Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How Amazon’s ambitious new push for same-day delivery will destroy local retail

slate.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 321 posts

Re: How Amazon’s ambitious new push for same-day delivery will destroy local retail

#41

Post by earl »

ddt wrote: post #11

It'll destroy larger B&M stores but I doubt it'll fully outdo local specialty shops. What you'll see is a stratification between hyper specialty B&M that sell luxury items only a tiny subset of people want, but are willing to pay out the nose for, and places like Amazon filling the role of Target and Walmart, being the catch-all for everything else that most people need on a week-to-week or month-to-month basis. Whil…

Also, amazon is kind of skeevy; I'm very leery of buying food, cosmetics, or toiletries from them because they make it really hard to tell from whom you're buying stuff. I'm happy to buy eg usb cables from the cheapest vendor, but I don't trust any of the chinese knockoff shit if it's going to regularly touch my skin or be eaten. Particularly since china appears to have no real food safety laws and poisoned 300k of their children [1] with the same well known techniques used to fake out protein readings on milk they used to kill thousands of american pets [2] the year before. China even went so far as to hurt more children by delaying a recall to avoid embarrassment during the summer olympics! If I'm going to buy food or cosmetics on amazon, they need to be much better about communicating from whom I'm purchasing and what was done to make sure it isn't a knockoff.

And knockoffs are everywhere on amazon's site. I've wanted one of these cool suck.uk bottle opener keychains that looks like an old school key for a while [3] but their shipping charges to the US are too expensive. So I found it on amazon [4]. If you read the reviews, it's full of complaints about knockoffs or the steel snapping. And I've seen it sold for as little as $2.99 with shipping while amazon sells it for $9. Adding to the skeeviness, the cheapest vendor of that item changes all the time, and for quite a while amazon didn't sell it directly. I finally bought it from amazon proper and I'm hoping they got the actual item and not some knockoff themselves, but who knows. Shit like this makes it hard to be willing to buy food on amazon.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_pet_food_recalls

[3] http://www.suck.uk.com/products/keybottleopener/

[4] http://www.amazon.com/Suck-UK-Key-Bottle-Opener/dp/B0000B0DK...

Re: How Amazon’s ambitious new push for same-day delivery will destroy local retail

#42

Post by Scene_Cast2 »

There are a few fundamental, hard problems : energy and transportation. Amazon is trying to solve a subset of the latter here. However, I like to see/feel some things in person before buying. I often go through lot of items before finding "the one". Examples: food, pens, shoes. It would revolutionize the industry if Amazon could solve that. Until then, it's just a really large online store. Also - USA isn't the world. Non-US Amazon is heavily sub-par to other online stores: worse prices, small selection. So there's that, too.

Re: How Amazon’s ambitious new push for same-day delivery will destroy local retail

#43

Post by learc83 »

The other day I ordered something from Amazon, and it showed up in a small cargo van, delivered by a guy without a uniform, and in a package with no UPS or FEDEX label (or any other delivery label I could discern apart from the amazon labels).

Was this some kind of test for Amazon ran delivery from a local warehouse?

Re: How Amazon’s ambitious new push for same-day delivery will destroy local retail

#44

Post by alanfalcon »

cjensen wrote: post #25
S201 wrote: post #10

Looks like Amazon is finally bringing Webvan to fruition. Only took 11 years.

By building many warehouses before proving the idea works, they appear to also be repeating Webvan's greatest error.

They are offering same day delivery in some markets today, including Las Vegas. I've used it twice, with the $10 same day delivery being less expensive than other expedited shipping options. It was very cool having a courier drop a package at my door with my purchase the same day I bought it. Even with $10 delivery the final price was cheaper than buying from a retail store at retail prices.

I think with these test markets, Amazon has proven to themselves already that the idea works. I know that I'm very happy with the results so far!

Re: How Amazon’s ambitious new push for same-day delivery will destroy local retail

#45

Post by timee »

cjensen wrote: post #25
S201 wrote: post #10

Looks like Amazon is finally bringing Webvan to fruition. Only took 11 years.

By building many warehouses before proving the idea works, they appear to also be repeating Webvan's greatest error.

They've had same day delivery (local delivery) for quite a few product categories in the Seattle area for some time with Amazon Fresh trucks. I've bought a book recently with same day shipping for an additional 3.99 (Prime) that was on my door step when I arrived at home.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=2...

Re: How Amazon’s ambitious new push for same-day delivery will destroy local retail

#46

Post by Ixiaus »

cjensen wrote: post #25
S201 wrote: post #10

Looks like Amazon is finally bringing Webvan to fruition. Only took 11 years.

By building many warehouses before proving the idea works, they appear to also be repeating Webvan's greatest error.

I disagree here. Amazon has clearly proven the market with their Amazon Prime membership; Amazon has massive mind share (I don't even know what Webvan is/was); Amazon will also only improve operating efficiency by building these warehouses with the automated inventory fulfillment system (which has the nice side-effect of making customers really happy) which over a long period of time will pay for itself (not discounting the happy customers buying more and more products through Amazon).

Re: How Amazon’s ambitious new push for same-day delivery will destroy local retail

#47

Post by alanfalcon »

learc83 wrote: post #43

The other day I ordered something from Amazon, and it showed up in a small cargo van, delivered by a guy without a uniform, and in a package with no UPS or FEDEX label (or any other delivery label I could discern apart from the amazon labels). Was this some kind of test for Amazon ran delivery from a local warehouse?

Amazon does a bunch of drop ship orders. If a vendor gets a local order, I can imagine they may decide to save on shipping by sending an employee to hand deliver the product. Or it could have been a local courier service (same day delivery uses couriers).

Re: How Amazon’s ambitious new push for same-day delivery will destroy local retail

#48

Post by aleyan »

ddt wrote: post #11

It'll destroy larger B&M stores but I doubt it'll fully outdo local specialty shops. What you'll see is a stratification between hyper specialty B&M that sell luxury items only a tiny subset of people want, but are willing to pay out the nose for, and places like Amazon filling the role of Target and Walmart, being the catch-all for everything else that most people need on a week-to-week or month-to-month basis. Whil…

As an Amazon Prime subscriber who bought mustache wax from their affiliates on two occasions, I have to report very disappointing shipping times. Living in NYC and ordering in the morning, I expect delivery the next day. Alas, my mustache wax came three days later. Part of blame has to be placed on Amazon's affiliates. If the merchandise is not in an Amazon warehouse, then what can Amazon do to speed up delivery? I foresee a future where Amazon has deals with local specialty retailers to ship items that are rarely sold that wouldn't make sense to warehouse for Amazon directly.

Re: How Amazon’s ambitious new push for same-day delivery will destroy local retail

#49

Post by jaggederest »

PotatoEngineer wrote: post #24
tomfakes wrote: post #4

I bought 2 things on Amazon this week, both with free 2 day shipping with Prime Item 1 spent 13 hours on a UPS truck driving around my city and was delivered about 7pm in the evening 2 days after ordering. Item 2 was delivered 14 hours after purchasing by Amazon Fresh at 9am. For the same price of shipping, which service would you rather have? EDIT To Add: The delivery guy for the 14 hour item works for Amazon - the…

It depends on how well I know the item. If it's a commodity where I've bought exactly the same thing before (Charmin Extra-Strong Toilet Paper), then price rules all. If it's a new item that I'm not sure what I need about it (chef knife, bar stool, etc.), then seeing the item in person helps determine which item I need.

I'm not sure if you've used Amazon's return system before, but it's absolutely immaculate. In my opinion, this is more an issue of perception than reality - in many ways it's easier to return things to Amazon than to your local store.
Post reply on HN