Winner Sells All: Amazon, Walmart, and the Battle for Our Wallets
A riveting investigation of the no-holds-barred battle between Amazon and Walmart to become the king of commerce.
For years, Walmart and Amazon operated in separate spheres--one a massive brick-and-mortar retailer, the other an online giant. But in 2016, Walmart aggressively moved into the world of e-commerce, while Amazon made big bets in physical retail.
The resulting rivalry is a bare-knuckle power struggle as each titan tries to outmaneuver the other to become the biggest omnichannel retailer in the world. As the two megacorporations have consolidated power, troubling consequences have also emerged--for consumers and small merchants faced with fewer buying and selling options, and for millions of workers paid meager wages for demanding and sometimes dangerous work.
Winner Sells All is a tale of disruption and big money moves, with legendary executives and fearless entrepreneurs in a battle--between rival corporations and sometimes even within the same company--to invent the future and cement their own legacies. Veteran journalist Jason Del Rey chronicles the defining business clash of this generation--a war waged for our loyalty and our wallets, with hundreds of billions of dollars at stake and millions of jobs on the line. As both companies continue to expand their empires into new industries, Winner Sells All reveals how this battle will change the ways we shop, live, and work--for decades to come.
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Jason Del Rey is a veteran business journalist who spent a decade at Recode, a leading online technology publication, reporting on Amazon, Walmart, and how technology is transforming retail, both online and in stores. He is the host of Land of the Giants: The Rise of Amazon, a narrative podcast series about the tech giant's rise and the impact of its relentless ambition on hundreds of millions of people across the globe. He was also the producer of Code Commerce, an event series featuring unscripted interviews with the most influential executives and entrepreneurs working at the intersection of technology and commerce. In 2019, the National Retail Federation named him one of the "25 People Shaping Retail's Future." He lives in Northern New Jersey with his wife and two children.
"A revelatory account of the bloody rivalry between two ruthless retail juggernauts that are not accustomed to losing." -- Brad Stone, author of The Everything Store
"A once-scrappy entrepreneur named Jeff Bezos has taken control over what we buy and how it is sold to us, in ways that are both worrisome and impressive. Del Rey delivers the goods on how it all went down, juxtaposing Amazon's stunning rise with the efforts of a once-dominant Walmart to keep up. It is said that when elephants fight, only the grass suffers. Guess what? We're the grass." -- Kara Swisher, host of the Pivot and On podcasts, New York Media
"This book is a front-row seat to one of the most brutal, consequential corporate battles of our time--and it comes with a backstage pass, revealing dirt the companies don't want us to see. A must-read for anyone interested in the future of commerce." -- Mark Bergen, author of Like, Comment, Subscribe
"An engaging and cinematic account of the Ali-Frazier of retail." -- Scott Galloway, NYU Stern School of Business professor of marketing and bestselling author of Adrift
"Winner Sells All is the definitive history of the clash between two business titans constantly reinventing themselves to crush the competition and fill our shopping carts. As Amazon and Walmart build and defend their dominance, Del Rey brings the reader into the complexities and trade-offs of their business decisions, revealing all that goes into the quest for customer loyalty--and all that is lost when two giants control so much of our economy." -- Sarah Frier, author of No Filter
"Walmart and Amazon are too often discussed separately, despite their overlapping impact on America and the world. Winner Sells All explores the biggest business story of the past twenty years, through the eyes of an unusually broad and deep network of sources." -- Christopher Mims, tech columnist for the Wall Street Journal and author of Arriving Today
"An eye-opening look at a battle of corporate titans that shows few signs of slowing down." -- Kirkus Reviews
"Del Rey's behind-the-scenes insights enlighten, and the author makes no bones about what the companies' success has cost workers, criticizing both for keeping wages low while lavishly rewarding executives. This thorough outing delivers." -- Publishers Weekly
