Product Description: This book demonstrates the usefulness of anthropological concepts by taking a critical look at Wal-Mart and the American Dream. Rather than singling Wal-Mart out for criticism, the authors treat it as a product of a socio-political order that it also helps to shape...read more

On a warm September night in 2002, former acquaintances Alexis Maybank and Alexandra Wilkis reconnected at a mixer for new students at Harvard Business School. Alexis had just ended a four-year run at eBay during the dotcom boom and bust. Alexandra had just spent three years as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch. Now they were entering the country’s top training ground for future titans of Wall Street and the Fortune 500.  Little did either suspect that five years later, they’d become famous not in finance or consulting or corporate management, but at the bleeding-edge intersection of fashion and technology.Gilt Groupe – launched by Alexis, Alexandra, and three colleagues in 2007 – is one of the most fascinating startups of recent years, with a valuation of more than $1 billion. And it all began with one bold idea: to bring sample sales online and change the way millions shop.As Alexis and Alexandra write about the day Gilt.com went live: “We had created a website that could potentially change the rules of retail, for both shoppers and brands. If shopping was traditionally a slow, leisurely activity that might consume an entire day, it would now be competitive, addictive, urgent, thrilling—a rush delivered at the same time each day. Shopping would become not just easier, but so much fun.”But turning that vision into reality wasn’t easy. Designers had long controlled their own sample sales by staging them in anonymous, makeshift locations and strictly limiting invitations. Those lucky enough to hear about a Marc Jacobs or Hermès sample sale would drop everything and run for dramatic, fleeting bargains. Why should elite brands support a new startup trying to replicate the experience online?And even if brands like Valentino, Christian Louboutin, and Zac Posen got on board, would shoppers embrace such a website? Would the kind of people who love high-end fashion really visit a new online sale each day? Was “accessible luxury” a breakthrough idea or an absurd oxymoron?Alexis and Alexandra share their perspective in this dramatic story of Gilt’s birth, rise, and evolution. They show how they juggled the conflicting needs of their suppliers, engineers, marketers, and potential investors. They explain how they blended their individual strengths and weaknesses and managed their rapidly growing team. They cover the growing pains of expanding into new categories like housewares, travel, and menswear. And they take us through the darkest moments of the recession when Gilt might easily have died.As you’ll learn from the true story of Gilt, anything is possible for those with the creativity to recognize a new opportunity and the perseverance to make it real.  

Product Description: A brilliant investigation into the true cost of our bargain economy — and the end of consumerism as we know itOurs is the age of discount: we want more, cheaper, better. But the result is low wages, urban blight, environmental damage, labour abuses, a cookie-cutter model of progress, and now an international economic crisis...read more

Product Description: A myth-shattering investigation of the true cost of America's passion for finding a better bargain From the shuttered factories of the Rust Belt to the strip malls of the Sun Belt-and almost everywhere in between-America has been transformed by its relentless fixation on low price...read more

Product Description: From the shuttered factories of the rust belt to the look-alike strip malls of the sun belt—and almost everywhere in between—America has been transformed by its relentless fixation on low price. This pervasive yet little examined obsession is arguably the most powerful and devastating market force of our time—the engine of globalization, outsourcing, planned obsolescence, and economic instability in an increasingly unsettled world...read more

Product Description: During the 1990s, a new type of controversy began occurring across the United States: controversies over the siting of superstores, also known as big box stores. In these disputes, which often involve Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer, local citizens mount organized opposition to the proposed siting of a superstore in their town or neighborhood...read more

A detailed portrait of Wal-Mart provides an in-depth exposé of the secretive, zealous, small-town mentality that rules the retail giant; the costs of their aggressive expansion and pricing policies; and the repercussions of their 'everyday low prices' for workers, suppliers, competitors, and consumers. Reprint. 15,000 first printing.

A detailed portrait of Wal-Mart provides an in-depth exposé of the secretive, zealous, small-town mentality that rules the retail giant; the costs of their aggressive expansion and pricing policies; and the repercussions of their 'everyday low prices' for workers, suppliers, competitors, and consumers. 50,000 first printing.

Detailed accounts on Wal-Mart's questionable business practices and the latest information on Wal-Mart lawsuits, vendor issues, and efforts to stop expansion are featured in this book that shows how to get Wal-Mart off your back and out of your backyard. Original.

Looks at the ways that Wal-Mart, the large retail franchise, hurts vendors, undermines its employees, and destroys other businesses in small towns.

Looks at the ways that Wal-Mart, the large retail franchise, hurts vendors, undermines its employees, and destroys other businesses in small towns

Product Description: Written by an economist who has been tracking the impact of superstores on small businesses for five years. Stone has conducted more than 200 seminars on his research for community groups and trade associations in 46 states during the last three years...read more

Product Description: A wealth of data, information, and insights into the fastest-growing segment of the retail industry.The late 1980s and early 1990s were tough times for retailers as recession-wary consumers became more cautious in their spending habits...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)