The Amazon-Walmart Showdown That Explains the Modern Economy -
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With Amazon buying the high-end grocery chain Whole Foods, something retail analysts have known for years is now apparent to everyone:
The online retailer is on a collision course with Walmart to try to be the predominant seller of pretty much everything you buy.
Just as Walmart is using Bonobos to get access to higher-end consumers
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.
But more and more businesses in the modern economy, rather than reflecting those diminishing returns to scale,
show positive returns to scale: The biggest companies have a huge advantage over smaller players.