>The Amazon supply chain is fantastic indeed. And the end-user experience can be astounding.
>Amazon vs Alibaba - to simplify, this game will be won by the best supply chain, And sure Amazon leads by far.
Amazons supply chain begins in China. Alibaba's supply chain begins in China.
The only issue here is that Amazon pays quite a lot to warehouse their own stuff in states and Alibaba don't (after discovering the obvious fact that doing that in America is not as cheap as in China)
They have totally lost appetite for American market after spending years trying. They don't want to be a global company now. There was a period in Alibaba's history when they thought "we are just few minute away from swatting Amazon like a fly," they hired tons for expensive, but useless American execs, spent tons on marketing, spent ton on logistics ("fulfillment by aliexpress"), only to find out that simply nobody bothers to do anything with them even when they are ready to sell same widgets for half the price on same terms as Amazon.
Their problem is that they are INVISIBLE to an American customer, and this will not change for many years -- this is what is called a "Toyota phenomenon" in action.
During Toyota's early years in US market, everybody was puzzled: why heck they have such bad rep and sales when everybody prize their cars - costs 1/3 of GM garbage, has double the fuel efficiency, virtually unbreakable vs half the vehicle price in maintenance over its lifetime.
Only when Toyota steamrolled competitors on quality on a level beyond comparison, and dispelled the myth of "Toyota - poor man's car" they took off. GM managed to set much of the population into a mode of thinking where "if you buy a Japanese car, you admit that you began to realize that GM was totally fleecing you all those years" and "you have the money to driver the big, bad, American car"
I worked for 2 years for an sourcing company that worked for Amazon and a number top tier US retailers, all of above is consistent with my experience working with Amazon guys.