Even-handed and illuminating look at biggest company in history

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	• The Wal-Mart Effect: How the World's Most Powerful Company Really Works--and How It's Transforming the ... Charles Fishman Penguin (Non-Classics), 2006 - 336 pages average customer review:based on 94 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

One of the most ineresting books I've read in along time

This is an absolutely fascinating book on a subject that affects all of our lives, whether we realize it or not--Wal-Mart.

The business tactics, motives, effects on the economy as a whole are on full display here and I was amazed and stunned. The Federal Gov. inability to use Wal-Mart's figures in the national inflation indexes was/is mind boggling and speaks volume of why people view government figures with a jaundiced eye.

Regardless if you are a fan or critic of Walmart, this book is well worth reading.

Walmart - THE consumer index?

This is a great eye opener for anyone who is interested in understanding how Wal Mart is able to offer everything for less. There is the world's economy and then there is the WalMart economy -- one where every dollar is squeezed out of the channel and passed on to the consumer. We may rejoice at the lower prices that allow us to seemingly stretch our wallets but that really pales in comparison to the impact this company is having on our communities.

Read this to understand how to optimize the channel. Read this if you are a grocer and want to see what's coming. Read this if you want to know what it takes to get onto a shelf in WalMart. But, most importantly, read this if you want to understand why our economy's leading consumer indicator is WalMart...

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Even-handed and illuminating look at biggest company in history

It's easy to hate Wal-Mart. But what makes it so successfully? Starting in 1962 (the same year that Target and K Mart opened their doors) Wal-Mart has grown to become not only the largest company in America, but the largest company in human history. And its success is based on a single driving vision: to provide the lowest costs to its customers.

Charles Fishman provides an intriguing look into how that driving force has changed retailing and the American consumer landscape. Though he can be quite critical of the retailer, he is no mindless Wal-Mart basher. Fishman is commendably clear-eyed and fair about showing the good and the bad sides of "the Wal-Mart Effect" on retailers and consumers. On one hand, the WME is benign -- helping to eliminated the irksome highs and lows of standard retailer discount cycles. Wal-Mart works with its "partners" as it ingenuously calls its suppliers - to provide the same low price every day of the year. And its efforts to streamline the supply chain are wondrous, even benefiting other retailers. Even some of Wal-Mart's bad points are unintended. Employees who joined in the early years --as Wal-Mart experienced exponential growth -- were rewarded with stocks that split up to 9 times, making them millionaires. The hard work (and the resulting neglected or broken families) paid off in the end. But for workers hired in more recent years, the rewards of low pay, loyalty and long hours are substantially leaner.

Wal-Mart's outsized presence on the retail landscape gives it much clout. Sometimes, that clout has good effects, as when Wal-Mart shaved a nickel from the price of anti-perspirant by requesting shippers to skip the useless paper packaging. Other times, the effect is less salutary. When foreign workers endure physical beatings and toil at wages that would net them only $16,000 after a half-century of labor, if they live that long, something has gone seriously amiss.

Fishman discusses the way Wal-Mart warps the fabric of the retail world, pressuring manufacturers to fit its demographic by developing new, cheaper product lines. While this sounds good from the consumer, the presence of low-cost, low quality goods ripples out into the rest of the economy. If a lawnmower is very cheap, why get it repaired? Throw it out, imperiling the environment, and buy a new one, putting a lawnmower repairman out of work. Fishman covers companies (like Vlasik) that become enmeshed in Wal-Mart's own marketing agendas. The story of the $2.97 gallon jar of pickles illustrated how high volume sales at Wal-Mart don't translate into profits for the suppliers. The story of Snapper, which decided to pull its mowers out of Wal-Mart show how manufacturers can survive and thrive without the retail giant. Fishman also highlights the work of academics who have documented, in spite of Wal-Mart's super-secrecy, the superstore's effect on jobs and prices. The few studies show that the retailer has an ambiguous effect on local jobs, and may even be a factor in poverty in areas in which it operates. When Wal-Mart comes to town, business lose money or fail outright. While some of this negative effect is to expected in a market economy, Wal-Mart's sheer size makes it a player unlike any other.

Fishman catches Wal-Mart from all angles, and genuinely seems to empathize with dilemmas that its obsessive focus on cost-cutting has created for it. He rightly excoriates the corporation for practices that lead its suppliers to treat employees like slaves (the story of the $5 boy's dress shirt) and to pollute the environment (salmon farming in Chile). But he shows the store's employees, genuinely flummoxed by the effect of Wal-Mart's values, taking a few tentative steps in the direction of change. Yet altering Wal-Mart core cultural values will be difficult if not impossible.

"The Wal-Mart Effect" is a fascinating and open-minded look at a corporation that has largeky avoided scrutiny. While it has grown humorlessly to outsized proportions that allow it to literally put companies out of business and dictate their product lines. Fishman should be commended for shining light on this busy, dark corner of the American and global economy.

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mind-boggling facts and figures

The overall theme of this book is that for every Wal-Mart action there is both a positive and negative impact for those involved. The first example of this(in the book)is that of underarm deodorant, in which Wal-Mart convinced suppliers to do away with the individual cardboard packaging, resulting in a saving of one nickel per deodorant bottle. This equates to a saving of $10 million (assuming the 200 million adults in America purchased a bottle of deodorant). Of this $10 million dollar saving, the `winners' were the customer, who got to keep half ($5 million), while the suppliers got to keep the other half. The nation has saved hundreds of millions of dollars since the disappearance of the deodorant cardboard box. The `losers' were the cardboard manufacturers who lost a lot of business due to the cancellations of these cardboard boxes. There are many more examples like this in the book.

Wal-Mart's buying power provides everyday savings to consumers on most lines of merchandise. The majority of the costs squeezed out of suppliers is passed on to the consumer and not to Wal-Mart's bottom line.

With all the negative press that Wal-Mart receives, there is no denying the global dominance of a company who would not be the size or success that it is, if not for the consumers, who vote with their wallets everyday in one of the 4000 plus facilities.

I found the material in this book to be well researched and informative with many mind-boggling facts and figures.

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Great Read for a Boring Subject

I thought this would be a very scholarly read on the economics of the Wal Mart effect. It is very informative without being boring. I sped through this book and I'm a 22 year old college student - with a very short attention span. That made my purchase even sweeter.
I bought this book also with Sam Walton's. This book provides in my opionion a very factual based analysis of Wal-mart. The author provides a common median, of both the good and bad of Walmart, without a bias. He allows you to come to your own overall conclusion of the company - he doesn't try to make your opinion, just provides the facts. Overall I'm very very happy with the research and presentation.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Wal-Mart isn?t just the world?s biggest company, it is probably the world?s most written-about. But no book until this one has managed to penetrate its wall of silence or go beyond the usual polemics to analyze its actual effects on its customers, workers, and suppliers. Drawing on unprecedented interviews with former Wal-Mart executives and a wealth of staggering data (e.g., Americans spend $36 million an hour at Wal-Mart stores, and in 2004 its growth alone was bigger than the total revenue of 469 of the Fortune 500), The Wal-Mart Effect is an intimate look at a business that is dramatically reshaping our lives.

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