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Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders

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Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders

#181

Post by fooqux »

appleflaxen wrote: post #137
reustle wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, TIL Amazon doesn't sell Apple TV or Chromecast, but instead immediately suggests their own competitors. For a company trying to replace all retail, that's pretty lame.

Great point. Doesn't this directly contradict his statement of "focus on the customer, not the competition"?

But obviously anything Amazon makes is far superior to the competitor's offerings, so by refusing to sell those devices and pushing customers to our own products, we are focusing on the customer. It's for their own good, you see. /s

Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders

#182

Post by ErrantX »

pc86 wrote: post #170
ArkyBeagle wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very effective sleight of hand. The cherry on top is 2-day delivery being prepaid. I wouldn't have paid for 2-day otherwise. They "fixed" that for me. The whole thing makes going to a brick and mortar store feel like going to the DMV.

With the exception that if you drive to store and back home for a single item, you'll have the item inside of an hour. If you live close, inside of 15 minutes? When I know I will need batteries in a week, I'll buy a box on Amazon and get it in a few days. If I need batteries now, I'll have them within an hour. It's certainly not "like going to the DMV."

Here in the UK Amazon seem to be heading for same-day delivery for Prime customers (we already have free next day on Prime) and ultimately "within the hour" types of delivery in major cities.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders

#183

Post by ericzawo »

calibraxis wrote: post #132
preordained wrote: post #101

I work at a small software company, and too often our CEO and company will latch onto nuggets from material like this and use it to justify a "swing for the fences", "nothing ventured nothing gained" sort of mindset. All well and good, but they blithely overlook the "we fail all the time" parts, and sometimes we take risks where the potential losses are not easy to absorb, or we don't have the vast resources of a big…

Oh god yes. At one company, I'd see an article trending on HN and think, "Oh fuck, some suck-up's gonna email to everyone, and the CTO will publicly pat him on the head for confirming his prejudices."

I think about this sentiment all the time. Any C-level professional (even if you're in a company with a single digit of employees) should be constantly challenging their own line of thinking.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders

#184

Post by ErrantX »

buro9 wrote: post #153
prof_hobart wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever contacted Amazon about the delivery firms that you've had issues with? I contacted them on 3 separate occasions about CityLink - they refused to leave parcels either in my porch or with a neighbour and their nearest collection depot was at that time 3 bus journeys away in a different county. After the third one, I said I would be cancelling my Prime if they ever delivered (or rather didn't deliver) agai…

Yes, I have. It has not resulted in any change. They prefer their own drivers, and these are what we have issues with. We live in a high-rise, one of several, and have a concierge from 8am through to midnight. Even so, the items are seldom left with the concierge, and frequently we get "attempted delivery" when the concierge is on-duty and open or whilst we are in (no delivery attempt is made at all). Sometimes the d…

Delivery has gotten really bad. When they used DPD it was great, but really nothing to do with Amazon, DPD are just far and away the best UK courier.

Recently around me they switched to "Amazon logistics" which to me is code for "a man in a van we hired". All in all quality of delivery has dropped; I've got about a year of free prime because one delivery driver, delivering to an obvious business address, couldn't wrap his head around "work hours" and kept turning up at 7pm.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders

#185

Post by busterarm »

prof_hobart wrote: post #151
buro9 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then Amazon is going to have to become much much better. I live in London, UK and do not use Prime. I've almost stopped using Amazon altogether now. Why? 1. Delivery - For our flat, their network either fails to deliver, mis-delivers or screws up in some other way far more than they succeed. There is no option to choose the one postal service that shines for my property: Royal Mail. Anything I order from Amazon may t…

Have you ever contacted Amazon about the delivery firms that you've had issues with? I contacted them on 3 separate occasions about CityLink - they refused to leave parcels either in my porch or with a neighbour and their nearest collection depot was at that time 3 bus journeys away in a different county. After the third one, I said I would be cancelling my Prime if they ever delivered (or rather didn't deliver) agai…

I tried that with LaserShip.

LaserShip still gets my Amazon packages. After the last one, even with their "here have a refund" (after digging around trying to find a help/support contact on Amazon's page for 20 minutes), I stopped ordering off of Amazon completely. I've spent at least $20,000 on their site in the last 5 years.

