Amazon Local Register • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon Local Register

#221

Post by cbhl » Thu, Aug 14, 2014, 5:03 AM UTC

totalrobe wrote: post #187

cbhl wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Well then one business day would be an improvement on cash flow vs a typical bank... or am I an idiot? Obviously it's hard to compete with Amazon on commodity products, but it seems like they are lowering the barriers to entry for many unique retailers and small businesses.

The argument is that on some unspecified future date when Amazon has a monopoly, they can arbitrarily choose to hold payments for more than a day and screw up a business' cash flow and cause them major headaches.

Anyone who relies on PayPal today already accepts the risk of having their account/funds frozen, and there are already many horror stories of businesses having tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars locked up for a three-month investigation (only to go bankrupt in the interim).

Re: Amazon Local Register

#222

Post by cbhl » Thu, Aug 14, 2014, 5:08 AM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #202

cbhl wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Food delivery has been around a long time but it hasn't stopped people going to restaurants.

I feel like that's confirmation bias. Restaurants come and go all the time; the ones that people don't go to close up shop really quickly because the margins aren't that great to begin with.

Re: Amazon Local Register

#223

Post by notatoad » Thu, Aug 14, 2014, 5:31 AM UTC

btian wrote: post #201

notatoad wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no way that is sustainable. The cards generally pay back upwards of 1% in points or cashback, so any processor that can offer rates under 1% is losing money somewhere.

Fidelity Amex offers 2% cashback on everything, and CapitalOne Silver offers 1.5% back on everything. So I'll say that anything under 2% is unsustainable. But there's another guy who claims to have negotiated for 0.4% processing fee. I don't know how that is even remotely possible.

high reward cards like that are pretty rare at most businesses - i've been told by people at the credit card companies that they assume rewards cost 1% average.

and most gateways charge variable rate, so those high-reward cards are higher rate than the low-reward cards. 1.5% is a pretty normal base rate that any small-ish retailer should be able to negotiate for card-present transactions

Re: Amazon Local Register

#224

Post by CaptainZapp » Thu, Aug 14, 2014, 7:57 AM UTC

medell wrote: post #215

weaksauce wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comcast is dumb, wealthy, established and has a huge reputation for being actively hostile to customers because of geographical monopolies.(possible that they do it because they are dumb but I put my money on the monopoly) amazon competing would be a win for consumers most likely since they are pretty actively customer focused. It would likely be a loss to the people selling through them though. I like amazon as a co…

Having reviews next to your shop would only be worse for your shop if you aren't a good shop to begin with. I think this is better for the consumer in the end (which is a motto Amazon also preaches), unless they turn evil and use their advantage to squeeze consumers, which isn't all that unlikely since they are a public compnay. But so far they've done a great job of lowering prices for many commodity goods, which mo…

  Having reviews next to your shop would only be worse for your shop if you aren't a good shop to begin with.

That doesn't necessarily follow.

How about totally unfair, if not abusive reviews (http://www.modernluxury.com/san-francisco/story/the-toxic-ab...)?

Or a bunch of people ganging up to destroy a restaurant. Even if virtually none of the reviewers has ever set foot into the place? (http://evgrieve.com/2014/05/a-google-glass-feast.html)

A couple of bad reviews can destroy a business. No matter if they are true or not.

Re: Amazon Local Register

#225

Post by BrandonMarc » Thu, Aug 14, 2014, 4:05 PM UTC

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…

Makes me think of how Google Analytics is a trap. Google already knows the organic & ppc traffic it sends you, but if you get plugged in to Analytics (or AdSense, for that matter), then Google gets to see what organic & ppc traffic comes from the other search engines, as well as other advertising, direct linking, etc. Google gets to see the whole picture of how everybody reaches your site ... sure gives the appearance of a conflict of interest, if/when they're also selling you ppc and if/when you're dependent on organic Google traffic, too.