The Amazon-Walmart Showdown That Explains the Modern Economy -<br />Get the Upshot in your Inbox<br />With Amazon buying the high-end grocery chain Whole Foods, something retail analysts have known for years is now apparent to everyone:<br />The online retailer is on a collision course with Walmart to try to be the predominant seller of pretty much everything you buy.<br />Just as Walmart is using Bonobos to get access to higher-end consumers<br />and a more technologically savvy way of selling clothes, Amazon is using Whole Foods to get the expertise and physical presence it takes to sell fresh foods.<br />But more and more businesses in the modern economy, rather than reflecting those diminishing returns to scale,<br />show positive returns to scale: The biggest companies have a huge advantage over smaller players.
