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Sears has another chance to avoid closing down

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Re: Sears has another chance to avoid closing down

#221

Post by bluGill »

_dark_matter_ wrote: post #201
hrktb wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could say the same for other big box retailers. I don’t know any that even comes close to te amazon experience, short of Yodobashi.con in Japan. I think it requires something very special for an organization to accept to canibalize itself. Apple is the only exemple that I would see at a behemoth scale.

What is "The Amazon experience"? Ads being served as the first few rows of results? A review system that cannot be trusted? The same item listed multiple times by different sellers? Extreme price variance when choosing different colors and sizes?

The experience today is not what made them great in the past. 10 years ago the negatives you list didn't exist.

Re: Sears has another chance to avoid closing down

#222

Post by simias »

_dark_matter_ wrote: post #201
hrktb wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could say the same for other big box retailers. I don’t know any that even comes close to te amazon experience, short of Yodobashi.con in Japan. I think it requires something very special for an organization to accept to canibalize itself. Apple is the only exemple that I would see at a behemoth scale.

What is "The Amazon experience"? Ads being served as the first few rows of results? A review system that cannot be trusted? The same item listed multiple times by different sellers? Extreme price variance when choosing different colors and sizes?

That's a relatively decent development AFAIK. 10 years ago I mostly trusted results and reviews. I suppose it's getting a lot worse lately because 1/ Amazon being hugely successful means that it's a prime target for advertisers and scammers and 2/ Amazon being hugely successful means that they have less of an incentive to solve the issue now than they did back then.

Re: Sears has another chance to avoid closing down

#223

Post by squirrelicus »

bpicolo wrote: post #219
CoolGuySteve wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to be snarky, but there needs to be a name for selective amnesia when an idea that seems obvious in retrospect is ignored later on. In this case, the thing that made Amazon so great, before Prime existed, was that it had the "Things you might also like" section. AFAIK it was one of the first online stores that used machine learning to recommend new and related items you didn't realize you wanted and to have user…

Is that really a primary growth factor? I've never once acted on an Amazon recommendation, and it's always felt almost entirely useless - "you just bought a vacuum, here's 15 more vacuums just in case you're a vacuum-obsessed lunatic"

I would sacrifice so much karma for more upvotes for this

Re: Sears has another chance to avoid closing down

#224

Post by lotsofpulp »

dsr_ wrote: post #114
lotsofpulp wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I should have wrote that it's just one factor, but at the end of the day, people opted for lower priced goods rather than the service that Sears offered, which I assume was partly due to the decent compensation they provided. Another example of a low wage industry where paying employees more doesn't work in the grand scheme are hotels. People like to stay in newer, renovated, upscale hotels. Well if one hotel pays mo…

Counter-example for basically everything you said: Trader Joe's. Sears used to be like Trader Joe's: customer service was great, the best products were the house brands, and if you weren't satisfied, you walked back in and got a new one or a refund. Then Sears' new management went off in pursuit of higher profits and killed everything.

I agree that Sears' management has been terrible, but also think that Sears' customers stopped being able to pay the premium for their American made Craftsman tools and knowledgeable employees.

Trader Joes are usually located in areas that have higher income and more young people. They do offer good customer service, but I also don't think Trader Joes could cater to as many people as Sears', and Sears stores and inventory seem much more costly to operate.

Re: Sears has another chance to avoid closing down

#225

Post by elihu »

CoolGuySteve wrote: post #192
xigency wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought this as well until I heard a counter-point [0] which was very convincing. The reason Amazon is successful is not because you can shop online (from a catalog) and receive items in the mail. The reason Amazon is successful is because you can do those things and receive your items within two days. Before Prime existed, Amazon had very quick fulfillment, and after Prime two-day it became even better. The Sears…

Not to be snarky, but there needs to be a name for selective amnesia when an idea that seems obvious in retrospect is ignored later on. In this case, the thing that made Amazon so great, before Prime existed, was that it had the "Things you might also like" section. AFAIK it was one of the first online stores that used machine learning to recommend new and related items you didn't realize you wanted and to have user…

Also, they let users review the products. Not very long ago, it was a novel idea to let customers tell other customers via the store's own website that this or that product is no good.

Re: Sears has another chance to avoid closing down

#226

Post by CoolGuySteve »

bpicolo wrote: post #219
CoolGuySteve wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to be snarky, but there needs to be a name for selective amnesia when an idea that seems obvious in retrospect is ignored later on. In this case, the thing that made Amazon so great, before Prime existed, was that it had the "Things you might also like" section. AFAIK it was one of the first online stores that used machine learning to recommend new and related items you didn't realize you wanted and to have user…

Is that really a primary growth factor? I've never once acted on an Amazon recommendation, and it's always felt almost entirely useless - "you just bought a vacuum, here's 15 more vacuums just in case you're a vacuum-obsessed lunatic"

True, I think like most market incumbents, Amazon has become lazier lately. The vacuum-obsession problem, the proliferation of counterfeit goods, and subpar third party sellers are all more recent problems.

