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Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders

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Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders

#201

Post by giarc »

cstejerean wrote: post #190
giarc wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So you are saying that if you are a general purpose store, you have to offer products from your competitors. Walmart should sell Target brand products, Home Depot should sell Lowes brand products. See my point? Stores just aren't in the business of selling their competitors products.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders

#202

Post by kylehotchkiss »

dredmorbius wrote: post #88
kylehotchkiss wrote: post #33

I'm trying to do some math. What is the total economic value of the actual Amazon river, and how many Amazon rivers economies did Amazon.com make last year. Anybody?

"Economic value" is a slippery concept. First off, most people read that as "price times volume", or the exchange value of some good or service. The Amazon River isn't exchanged, it has no exchange value. Another definition of "economic value" is use value , which is to say, the benefit derived from use, possession, existence, control, etc., of some good. The problem here is that economics has little handle on estima…

Wow! really solid response. Ever seen XKCD's book "What if?" This seems like it'd fit in well there! thanks @dredmorbius

Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders

#203

Post by res0nat0r »

kdamken wrote: post #171
giarc wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what's it worth, I cannot buy a Chromecast or Fire TV Stick at the Apple Store, or an Apple TV or Fire TV Stick at the Google Play store etc.

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.

It's not sleazy, it's smart business. Amazon doesn't sell guns either, and they technically could probably do so if they setup the proper infrastructure and background checks and whatever else to do so.

Just because they are Wal-Mart of the online world doesn't mean they must sell everything everyone wants.

The devices they don't sell are in a heavily contested field, no wonder they don't carry them, that's smart business. It's a bit silly to get self-righteous about it otherwise.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders

#204

Post by timje1 »

zeemonkee3 wrote: post #131
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…

I suspect a lot of the current griping over hiring practices is due to this. Small companies cargo-cult hiring practices from Google/Amazon/Apple/Facebook, but they forget that these companies have huge numbers of good applicants who are willing to jump through hoops just for the opportunity to have $BIGNAME on their resume.

A tangent, but when did 'cargo-cult' become a verb and not a noun?

Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders

#206

Post by e40 »

sremani wrote: post #175
shuri wrote: post #3

You have to love this sentence "We want Prime to be such a good value, you’d be irresponsible not to be a member."

Amazon is too good at what they do. The feeling that they give too good of a value, while I spent thousands of dollars on their site was a weird kind of high. That is the end game, you spend a lot with Prime since, it shows up in two days and no shipping etc. I cancelled my Prime membership, and just that saves me a hundred or two a month, because now I have to think twice before ordering anything since shipping cost…

I went to the site. They popped up a window that asked for my email address and there was no way to dismiss this without giving it something. I closed the tab.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders

#207

Post by davesque »

an_account_name wrote: post #62

From the 1997 letter that's included at the bottom: > We established long-term relationships with many important strategic partners, including America Online, Yahoo!, Excite, Netscape, GeoCities, AltaVista, @Home, and Prodigy. That takes me back.

Prodigy...I think that's the most archaic seeming company in that list.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders

#208

Post by jjtheblunt »

timje1 wrote: post #204
zeemonkee3 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect a lot of the current griping over hiring practices is due to this. Small companies cargo-cult hiring practices from Google/Amazon/Apple/Facebook, but they forget that these companies have huge numbers of good applicants who are willing to jump through hoops just for the opportunity to have $BIGNAME on their resume.

A tangent, but when did 'cargo-cult' become a verb and not a noun?

Wtf is cargo cult?

Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders

#209

Post by njwi332 »

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"?

Not really, it doesn't mean 'completely ignore your competitors and sell their products on your own store', it means 'Develop your products by listening to what customers tell you and not by watching and copying what your competitors do'.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders

#210

Post by njwi332 »

stupidcar wrote: post #99
sbank wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you don't like it, and you are fully within your rights to cancel, but it is not abuse. They can or should be able to carry whatever products they damn well please.

Sure, but it flatly contradicts everything Bezos says in this letter, and elsewhere, about Amazon being customer-focused rather than competitor-focused. A truly customer-focused company would sell the products its customers wanted, even if they competed with the company's own-brand products. And demand for these competing products would be seen as a spur to improve their own. I personally don't think the Amazon's tal…

I don't think it does contradict anything he says about being customer focused. In my opinion, and experience, it doesn't mean 'completely ignore your competitors and sell their products on your own store', it means 'Develop your products by listening to what customers tell you and not by watching and copying what your competitors do'.

If you take that as the intent behind the quote then it's kinda parallel to the issue of whether to sell chromecast or not.

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