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Amazon can already ship to 72% of US population in a day, map shows

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41–50 of 73 posts

Re: Amazon can already ship to 72% of US population in a day, map shows

#41
post #21

Haha, except their last mile delivery which is really flaky because they use their own logistics and drivers

Last mile, in general, is shit. Not only Amazon's. That's where most innovation is needed.

Cheap, Reliable, Fast. Pick 2...

Re: Amazon can already ship to 72% of US population in a day, map shows

#42
While this discussion is about Amazon's shipping coverage, surely I cannot be the only one concerned that Amazon is going to destroy (more than it has already done) many other competitors and that consumers would be left with one large store that can exploit them any way it wishes to! This is increasingly scary to me, since Amazon is now the largest online retailer (in my knowledge) in India too. Walmart's purchase of Flipkart (which is a local online store that started like Amazon did and grew big) doesn't seem to be going anywhere.

Re: Amazon can already ship to 72% of US population in a day, map shows

#45
post #3

You know, if Brick & Mortars entered some sort of alliance, they could ship same day deliveries to an equally large chunk of the population.

I made the mistake of online ordering from Home Depot and they "conveniently" shipped from a local store. Only problem is that they apparently have a habit of reusing SKUs and sent me an older model that I didn't order. Given a chance, brick and mortars will fuck everything up. Guaranteed.

I learned recently that only about 5% of Walmart revenue is from e-commerce.

The industry average for a brick and mortar is just about 10%.

They don’t do much online revenue because they don’t invest in growing it. They don’t invest in growing it because it’s too small a portion of their business to warrant investment.

Online first companies are eating brick and mortar alive because of this.

Re: Amazon can already ship to 72% of US population in a day, map shows

#46
post #6

So now it’s about 10% as good as Taobao

It is somewhat ignorant not to see China and US has very different transportation system and population density. Building logitistics in US is a totally different story from of China. Put Alibaba in US, they will fail like Amazon did in China.

Re: Amazon can already ship to 72% of US population in a day, map shows

#47
post #42

While this discussion is about Amazon's shipping coverage, surely I cannot be the only one concerned that Amazon is going to destroy (more than it has already done) many other competitors and that consumers would be left with one large store that can exploit them any way it wishes to! This is increasingly scary to me, since Amazon is now the largest online retailer (in my knowledge) in India too. Walmart's purchase o…

There's plenty of room for competitors to breathe on the niche end of e-commerce. Etsy, for example is doing great, and I don't see how Amazon could take their market at all.

Also, physical stores clearly have some value for Amazon themselves to be opening them, and at that point they're going to have a much tougher time competing - cool tech notwithstanding.

Re: Amazon can already ship to 72% of US population in a day, map shows

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is a luxury brand? Look I'm in Japan and from this side of the pond as it were, Amazon is a shitty aggregate selling site. There are many around and they are all to be steered clear of unless you desperately can't find the item you want somewhere else

Until very recently, my experience shopping on Amazon.com was top notch. I always get what I order within a couple days. My account was opened in 2006. Between 2006 and 2014, I had one problem in total when ordering. It was for a $500 item that was marked delivered but never arrived. Amazon just sent me another shipment. I was so impressed in fact, I put every dime I had left after purchasing the Sp500 into Amazon. T…

Honestly, it feels like Amazon's admittedly great customer service is just a band-aid over the systemic problems their website has with spam, fake reviews and scammers. Instead of fixing the problem they just patch a solution.

Re: Amazon can already ship to 72% of US population in a day, map shows

#49
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they are doing what everyone do at wildly successful silicon valley companies: building silos/fiefdoms to be the leader behind their money burning next-big-thing-nobody-asked-for project, such as cashierless store or 1984 listening device or whatever.

Cashier less store is a great idea. I’ve been to it in Seattle. I have concerns as an investor about the long term prospects of Amazon.com, but I do think they’re an innovative company. The cashierless stuff will shift all kinds of retail businesses and it’s a win for consumers IMO.

I wonder if they'll license the tech to other companies. They could just take a percentage fee of all transactions by customer purchases. I reckon the cost savings in staff would be enough for most businesses to justify it.

Has anyone had any luck with cloning this technology yet? I suppose the devil's in the details (and the hardware) with this one.

Re: Amazon can already ship to 72% of US population in a day, map shows

#50
post #6

So now it’s about 10% as good as Taobao

Taobao is ecommerce with Chinese characteristics (i.e. clown-world style) and I say this as someone who has been using Taobao multiple times a week for years. There's having to get on AliWangWang and chat up sellers to make sure they actually have stock of the items they're listing for sale. If you optimistically order without spending ten minutes going back and forth with them beforehand, your purchases may not ship…

HN doesn't allow inline images, so I've tweeted a combo screencap of a recent example of a sellers messaging to confirm my shipping address (no response from me and that order would not move) and an example of a seller waiting two days to tell me that the stuff I'd bought wasn't in stock and telling me to apply for a refund:

https://twitter.com/briandonovan/status/1125353433110700032

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