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

Amazon Local Register

localregister.amazon.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 225 posts

Re: Amazon Local Register

#141

Post by ceejayoz »

bambax wrote: post #106
tootie wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a ton of businesses that can never move online. Food service is obviously a big one. Pretty much anything that requires face-to-face interaction or needs to be delivered near real-time (caricature artist on the beach, personal trainer, babysitting service).

> There's a ton of businesses that can never move online. Food service is obviously a big one. What about Amazon Fresh? https://fresh.amazon.com/ ? It seems there's no business too small or too niche for Amazon.

Groceries are not the same as food service, and is hardly a small or niche market.

Re: Amazon Local Register

#142

Post by voyou »

bambax wrote: post #30

This sounds a little like a joke. Amazon is the biggest competitor brick-and-mortar shops have ever seen; why would shops want to give that kind of information to Amazon, so that it knows in real time what people are buying outside of itself??? A coffeeshop, maybe, but for any other kind of business it sounds crazy.

"Amazon is the biggest competitor brick-and-mortar shops have ever seen"

Is it? The sorts of brick and mortar shop Amazon is a competitor to are things like Walmart or Best Buy, or other shops that compete on price or range of stock. But these big stores already have payment systems in place, and obviously aren't the target for this. If your shop hasn't already been put out of business by Walmart, I don't see why it would be put of business by Amazon, either.

Re: Amazon Local Register

#143

Post by genericuser »

jcomis wrote: post #136
jnardiello wrote: post #33

It's a trap. You, owner of a shop, don't do this. Amazon will first analyze all your sales data, they will than attach reviews to your shop and finally they will oblige you to play by their rules or die (banned or killed by bad reviews) and either way they will grow thanks to your hard work. I'm not joking, this is exactly what they have done (and keep doing) with "partners". Amazon is all but transparent and it has…

How is amazon going to undercut my barber or the brewery I go to with this data? It seems like there are plenty of businesses that could benefit from this and not be at risk to the "empire".

And if they do manage to undercut your barber aren't you interested to find out how.

Hair cutting drone perhaps?

Re: Amazon Local Register

#144

Post by bdcravens »

dminor wrote: post #65
bambax wrote: post #30

This sounds a little like a joke. Amazon is the biggest competitor brick-and-mortar shops have ever seen; why would shops want to give that kind of information to Amazon, so that it knows in real time what people are buying outside of itself??? A coffeeshop, maybe, but for any other kind of business it sounds crazy.

1.75% is a huge discount.

I have a friend who's about to start selling CC processing to local merchants at 1.29%. (His commission is 1/3 of that I think, so in theory the processor can go below 1%)

Re: Amazon Local Register

#145

Post by res0nat0r »

djrogers wrote: post #102
nemesisj wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference between the Google scenario and Amazon is that from what I can see, Amazon makes money on almost all of the products it's rolling out vs. Google not really directly making money out of most of its products.

If Amazon made money off 'almost all' of the products it's rolling out, it wouldn't be posting record losses every quarter and attributing it to those money-losing products.

They are "losing money" because they keep reinvesting all of their profits to facilitate all of these new products they keep turning out, and the market doesn't like it.

Re: Amazon Local Register

#146

Post by will_brown »

gfodor wrote: post #109
will_brown wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In other words Amazon is no different than the existing credit card companies (Visa, MC, AmEx, ect...), the existing merchant services, and the retailers themselves who all collect that data for purposes of selling to third parties and use for in house marketing. Brick and Mortar retailers are concerned about being able to conveniently accept payment and minimizing service charges for the convenience of accepting non…

Obviously Amazon is different, because unlike credit card companies they are in the business of competing with small retailers. Particularly when you consider their "your margin is my opportunity" strategy giving this data to them should be a terrifying proposition for any business owner.

It is actually a very interesting point you raise from a legal perspective. Kind of on par with Google's ability to unfairly utilize their internet search data which would have crushed the competition is spaces such as hotel/airline booking, local review websites, ect...

For example, Google is under significant regulations as a result of the DOJ settlement[1], "To prevent abuse of commercially sensitive information, Google will be required to implement firewall restrictions within the company that prevent unauthorized use of competitively sensitive information and data gathered from [flight booking] customers."

While I think jack-r-abbit is accurate about many business not competing with Amazon, if Amazon begins using financial data to unfairly stifle retailer competition, then they are playing with fire, Anti-Trust lawsuits are not cheap.

[1] http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2011/April/11-at-445.html

Re: Amazon Local Register

#147

Post by bdcravens »

usaphp wrote: post #67

They did not even bother to create some unique design of a landing page [1], just copied it from SquareUp [2] -> PayPal [3] pages: 1. http://localregister.amazon.com/ 2. https://squareup.com/ 3. https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/credit-card-reader

They're not that similar, aside from common UI elements seen all over the web, and showing the device and app. Honestly, the Square page looks like a typical theme you can buy on ThemeForest for less than $20

Re: Amazon Local Register

#148

Post by cbhl »

totalrobe wrote: post #105
jnardiello wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. And just to add another evilish detail: Controlling your cashflow means also that you are effectively borrowing them 2+ weeks of your income (as far as they will pay you with recurrent wires AFTER you have sold your stuff) at no cost. On a very low level, this is the mechanism that allowed them to survive for years without making profit on their products.

Why do you say Amazon is controlling cashflow? It looks like they offer bank transfers everyday. From the site: "Fast, reliable deposits. Deposits to your bank account the next business day. Or spend your money at Amazon.com within minutes."

Because that's not how long it takes for money to really clear a credit card when banks are involved.

Re: Amazon Local Register

#150

Post by cbhl »

tootie wrote: post #86
bambax wrote: post #30

This sounds a little like a joke. Amazon is the biggest competitor brick-and-mortar shops have ever seen; why would shops want to give that kind of information to Amazon, so that it knows in real time what people are buying outside of itself??? A coffeeshop, maybe, but for any other kind of business it sounds crazy.

There's a ton of businesses that can never move online. Food service is obviously a big one. Pretty much anything that requires face-to-face interaction or needs to be delivered near real-time (caricature artist on the beach, personal trainer, babysitting service).

Looking at SpoonRocket, Sprig, and ZeroCater makes me wonder how "obvious" this is.
Post reply on HN