Jason Del Rey is a business journalist who spent nine years at Recode, where his beat included covering Amazon and Walmart. He also hosted the podcast Land of the Giants: The Rise of Amazon. His new book, Winner Sells All: Amazon, Walmart, and the Battle for Our Wallets, details the long-running rivalry between the globe’s two biggest retailers. We asked Del Rey about how a company as mammoth as Walmart is perceived by some as an underdog, why Amazon’s Price Check app (remember that?) backfired, and how charging sales tax ended up being a good thing for Amazon.

This is the first of a two-part interview. It has been edited and condensed for clarity.

As you noted in the book, in the ’90s, Walmart was viewed by some as kind of a bogeyman and a small-business killer. But in terms of Amazon today, you say that sometimes Walmart is the underdog. To what degree is Walmart the underdog in that rivalry?

In the digital world of retail, Walmart is absolutely the underdog. Amazon has, in some ways, not learned some of the hard lessons that Walmart has somewhat learned over time, related to being Public Enemy No. 1 among some parts of society: independent businesses and independent business groups, regulators who don’t believe that just because you have cheap prices that means you’re a net good for the economy, environmental groups, and labor activists.

I’ve covered both companies for a decade and I’ve been shocked to the degree that Amazon has mostly this past decade, by and large, dismissed critics without real conversation.

Keep reading here.—AAN

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Shein has returned to India after being banned three years ago, but it must follow some strict rules as part of a licensing deal with Reliance Industries, Bloomberg reported.

The fast fashion retailer, now headquartered in Singapore, will cede its Indian business to Reliance’s retail arm. Meanwhile, Shein will help train more than 25,000 local suppliers who will produce exports for Shein to sell globally, sources told Bloomberg.

Additionally, any customer data generated by the Shein app in India will remain in India; the brand will have no access to it. Reliance will pay Shein a license fee, since the retailer gets no equity, according to the terms set by the Indian government.

Let us explain: For context, Shein has been trying to make its way back into India after its app was banned in 2020 alongside ~170 other Chinese apps, including TikTok, as a result of border disputes between China and India.

Keep reading here.—JS

Two brands can now sell meat made from cells in the US for the first time, according to the Department of Agriculture.

This week, the USDA gave Grants of Inspection, the final approval, to Upside Foods and Eat Just’s Good Meat, which both make chicken produced from lab-grown animal cells, a process they say is more sustainable than traditional animal agriculture. The USDA earlier this month approved labels for Upside Foods and Eat Just’s Good Meat after the FDA gave both the green light via “no questions” letters that indicate the agency didn’t find anything unsafe in the cell-cultivated meat products.

Josh Tetrick, co-founder and CEO of Eat Just, said in a statement that the approval “is a major moment for our company, the industry and the food system.” Eat Just was previously the only company in the world that could sell cell-cultivated meat. It gained approval in Singapore in 2020.

Keep reading here.—EC

Today’s top retail reads.

Hide and thief: US lawmakers are considering more stringent laws as reports of retail stores being targeted by large-scale theft rings gain momentum. But there may be more to the story. (Business of Fashion)

Here we go, again: Inflation may be raging on, but consumers continue to spend on expensive experiences, leading central banks to potentially have to raise borrowing rates over and over again. (the New York Times)

Meat me in the middle: Move over cell-grown meat. One company is betting on plasma to grow beef. (Food Dive)

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Join Retail Brew for an exciting conversation with Katie Mullen, Chief Customer Officer at JCPenney, to discuss how the brand is keeping up with shopper expectations and limited attention spans while finding ways to resonate with and retain customers.

Three of the stories below are real...and one is most definitely not. Can you spot the fake?

1. Panera has launched a new line of fusion swimwear that includes soup, salad, and sandwich-themed swimsuits as part of its “Swim Soups: the You Pick 2 Collection.”
2. A California restaurant owes its workers $140,000 in back wages for hiring a fake priest to “extract” the workers’ sins.
3. A research lab in Scotland is looking for a tasting notes officer who will be paid to taste beers throughout the week in exchange for housing and an $80,000 salary.
4. Peet’s Coffee is hiring a “Chief Cold Brew Officer” to be paid in an endless supply of, well, Peet’s cold brew coffee.

Keep reading for the answer.