Winner Sells All

Jason Del Rey covered Amazon and retail for years and wrote this account of the competition between Amazon and Walmart, framed as the defining commercial rivalry of the period.

The reporting covers both sides. On Amazon he covers the Prime programme and its effect on customer behaviour, the marketplace and the treatment of third-party sellers whose fees became a major profit source, the logistics buildout that made same-day and next-day delivery possible, the pricing algorithms, and the acquisition of Whole Foods. On Walmart he covers the acquisition of Jet.com and Marc Lore's role, the internal conflict between the digital operation and the stores, the use of the store network for fulfilment and pickup, the Flipkart acquisition in India, and the successive strategic reversals.

Del Rey's analytical points are that Amazon's advantage came from being willing to lose money for a decade on capabilities that competitors could not fund, and that Walmart's advantage is the store network as a distribution asset that Amazon cannot replicate. He also covers the labour and seller relations at both companies. The book is well sourced and reported. It is journalism rather than analysis and does not model the economics of either business, and the competitive situation continues to change.