Charles Fishman: The Wal-Mart Effect

It was not easy for me to review a book about Wal-Mart, as though I am quite familiar with European retail, I don’t know much about the American retail business. Around the end of 1990, Wal Mart only had 9 super centres. Today, it has over 4,000 stores in the US and another 2,800 world-wide. Its prices are 15 per cent lower on average than those of its competitors. Its 2,000 hyper market size units generate sales in excess of US 370 billion. It is important to understand what a concentration of economic power Wal-Mart represent. A number of case studies in the book serve to illustrate the dilemma of many manufacturers: whether to join this incredibly powerful mechanism, or not. The question of whether Wal-Mart creates or destroy jobs is also discussed in detail. There is also an interesting story about the absence of any stories from suppliers and related to Wal-Mart. Are they scared of Big Brother watching them?