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Jeff Bezos has returned to day-to-day management of Amazon

businessinsider.com

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Re: Jeff Bezos has returned to day-to-day management of Amazon

#171

Post by Scipio_Afri »

CalRobert wrote: post #139
hansthehorse wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Florida unemployment is a max of 235 dollars for a max of 12 weeks. Nobody is going on unemployment for a raise here.

Except it's now $835 a week, or over $40k a year. You'd have to pay me a lot to get me back to work if I had that option.

You just cited the gross income, not what you get after taxes. You still get taxed on that AND you don't have benefits like health insurance - COBRA for continuing health care is expensive as is the alternative, although slightly less so, of paying for health care through an the ACA health care exchanges 100 percent out of your own pocket. For health care all that extra money will more than exceed health insurance for a family of 4. The extra money ends at the end of July.

Again, that is gross income NOT net income. That number is pre-tax income, unemployment is taxed just like income at a job. You can choose when filing to defer paying those taxes until when you file, but you do still need to pay them when you file for taxes come April for the previous year. So when you file you'll end up owing money and have to pay the income taxes you never paid. You're definitely still not coming out ahead.

So again, the additional 600 as part of the CARES act ends at the end of July. And you have to have to wait one week where you're unemployed - receiving no income - to be able to file. So you also lose one week of earnings no matter what. I don't think most people are coming out ahead on this by far.. it seems maybe a very small majority might briefly come out ahead but they seriously risk it all being canceled out if they're unemployed still past July.

Re: Jeff Bezos has returned to day-to-day management of Amazon

#172

Post by champagneben »

MattGaiser wrote: post #140
ethagknight wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would fall under the "they can't afford to deliver the orders they have" bucket if they can't find anyone that wants to do the proposed work. If true, Amazon is selling a service that isn't robust or flexible enough for such a season. Will be interesting to see how it shakes out.

> If true, Amazon is selling a service that isn't robust or flexible enough for such a season. Nobody in that area is robust enough for a once in a century pandemic.

Does anyone know how Alibaba and the like have fared in China?

Re: Jeff Bezos has returned to day-to-day management of Amazon

#173

Post by toss1 »

ethagknight wrote: post #109

My theory: Prime, and its 2-day shipping service, is a flat rate deal, priced according to 10.5 normal months and 1.5 batshit crazy delivery months. Since they can't charge on a demand basis for shipping like FedEx can, they've run into an internal train wreck where they can't afford to deliver all the orders the've received. So their bottleneck is actually a bottleneck of budgeted "delivery slots" for these Spring m…

I've noticed the reverse - non-essential items are still delayed by weeks, but quasi-essentials (e.g., food, food storage items) are often faster than expected, and there are noticeably more Amazon trucks around than even at the holidays.

Getting a delivery from Amazon/Whole Foods has gone from difficult (get up at 2AM and have a 50% chance of finding a slot, and maybe a 2% chance during the day) in March to completely impossible since beginning of April - even the exceedingly rare event of "finding" a slot fails when trying to click through [Pay] and [Schedule] screens.

Re: Jeff Bezos has returned to day-to-day management of Amazon

#174

Post by ethagknight »

MattGaiser wrote: post #140
ethagknight wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would fall under the "they can't afford to deliver the orders they have" bucket if they can't find anyone that wants to do the proposed work. If true, Amazon is selling a service that isn't robust or flexible enough for such a season. Will be interesting to see how it shakes out.

> If true, Amazon is selling a service that isn't robust or flexible enough for such a season. Nobody in that area is robust enough for a once in a century pandemic.

Companies that have the ability to price according to the strain on their system, like FedEx and UPS, are presumably far more robust in this scenario. Here's the rub: Amazon Prime is a contract for services at a certain annual price between the customer and Amazon. Amazon cannot easily just ask for more if their end of the deal ends up more costly to deliver than forecasted.

