Category Killers: The Retail Revolution and Its Impact on Consumer Culture

Recently I needed a set of tires. I made the rounds of the traditional tire chains in my small town. The quotes from the three stores were just about identical at $600. I went to WalMart -- $400. Same mileage guarantee, same 'we fix flats and rotate,' and a warranty that was truly nationwide. Please explain why I shouldn't have bought the tires I needed at WalMart.Category Killers are those giant specialized stores that are wiping out the competition in the areas in which they have chosed to compete. Toy-R-Us for instance has basically wiped out the KB toy chain that had before done a lot to wipe out the mom & pop toy stores. Category Killers operate in many, if not most, of the traditional specialty marketing area. You know their names PetSmart, Barnes & Noble, Home Depot, and many more. This has created a change in the way we shop, the way taxes are collected, the way producers market and position their products.Of late there is some backlash against the big stores, particularily WalMart as it's the biggest, some towns don't want them, some lawsuits have been files, the INS has raided a few stores for using illegal workers. But $600 over here, $400 over there.Category killers are what's happening in retail, to the dismay of many, and to the benefit of consumers. In this book Mr. Spector uses his background in retailing to examine the current revolution in retail -- yes, it's just the current revolution, there have been many before such as the construction of malls, and to make some predictions about the future of retail and the consumer culture.For what it's worth, I think he is dead right.

In a well-written and researched book, Spectre provides a good understanding of the trends impacting retailing and how those changes in retailing impacts our society as a whole. The book is written in three parts - part one providing the background and history of major companies defined as category killers (includes the Walmarts, kmarts, borders, etc and Starbucks!). Here the information contained, though well presented, is essentially nothing new. If this is your first book on retail industry, there is much to be gained from the first part which provides a succinct summary on the origins of the major players in retail industry. You will learn snippets such as Borders was originally part of Kmart and so on...Part two talks more on the trends impacting the industry and how it has evolved, while the third part provides some insights on how things will emerge from now.... The discussions from Chapter 7 onwards is very insightful and provides a good account of what can be expected from the reatiling giants. Discussion on how the companies try to expand to non-US markets and analysis on some of the failures (HomeDepot in Europe, for example) is particularly engaging and informative.Overall, the book provides a reasonably good account of the future, an excellent analysis of current trends, and a decent summary of the background. Written in fairly simple language and style, the author manages to keep it entertaining and engaging. A good read.