LaserShip is universally reviled and has the worst complaints in the entire logistics industry. Amazon does not care. Amazon just cares who and where the lowest bidder is, and for small packages in Midtown Manhattan, LaserShip is it. If you don't live in a doorman building, you are fucked.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders

#186

Post by ErrantX »

Matthias247 wrote: post #109
notjosh wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, Germany also has Prime Video.

Yes, but it's probably also the only justification for paying money for prime. I also use it mainly because it's a requirement for their DVD/Blu-Ray rental service. However that got a massive price increase the last month - so I'm considering stopping to use both. Regarding delivery the interesting thing is that before prime emerged nearly all orders here in Germany were delivered on the next day. Then prime came up…

I was surprised how popular DVD rental still was in Germany. Someone I know from Amazon was telling me. I get the impression they desperately want to kill off the market for it though?

Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders

#187

Post by andrewguenther »

mahyarm wrote: post #72
sharkweek wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Seattle and am friends with a lot of Amazon folks. Most work very hard and complain from time to time, but I only know one who left for another job because most who are there now actually really like their jobs. One friend put it best after he transitioned from a small department in the ecommerce side of the business to one of AWS's early-ish hires, that most young departments have the thrill of working at…

For me amazon just seems like a bad deal compensation wise compared to other BigCos like facebook, google, apple, msft . Back loaded stock grants, lower pay, etc. Then add a high pressure big-company culture on top of that. I'll be pleasantly surprised if I'm wrong!

The thing that I like about working at Amazon is that they don't push the "Kool-Aid" culture that I sense from Facebook, Google, and Apple. I come to work, I feel proud of what I've done, I go home. That is it. That is what I want out of a job. I don't want to be a "Googler," or be told that I'm "changing the world" as I deploy a new sticker pack of poop emojis to Messenger. I want a job, not a cult.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders

#188

Post by alttab »

appleflaxen wrote: post #137
reustle wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, TIL Amazon doesn't sell Apple TV or Chromecast, but instead immediately suggests their own competitors. For a company trying to replace all retail, that's pretty lame.

Great point. Doesn't this directly contradict his statement of "focus on the customer, not the competition"?

It'd make more sense if they carried it - but advertised their own products heavily around it. At least they would be honest about the "selection" game.

But let's be honest - Amazon devices push more people into Prime, Amazon Instant Prime Video, and their other digital services. Maybe it had something to do with Prime Video not yet being on those devices, but we'd need to see them support Prime on Chromecast or AppleTV and then re-list those products on Amazon.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders

#189

Post by kdamken »

giarc wrote: post #178
kdamken wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but the point of the Apple store is to sell Apple products, and the Google Play store only sells google devices. Amazon supposedly sells everything. It wasn't created to only sell Amazon products, and it's misleading to consumers to not be more open about that. Case in point - they sell iPads. Why don't they just sell Kindles? The inconsistency comes off as sleezy.

Apple sells many products that are not owned by Apple. I can buy headphones by Bose, RHA, BlueAnt, Beats (were on store prior to Apple purchase). Amazon gets the criticism but they all do it. Remember, we had a store that was willing to sell all these products, it's called Best Buy and it's on the way out. As consumers we choose to boost Amazon into the leading online position.

True - but most of those products support or interact with the core apple products. Amazon offers way more things, like toilet paper and cat food. I'm not sure how they're supposed to interact with a Kindle.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders

#190

Post by cstejerean »

giarc wrote: post #178
kdamken wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but the point of the Apple store is to sell Apple products, and the Google Play store only sells google devices. Amazon supposedly sells everything. It wasn't created to only sell Amazon products, and it's misleading to consumers to not be more open about that. Case in point - they sell iPads. Why don't they just sell Kindles? The inconsistency comes off as sleezy.

Apple sells many products that are not owned by Apple. I can buy headphones by Bose, RHA, BlueAnt, Beats (were on store prior to Apple purchase). Amazon gets the criticism but they all do it. Remember, we had a store that was willing to sell all these products, it's called Best Buy and it's on the way out. As consumers we choose to boost Amazon into the leading online position.

Yes, Apple also sells premium accessories for their devices including headphones, cases, backpacks, other hardware accessories and even 3rd party software for their devices. They are not a general purpose store. Amazon is, or at least pretends to be.
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