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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

#241

Post by Melting_Harps »

shaklee3 wrote: post #239
Melting_Harps wrote: post #238

What a missed opportunity, Boeing is on its knees and shown it cannot compete with SpaceX, and Blue Origin has the best opportunity to displace SLS with New Glenn program once and for all. When else will you be able to kill a crony-Goliath like ULA, by their own incompetence no less, and gain the public's adoration for it as CEO? I get it, this is his golden goose and its undergoing huge stress and delays due to COVI…

SpaceX isn't turning a profit, though, especially since the number of launched has been dropping precipitously in the last couple of years. Bezos is smart enough to know that there's no rush in this.

What? SpaceX has increased its manifest dramatically over the years, Starlink missions put it way over its previous highs, and 2020 is their record breaking year:

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2019/12/spacex-record-breaki...

You cannot know if SpaceX operates at a profit or not, its a private company and funding is most certainly not an issue, so of course Cap-Ex isn't reigned in when you now have definitive domestic market share for resupply missions to ISS and US Military contracts, as well as a long wait-list for international customers as well fleshing out your future forms of revenue with Starlink and Starship (already in its 5th iteration in just 7 months!) missions and several Factories churning rockets and engines 24/7.

I've seen it with my own eyes, and stood inches away from several prototype raptor engines all over the place. As awesome as Starship SN2 was, I really got my highest fanboy feeling looking at it.

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

#242

Post by pfranz »

iagovar wrote: post #70
lnsru wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same in Germany. Started training archery in the woods as sport and needed arm protector. Amazon offered plenty of them, most the same as in AliExpress. Or the ones as in specialized archery stores with 20% higher prices. Sadly there were no archery store near by to walk in and I was limited to online shopping.

Niche stores tend to be better, at least the feedback from clients means something, unlike amazon where sellers just open up with another account. And some of them test what they buy.

The problem is it varies so much. I've been trying to find a replacement pedal for a sewing machine. As far as I can tell there's no model number for the part. I just have the sewing machine model. Everything is sold out online.

I found a local place. Normally I would just go in and talk to them, but because of the circumstances I called. I called Saturday at 1pm and left a message and got a call back mid-day Monday. Their website still shows hours 7-days a week, but maybe they've reduced hours or staff and haven't updated. They confirm the style and model I'm looking for and say they'll call me back if it's in stock or if they'll have to order it. I called them today (Thursday) late-afternoon and they said they had been meaning to call me back. They have the part, I pay for it, and they say they'll call when it's available. When I ask when that might be they said, "If it makes it on the truck, then tomorrow. If not, probably in a week."

None of this is bad customer service, but it's really nice to click "buy" with a good faith estimation for delivery and expect it to show up on my doorstep in a day or two.

I noticed professional businesses are really into their thing, but aren't always on top of the customer service/running a business part of things. It's most obvious to me with tradesmen who make house calls. It's hard to schedule something, it's hard to get an invoice and even sometimes pay them.

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

#243

Post by grogenaut »

reeddavid wrote: post #215
admax88q wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this odd. I read these sorts of comments every time Amazon in mentioned on HN, how its literally only clones, fakes, and scams, and impossible to find legitimate products anymore. I have literally never received a fake/clone/scam off amazon, and I can't explain that discrepancy. I personally only buy things that are sold or fulfilled by amazon, never shipped by third party sellers, but surely everyone else as…

Fakes: Are you sure you haven't received a fake item? If you don't have a reference point, you might not be able to tell unless/until something goes wrong with it. Clones: If you shop through referral links (e.g. click through from The Wirecutter) or seek out a specific model number from a major brand you won't experience the clone problem. But how confident do you feel starting your search at Amazon for items like B…

Are the latter fakes or clones? or is it just rebadging of the same product by the same factory?

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

#244

Post by sokoloff »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #99
iagovar wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. I used to read this comments and think it only applied to the US. Also happening to Spain. Amazon has become useless. Rankings are weird, quality stuff is is very hard to find and I have to resort to forums that point to Amazon links that you cannot find using Amazon search. Also, I'm more and more attracted to specialized shops again. For example for the last two years I've been buying most electronic stuff fr…

> Why should I use Amazon if I can go to Alibaba or Aliexpress Because you want it tomorrow and not in 3 months (if ever)? And want to be able to return it? I'm all for hating things that are popular, but I don't think anyone suggesting AliExpress as a replacement for Amazon has seriously used it. AliExpress is for things like a replacement cable you don't need soon but you'll need sometime in the next few years, so…

I use both Amazon and AliExpress a fair amount. There are a lot of things I can wait 2-3 weeks for. I broke a car phone vent mount the other day. $10 or so on Amazon. $2.60 or so on Ali. I can keep my phone in the cup holder or my pocket for 75% saving.

When ePacket was often free, I used Ali a lot and small parcels would often be just over a week to the east coast.

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

#245

Post by sokoloff »

tguedes wrote: post #103
burrows wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then Amazon shouldn’t mix being a first party marketplace with being a third party marketplace. If this bothers people, they should stop using Amazon. Problem solved.

How does that solve the problem? By showing 3rd party products next to their own, they make it seem like Amazon has given their approval of that product, when that is absolutely not the case. Walmart is responsible for every product sold in their store, the same is not case for Amazon. This is the problem with so many internet companies, they want all the upside without the responsibility.

Walmart has third-party sellers in their online store as well.

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

#246

Post by ashtonkem »

SkyPuncher wrote: post #207
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 100% agree with this. In a matter of 4 days, Amazon went from next day shipping to 1+ month "estimated" delivery timeframes. This was the final straw for me to finally commit to finding items from non-Amazon sources. So far everything I've ordered has come in a reasonable timeframe. Possibly, taking one day longer, but not 15x longer. I ordered an air conditioner that showed up 2 days later with free shipping. Yet,…

As an interesting anecdote, the non-prime thermometer I ordered yesterday already shipped. But of course, I actually paid shipping for it, which probably put me near the front of the queue.

My prime orders got badly delayed though.

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

#247

Post by ashtonkem »

ethagknight wrote: post #126
MattGaiser wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a friend at Amazon and they say absenteeism among employees is through the roof. They can neither hire nor keep the employees they do have.

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.

It’s entirely possible that they’ve literally bottomed out on the labor pool in some areas, what with the increase of risk to drivers and increased robustness in the social safety net.

It’s kind of hard to plan around the “what if we can’t get more workers” scenario.

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

#248

Post by ashtonkem »

ardy42 wrote: post #234
MattGaiser wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can just not deliver the service. Amazon Prime doesn't guarantee that any item you want will come in two days.

> Amazon Prime doesn't guarantee that any item you want will come in two days. So you're saying their deal is "pay us $120/year but we make no commitment to provide anything in exchange?"

It’s sadly not uncommon for businesses to promise various services and then unilaterally change their minds. While I’m sure that there are some exceptions, most TOS have a ton of “we reserve the right to change our minds whenever for whatever reason, without warning”

Now that’s kind of different from the PR fallout. Amazon is risking a mass walkout of their customers over this; it just depends on whether or not customers see this as a reasonable response to a crazy circumstance, or a greedy move on Amazon’s part to maintain profitability over their commitments to customers.

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

#249

Post by ashtonkem »

gbear605 wrote: post #210
barry-cotter wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Legal, perhaps not. Economic, possibly. I wouldn't be surprised if a change in price acted as a shock to get people to cancel their membership.

The PR is probably more important than the legal in this case.
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