "The Wal-Mart Effect" takes us up the shopping aisles and into the amazing and alarming world of the most successful superstore in history. Charles Fishman has gained unprecedented access to this notoriously secretive business to expose the shocking extent of its influence on what we buy and how we live. Interviewing high-level ex-executives, traveling among suppliers (from purveyors of toothpaste to pickled gherkins) and uncovering the places where its influence is felt on fields and forests, he brings us the hidden voices from Planet Wal-Mart. Exploring every aspect of this consumer monolith, he shows that its silent power is now so great it can determine everything from the design of deodorant available in the US to what the lives of farm-raised chickens will be like and the hours Chinese bicycle-makers must work. Now Wal-Mart is almost incapable of being challenged, what will the long-term impact of these vast concrete stores be on our towns and cities, on wages and working conditions, on smaller shops, the idea of choice and on our world?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #227644 in Books
• Published on: 2006-05-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Management Today
Fishman has great new material and presents it brilliantly.

New Statesman
Fishman is clearly troubled by Wal-Mart, but he exercises an open mind.

Literary Review
Balanced, intelligent and commendable ... a very good book.

Customer Reviews

Thought provoking and an interesting read
I generally don't read business books but I was glad I picked this one up. A surprisingly good read with plenty of interesting and insightful information about the Wal-Mart empire. Fishman gives a generally balanced view in spite of the closed nature and lack of transparency of the Wal-Mart corporation.

Fishman often uses anecdotes and metaphorical examples to illustrate his points and one that stuck out to me by the end of the book was his comparison of Wal-Mart to the automobile. We love our cars and the convenience and freedom they give us but we know that we must change our use of the car to reduce our carbon emissions - likewise Wal-Mart is popular even with customers that don't like it because the prices are good. However, we see that we must change our shopping habits as reducing prices have the knock-on effects of shifting manufacturing to China etc.

Just as we ask ourselves questions of the environmental impact of our use of the car we should ask ourselves of the impact of the superstore (and not just Wal-Mart) on our immediate environment and culture. As Fishman says "Do we value cheap merchandise more than good factory jobs?", "Do we value convenience... more than charming main streets with local shopkeepers" and most importantly, "Do we want a single company to have the reach and power that Wal-Mart has - a power that right now is accountable to no one?".

Thought provoking stuff and a good read too. Recommended.