But if you just bought 1984 for example, there's a good chance you'd also want to buy WE, Brave New World, Erewhon, etc. The algorithm made sense for the book store, but it makes less sense for the "Everything Store".

Re: Sears has another chance to avoid closing down

#227

Post by acdha »

xigency wrote: post #96
wombatpm wrote: post #5

Sears had everything. Global supply chain, check. Top notch distribution operation, check. System and infrastructure to take orders and handling billing, check. Name recognition and established customer base, check. They threw it all away, ending catalog operations in 1993 a year before Amazon.com opened in 1994. They owned part of Prodigy in 1984! Yet somehow thought it was a better move to expand into bigger box re…

I thought this as well until I heard a counter-point [0] which was very convincing. The reason Amazon is successful is not because you can shop online (from a catalog) and receive items in the mail. The reason Amazon is successful is because you can do those things and receive your items within two days. Before Prime existed, Amazon had very quick fulfillment, and after Prime two-day it became even better. The Sears…

There was a significant gap between Amazon launch and having two-day shipping — it took years of behind the scenes development before orders started arriving notably faster than other retails. Sears' numbers include regular postal delivery in both directions so switching to online ordering would have cut them in half with no other changes (and don't forget the efficiency wins from orders arriving as validated electronic data rather than handwritten order forms).

The reason why Amazon was successful early on was selection and pricing. They had _everything_ rather than the generally limited selection most people had from local stores and the pricing, especially for things like technical books or genre publications, was often very favorable. Yes, some people lived in major cities with awesome bookstores but for most of us in suburbia the selection was what the local supermarket / drugstore carried or a non-trivial drive.

Re: Sears has another chance to avoid closing down

#228

Post by lotsofpulp »

scrooched_moose wrote: post #175
artursapek wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if Amazon will ever get to that point. It's hard to imagine.

Anecdotally, I've seen a significant perception shift regarding Amazon over the last year, even among my non-techie friends. When this group of friends starts talking about these things I know it's moving beyond the Hacker News crowd to the general public. It used to be the place where you could get anything for a good price in 2 days and trust the quality. Now the selection is getting iffy in favor of house brands,…

I also see the same shift. There's too much garbage to sift through and too high of a chance of getting something counterfeit.

Whoever thought the operational cost reductions of "commingling" was worth the loss of trust in the Amazon.com was wrong in my opinion. I think people with disposable income would rather pay a little extra to guarantee they get a legitimate product, and it's not hard to google the model number or product name and select from Target or Lowes or Best Buy.

Re: Sears has another chance to avoid closing down

#229

Post by lotsofpulp »

airstrike wrote: post #218
sejordan wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like every time there is a discussion about Amazon on the Internet, this point is brought up. I spent about $9,000 on Amazon across 139 orders in 2018. I buy a lot on Amazon. I've never had a problem with receiving knockoff products. I don't understand how this can be such a prevalent issue when I've not run into it, given how much I use Amazon. The only thing I can think is that, if I'm buying something expen…

> I'll strictly only purchase items "Sold by: Amazon.com Services, Inc" Most users don't think to check for that, though. I know my mother-in-law doesn't...

They intentionally don't offer the option to filter for it many times, otherwise, I would have that permanently selected.

Re: Sears has another chance to avoid closing down

#230

Post by XMPPwocky »

bpicolo wrote: post #219
CoolGuySteve wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to be snarky, but there needs to be a name for selective amnesia when an idea that seems obvious in retrospect is ignored later on. In this case, the thing that made Amazon so great, before Prime existed, was that it had the "Things you might also like" section. AFAIK it was one of the first online stores that used machine learning to recommend new and related items you didn't realize you wanted and to have user…

Is that really a primary growth factor? I've never once acted on an Amazon recommendation, and it's always felt almost entirely useless - "you just bought a vacuum, here's 15 more vacuums just in case you're a vacuum-obsessed lunatic"

I wonder if some of this is just....the very low average item quality on Amazon these days.

My recommendations right now have seven separate ten-dollar tire valve extenders, two screen protectors from the same brand (only one of which is for my phone- and that one I already bought!), a $1,000 drone i accidentally clicked an ad for last week, two more screen protectors from other brands, four Qi chargers, and five cases for my phone (I already purchased a case for my phone through Amazon).

Very persuasive!

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