Everyone seems overlook one sentence:
> they can't run applications for the retailer
Wal-mart doesn't really want it's data on Amazon servers. Amazon is pretty aggressive about mining any available data on competitors.
Wal-Mart is telling some vendors they can’t run applications on AWS
241–250 of 410 posts
Re: Wal-Mart is telling some vendors they can’t run applications on AWS
#242This is... Not the best? That Wal-Mart is powerful enough to dictate the internal business practice and tech decisions of it's vendor. On the other hand, Amazon is a massive immoral monster devouring the US economy and replacing it with something vaguely worse, year by year. It's rapidly approaching a "too big to be allowed to fail" status, and that's awful for Americans. Since anti-trust laws weren't written by a ge…
Wal-Mart have always been pure bastards to their supply chain. My family had a small manufacturing business that went bankrupt years ago. At one point we were making a part that ultimately ended up on a WM product. Periodically WM's folks would come around and do a strong arm routine trying to renegotiate the contract. It got bad enough my dad adopted the habit of bringing a couple of the very burly folks that worked…
Someone close to me related the story of when they almost put one of their products in Wal-Mart's stores in Canada about 2 decades ago. One big showstopper was that they were asking for the quality to be reduced so that the price could be lower. The vendor I know refused, saying that their product lasts a long time and they are proud of it and they wouldn't sign unless that stipulation was removed. A few months later the head of Wal-Mart Canada visited the vendor and asked when they were going to close the deal and he was shocked when the vendor said they wouldn't sign unless that provision was changed! He wasn't used to hearing no from potential vendors! The deal never happened and to this day the vendor is really glad they didn't go down that road.
Re: Wal-Mart is telling some vendors they can’t run applications on AWS
#243I sold to Walmart for 4 years. In the beginning we believed we were lucky to become vendors. Then we realized how much stress they created. Every single year they would short pay our invoices. We would have to submit a claim with Walmart accounting. This process was completely and utterly time consuming. But the worst of it, they wouldn't pay the invoices owed until a year later. It's hard to float a $100,000 short p…
I've never worked with Walmart directly, but to be fair, I experienced this kind of thing all the time as a contractor. It seems to be sort of an unspoken thing in accounting departments that you allow vendors to complain before you pay too much attention to the particularities of any given invoice.
It doesn't excuse the practice and I always appreciated the clients who paid correctly and promptly, but I don't think it's limited to a specific company, and small businesses in general should be prepared for this type of short or delayed payment, from both financial and legal perspectives (credible legal backing can go a long way to establishing yourself as a vendor whose invoices are to be respected).
The problem with behemoths like Walmart is that they know you're not going to be able to stand up for yourself in a meaningful way. The relationship means a lot more to the non-behemoth, for whom it may well be life and death, whereas the behemoth can probably get a replacement vendor set up within a couple of weeks.
Lots of huge companies exploit such advantages aggressively; in many cases, it crosses the line between aggressive business and cost savings to outright bullying.
Re: Wal-Mart is telling some vendors they can’t run applications on AWS
#244Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Amazon is a massive immoral monster this should be enough > devouring the US economy and replacing it with something vaguely worse, year by year. Luddites repeat: automation, price reduction and job shifting isn't bad for the economy and it isn't worse either > It's rapidly approaching a "too big to be allowed to fail" status, and that's awful for Americans. Completely unsubstantiated. Surely it's one of the larger…
"Luddites repeat: automation, price reduction and job shifting isn't bad for the economy and it isn't worse either" You haven't proven that. And its entirely possible that it's not worse for the economy in general, but it's quite awful for segments of it. And given the current attitude toward the safety net in the US, once those jobs are gone, that's it for those people.
> quite awful for segments of it
I wish this would see wider acknowledgement.
Lump of Labor is a fallacy, people do find new jobs, and productivity does improve the economy. But none of that implies that the displaced people will be better off in the end!
Similarly, free trade agreements are economically efficient, and boost per-capita GDP. But even aside from implementation issues (i.e. agreements that go far beyond lowering tariffs), there's no particular reason that the extra money ends up benefiting the same people who get hit by outsourcing.
If anything, the studies I've seen say that being displaced by automation or outsourcing causes a permanent wage decline. The original Luddites were right - they probably saw lower wages for their entire lives thanks to automation.
Pretending that overall growth inherently means an economy which works better for the majority of people is frankly dishonest, especially (as you say) in a country so opposed to helping the displaced.
