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

301–310 of 321 posts

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

#301

Post by JackC »

rabidsnail wrote: post #255
JackC wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be saying that as a defense of Amazon's treatment of warehouse workers. It's not. Read the Mother Jones article linked above. When people are working in terrible conditions, and they believe those conditions are better than the alternative, that is not a good thing. It's heartrending. I say this as someone who hates shopping in retail stores and can't wait to buy everything on Amazon. But the unseen and u…

My point isn't that conditions are good, just that the alternative must be worse. By not shopping at Amazon you're taking the warehouse jobs away from those people and pushing them to whatever that worse alternative is. "Chemotherapy makes me sick, so I'll die of cancer instead".

This would only make sense if the sole effect of not shopping at Amazon was to end warehouse jobs. But the alternative to "shop at Amazon" isn't "set my money on fire." If I don't shop at Amazon, I'll either buy the same things somewhere else, or spend the money on something else, or invest it in something else. When you (and I) shift purchases to Amazon, we're voting to take jobs away from [whoever's involved in getting stuff to us via retail] and create jobs for [whoever's involved in getting stuff to us via the internet].

Part of what I'm responding to here is, your argument seems to boil down to: "it's OK for me to benefit from these people's suffering, because they aren't being physically forced to do it, so I must be doing them a favor." That's letting yourself off far too lightly. Our standards for which businesses we encourage should be higher than "do they have to physically compel their workers to show up" -- unless that really is the best we can ask for.

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

#302

Post by BHSPitMonkey »

GFischer wrote: post #254
cglace wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of the above are problems. Huge problem is fit. Especially pants. So many things can go wrong. Too tight in the thighs, pants run short, pants are tighter than usual in the hips, weird fit in the butt, etc. . . Feel/quality is a big one for me personally because I have some hangups with textures. If something has a certain feel it makes my skin crawl. As for suggestions and opinions, I'm usually looking for advic…

It does :) . Thank you ! As soon as I have an MVP I'll post it here on Hacker News :) .

Send out measuring tapes for free to customers (like Square's credit card readers). The tapes will be branded with your logo/URL. You let users store their exact measurements on their profile, and your company takes care of the rest (building an online catalog of well-photographed stock, all of which your team has gathered samples of and tested for exact measurements.

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

#303

Post by BHSPitMonkey »

JoeCortopassi wrote: post #7

Isn't this just one step away from Amazon just being another brick-and-mortar? If this is the case, is not having an actual store that is accessible by customers (and coincidentally, the neccessary staff), that much of a operational advantage? Or is this just a case of the more efficient company (Amazon) beating out less efficient companies (Best Buy, Barnes and Nobles, etc...)?

You fail to realize how tremendously expensive it is to operate a retail environment. The real estate, the overhead, the heating and cooling, the cleaning, the customer associates; It's absolutely huge compared with a warehouse.

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

#304

Post by InclinedPlane »

greedo wrote: post #288
InclinedPlane wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

False dichotomy. In the big box race to the bottom of prices, perhaps, but that's not the whole market (for amazon or for retail).

How is it a false dichotomy? Look at the retail marketplace and it's a wasteland. You have Walmart at the low end, aggressively disrupting entire manufacturing industries in their quest for low priced goods. At the "high" end you have Amazon squeezing out B&M bookstores, electronic stores, etc. Amazon has demonstrated a willingness to tolerate extremely low margins (1-2% if not negative) to achieve marketshare. How c…

This deserves a much longer response than I have time for at the moment. Ultimately the core answer is this: the long tail. That's why we shouldn't fear amazon overly much as if it were just an online walmart. The book and music selection at amazon is better than at any physical store and that's true for almost all variety of goods there as well.

However, there's more. Retail isn't solely defined by low margin businesses like buying canned food and imported low-grade durable consumer goods (e.g. the walmart/target scenario). In many parts of the country there is a trend toward high-end "boutique" shops of various sorts. In my town, Seattle, there has been an explosion of neighborhood butchers offering organic, grass-fed beef et al. But the same sort of principles apply to lots of different businesses.

If your core business is about getting interchangeable mass produced goods into people's hands you are going to lose out to the big boxes and to the amazons. If your core business involves a lot of customer interaction or requires special skillsets or can be decommoditized in some way then perhaps you'll do ok, both online and off.

Trying to compete on amazon's playing field is a non-starter, so the trick is playing on a different field.

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

#305

Post by rdl »

ebrenes wrote: post #278
rdl wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really prefer the NB 856. I've never found Zappos to have particularly good selection of the shoes I buy (men's dress shoes, boots of various kinds, etc). They're particularly bad for boots. Their main focus seems low to mid range female shoes.

They do have a sub-website that caters to the high-end market. It might fill your requirements better? http://couture.zappos.com/

Wow, that is better (I didn't know about it, thanks).

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

#306

Post by Gustomaximus »

sage_joch wrote: post #85
Gustomaximus wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this will come into it's own with driverless car technology. Once we combine the current automated warehouses with automated delivery the timescale and costs will drop dramatically.

I think the implications of emerging technologies are greater than most people realize. Between driverless cars, voice-recognition systems, and the Internet, it doesn't seem far-fetched to imagine saying, "Computer: deliver one large pepperoni pizza and a Sprite", and having it appear on your doorstep within 15 minutes. All without human intervention.

And then we have 3D printing. This is one tech that IMO is going to come fast as companies continue advancing this tech. And then we can swap delivery time for print time on basic items!

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

#308

Post by russell »

I actually have a problem with Amazon's shipping. I live in a small town. Often FedEx shipments are dropped off at the USPS, so a two day delivery turns into three or more days. The worst was 5 days. UPS OTOH often delivers the next day.

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

#309

Post by greedo »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #304
greedo wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it a false dichotomy? Look at the retail marketplace and it's a wasteland. You have Walmart at the low end, aggressively disrupting entire manufacturing industries in their quest for low priced goods. At the "high" end you have Amazon squeezing out B&M bookstores, electronic stores, etc. Amazon has demonstrated a willingness to tolerate extremely low margins (1-2% if not negative) to achieve marketshare. How c…

This deserves a much longer response than I have time for at the moment. Ultimately the core answer is this: the long tail. That's why we shouldn't fear amazon overly much as if it were just an online walmart. The book and music selection at amazon is better than at any physical store and that's true for almost all variety of goods there as well. However, there's more. Retail isn't solely defined by low margin busine…

Yes, but the market for bespoke goods and organic foods is limited. The amount of disposable cash available to chase these goods is limited, especially during a recession like the current one. And even during "good times" the small boutique businesses don't have the market reach to do much more than eke out a living. And market economics will force out smaller companies that can't fit into either stratum.

I think we forget how many people are employed in retail jobs across the US. In 2010, 14 million people were involved in the retail industry. As retail efficiency improves via WalMart/Amazon/Target, this employment will drop. And as a society, we aren't very good at forecasting where jobs will migrate.

Competition/efficiency helps consumers by lowering prices, but the job loss should be troubling.

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

#310

Post by ippisl »

sureshv wrote: post #251
jrabone wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Amazon's revenue is growing 33% YoY. Costco is 8%. Wallmart is 8.5%. See where this is going?

While making very little profit; that's not infinitely sustainable in retail where margins approach nothing. Amazon 2012 profit was $650M, Costco $1.4B, and Walmart $16B. If Walmart decided to go zero profit they could drive out a lot of competition and get a visit from the DOJ...

Amazon has a great story to tell the DOJ:we've not reduced our prices, we're working on offering better service: prime service is expensive, and we're building costly warehouses and bought a robotics company, and investing in pack-stasions.
Post reply on HN