Re: Jeff Bezos has returned to day-to-day management of Amazon

#175

Post by ethagknight »

philjohn wrote: post #151
ethagknight wrote: post #109

My theory: Prime, and its 2-day shipping service, is a flat rate deal, priced according to 10.5 normal months and 1.5 batshit crazy delivery months. Since they can't charge on a demand basis for shipping like FedEx can, they've run into an internal train wreck where they can't afford to deliver all the orders the've received. So their bottleneck is actually a bottleneck of budgeted "delivery slots" for these Spring m…

I've noticed the opposite in the UK - saying they'll take up to a week to deliver, and then the item turning up the next day, or the day after.

Early on in the COVID crisis, Amazon was giving long delivery estimates and then delivering quickly anyway. That has since changed to their estimates matching reality.

Re: Jeff Bezos has returned to day-to-day management of Amazon

#176

Post by s0rce »

philjohn wrote: post #151
ethagknight wrote: post #109

My theory: Prime, and its 2-day shipping service, is a flat rate deal, priced according to 10.5 normal months and 1.5 batshit crazy delivery months. Since they can't charge on a demand basis for shipping like FedEx can, they've run into an internal train wreck where they can't afford to deliver all the orders the've received. So their bottleneck is actually a bottleneck of budgeted "delivery slots" for these Spring m…

I've noticed the opposite in the UK - saying they'll take up to a week to deliver, and then the item turning up the next day, or the day after.

Same experience here (SF Bay), some items with moderate delays are on time (3-7 days), items with very long lead times (15-30 days) end up coming much faster. Still happy to not have to go to the store.

Re: Jeff Bezos has returned to day-to-day management of Amazon

#177

Post by s0rce »

jdoliner wrote: post #82

Has anyone else noticed Amazon shipping them more of items than they ordered? I've recently had this happen in two separate orders, including receiving 3 SSDs when I'd just ordered 1, for a free $300 of SSD.

Only ever happened to me once, and with SSD. They initially sent me 1 instead of the 2 that I ordered. Then they sent me two more instead of the additional one.

Re: Jeff Bezos has returned to day-to-day management of Amazon

#178

Post by barry-cotter »

ethagknight wrote: post #174
MattGaiser wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If true, Amazon is selling a service that isn't robust or flexible enough for such a season. Nobody in that area is robust enough for a once in a century pandemic.

Companies that have the ability to price according to the strain on their system, like FedEx and UPS, are presumably far more robust in this scenario. Here's the rub: Amazon Prime is a contract for services at a certain annual price between the customer and Amazon. Amazon cannot easily just ask for more if their end of the deal ends up more costly to deliver than forecasted.

> Amazon cannot easily just ask for more if their end of the deal ends up more costly to deliver than forecasted.

Under the circumstances there’s probably no legal obstacle to them doing so. A pandemic looks, walks and quacks like force majeure.

Re: Jeff Bezos has returned to day-to-day management of Amazon

#179

Post by valuearb »

ethagknight wrote: post #174
MattGaiser wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If true, Amazon is selling a service that isn't robust or flexible enough for such a season. Nobody in that area is robust enough for a once in a century pandemic.

Companies that have the ability to price according to the strain on their system, like FedEx and UPS, are presumably far more robust in this scenario. Here's the rub: Amazon Prime is a contract for services at a certain annual price between the customer and Amazon. Amazon cannot easily just ask for more if their end of the deal ends up more costly to deliver than forecasted.

But they can easily take longer to deliver, and are, negating any need to change pricing.

Re: Jeff Bezos has returned to day-to-day management of Amazon

#180

Post by wikibob »

geerlingguy wrote: post #108
willio58 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, this is a great example of an echo-chamber that's developed in the HN community. Some of it is deserved, but not all.

It's highly dependent on what you're looking for. If you search for "Belkin USB charger", you'll usually end up getting some good results at the top of the listings. But if you search for "USB charger", you need to prepare yourself for pages upon pages of identical-looking chargers from "Amoner", "RAVpower", "iSmart", "Ailkin", "Anker", "Power7", "Nekmit", etc. And most of them have hundreds or thousands of 4/5-star…

RAVPower has a totally awesome GaN based USB-C charger in 60 watts for like $30, and 100w for not much more, which is about 1/3 the size of the Apple one.
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