Re: Wal-Mart is telling some vendors they can’t run applications on AWS
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is how Wal-Mart maintains its position, and grows to where it is today. Thats Business at their level. I sympathize however. Strong Arming small and middle sized businesses, which are the bedrock of American Capitalist Power is just egregiously scummy. This is also what I think is currently gone wrong with the American Capitalism, but thats another comment, somewhere, sometime I guess :)
But Amazon doesn't do this to their vendors.
They most certainly do and have.
Take Books and Ebooks for a good example.
Re: Wal-Mart is telling some vendors they can’t run applications on AWS
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think concerns about Amazon becoming a monopoly are greatly exaggerated. They are getting attacked from all sides, by Microsoft in the cloud and Wal-Mart in ecommerce. As Microsoft grabs share from them in web services it'll reduce Amazon's ability to cross-subsidize its ecommerce business. As Wal-Mart and Costco continue to catch up in ecommerce and free two-day shipping becomes table stakes in ecommerce, Amazon's…
Valid point. I don't know why techies always like trying to fuck over (or over scrutinize) the tech companies they know/hear most about, while many offline-first companies never appear on our radar..
calling criticism "fucking over" is laughable.
Re: Wal-Mart is telling some vendors they can’t run applications on AWS
#247Re: Wal-Mart is telling some vendors they can’t run applications on AWS
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
"It also is not unheard of for Wal-Mart to demand to examine the private financial records of a supplier, and to insist that its margins are too high and must be cut." https://www.fastcompany.com/47593/wal-mart-you-dont-know
Honest question. How do companies in the US go about assessing the solvency and financial status of suppliers. In Sweden annual reports are public records for all limited companies, not only public companuee. How would US company determine that a supplier is solvent and not at risk of bankruptcy, which would be a risk to build into supply chains etc?
In the US, Dun & Bradstreet [1] is a company that attempts to provide a sort of "credit report" for both public and private companies of all sizes. Companies are required to have a DUNS number to do business with the government and it can act as a sort of unique ID.
However, like other credit agencies, it isn't infallible and is only as good as the information it is able to gather through information sharing agreements. They have also branched into the "Improve/Monitor your D&B score" business which is pretty shady. [2]
[Edit: We also have vendors require references if we are looking to establish a line of credit. We also provide references saying how much credit they have and how often they pay on time. It is a manual process.]
[1] http://www.dnb.com/ [2] https://www.dandb.com/ (See, their credit services are totally different! They use "and" instead of "&"!)
Re: Wal-Mart is telling some vendors they can’t run applications on AWS
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Amazon has been forcing cheaper books back when it was mainly a book store. What do you do about something like that? In Germany, book prices are regulated: the printer sets the price, and the price the customer pays must be this price. Only exception are damaged (e.g. books with CD-ROM, but the CD is missing) or used books. The prices the retailers have to pay at the printer are of course different and may well be…
While it seems ideal, I don't like the idea of consumer goods being regulated outside of groceries and other necessities. My Raptor romance novel should not be 'regulated'.
I suspect the author of a successful novel hopes for some form of regulation to help guarantee revenue from the effort.
Re: Wal-Mart is telling some vendors they can’t run applications on AWS
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
Amazon has been forcing cheaper books back when it was mainly a book store. What do you do about something like that? Back when Barnes and Noble was the big book store, same thing, they pressured better prices. What do you do, split up the book store into two companies, who still control the same market share and will both still put pressure on the book companies? Last I read, Amazon mainly fights for cheaper kindle…
> Amazon has been forcing cheaper books back when it was mainly a book store. What do you do about something like that? In Germany, book prices are regulated: the printer sets the price, and the price the customer pays must be this price. Only exception are damaged (e.g. books with CD-ROM, but the CD is missing) or used books. The prices the retailers have to pay at the printer are of course different and may well be…
Copyright is the much larger "danger to culture". We invented it to try to keep artistic recompense safe, but like most idealistic propositions, the sharks have moved in and gamed it and now we are all worse off. Allowing anyone to make any type of contribution without fear of a crackdown from Big Legal leads to a much more prosperous culture.
This is already becoming reality as the internet has made traditional copyright completely unenforceable on the general population. For example, Adobe no longer sells Photoshop as a standalone unit, but as an ongoing subscription, which gives the impression that the vendor is an active participant in usage.