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

Amazon Unveils One-Hour Delivery Service

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 161 posts

Re: Amazon Unveils One-Hour Delivery Service

#71

Post by doorhammer »

bpeebles wrote: post #58
wlesieutre wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect that when I tip online for pizza it automatically gets bumped to the lowest priority of all of the driver's deliveries. He already has my money, and prioritizing all of the cash-tip orders over mine gives more potential for earning tips. Of course, my sample size is too small to say anything conclusive. After it felt like I was noticing a pattern a couple of times I just switched back to tipping cash.

When I've tipped online for pizza, and tip pretty well, I tend to get my pizza very quickly with a driver wanting to please me (like one time an order was messed up slightly and he immediately drove back and brought a new one without me even asking). My vague guess is that if you leave an above-average tip on an online order, the order gets immediately grabbed my a delivery person since they know they'll get at least…

Yeah. This is anecdotal, obviously, but I always tip online and tip pretty well. My pizzas always seem to get here as quickly as when I tipped in person, and the drivers have thanked me specifically for it a few times.

Be an interesting thing to really do some research on, though.

I will say I tend to agree that I'd rather see employees be paid a higher rate by the company itself and then have their performance monitored and be rewarded or punished accordingly. I've worked in a few places that paid hourly folks $14+ an hour, in parts of the country where that was pretty decent money for a job you get get off the street, and they managed to keep really efficient employees who did their jobs well.

Re: Amazon Unveils One-Hour Delivery Service

#72

Post by sillysaurus3 »

philwelch wrote: post #70
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there's a fundamental mismatch between an urbanizing population and a big box store in the suburbs that everyone has to drive to and lose their car in a massive parking lot. There are Wal-Marts all over big cities, though. Public transit takes you to them. Amazon's new service is more expensive than public transit. Also, you also don't get any exercise when using it, whereas many people like going out for a walk. Tha…

The nearest Walmarts to Seattle are in Renton and Bellevue. The nearest Walmarts to New York are either in New Jersey or upstate. There are Walmart "Neighborhood Markets" in Chicago, but the big box stores that they famously scale with are in the suburbs. There seems to be a Wal-Mart in LA, but not downtown, rather in the area that seems like a bunch of suburbs concatenated together. There are a few in Houston, mainl…

Hm, it looks like you're right. I should live in those places before talking about them.

It just seemed odd to say that Amazon has an advantage where Wal-Mart doesn't. The announcement says Amazon is offering the service in Manhattan, but there's a Wal-Mart supercenter just 30 minutes away: http://i.imgur.com/oHS2h43.png

Do you feel Amazon can make good headway in dense city areas? It seems like if Wal-Mart can't figure out how to organize distribution pipelines in a given area, then Amazon wouldn't be able to, either. So I was just trying to figure out what critical advantage Amazon might have.

Re: Amazon Unveils One-Hour Delivery Service

#73

Post by beachstartup »

yellowstuff wrote: post #51
mooreds wrote: post #24

It's hard for me to see how this doesn't hurt local vendors badly. Of course, it depends on what the the 25,000 items are, but that was one of the key differentiators between Amazon and local stores--if you needed something and you needed it now, the local store was the only option (things like cabling for a new TV, gifts for a party that night, etc). Now, for prime members in NYC at least, Amazon is a viable option.…

You missed customer service, a huge one for me. I actively try to avoid brick and mortar shopping ever since a hardware store owner refused to take back a defective stud finder. Amazon will bend over backwards to make things right for a customer, and accepts returns for any reason.

for what it's worth, this is why i use my amex for every in-store purchase i make.

Re: Amazon Unveils One-Hour Delivery Service

#74

Post by jmathai »

notatoad wrote: post #66
jmathai wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google is trying to help the brick-and-mortar companies compete with Amazon I'm not sure that wording is accurate. Google is leveraging the brick-and-mortar companies to compete with Amazon and collect more data about its users. Arguably some of the most valuable data they could get; spending and buying habits. I doubt Target is thrilled that Google is looking to inject themselves as a middleman between them and th…

It'll be pretty easy for target to prevent google from helping them, they can just decline to participate in the program. They are participants though, which should tell you something about how target actually feels about the program. And they don't lose any customer habit data, as customers still use their loyalty cards through Google Express. Almost all of Google's profit right now is derived from B2B relationships…

Valid point. I'm not sure what "participate" really means though. Do Google Express customers have to provide their loyalty cards? Does Target get all of the data they'd get if the customer shopped in store or through their own delivery service?

It would be silly to imply that Google's customers don't see any benefit as they're obviously getting some revenue and data.

But it would be similarly silly to imply that Target participating in the program doesn't mean they're concerned about it and not looking for ways to handle the customer's experience end to end.

Re: Amazon Unveils One-Hour Delivery Service

#75

Post by mrtron »

tesseractive wrote: post #37
mooreds wrote: post #24

It's hard for me to see how this doesn't hurt local vendors badly. Of course, it depends on what the the 25,000 items are, but that was one of the key differentiators between Amazon and local stores--if you needed something and you needed it now, the local store was the only option (things like cabling for a new TV, gifts for a party that night, etc). Now, for prime members in NYC at least, Amazon is a viable option.…

It's in no way clear that Amazon wins on selection. In 25K SKUs, Amazon will have electronics, but almost certainly hace fewer SKUs than a dedicated electronics store. They will have groceries, but not as many as a grocery store. They will have clothing and housewares, but surely only a small sampling relative to Macy's. I shop at Amazon Fresh in Seattle sometimes, and the selection is significantly trimmed relative…

They are starting with 25k SKUs. They have the potential to have infinite SKUs in this program, while brick and mortar stores are limited to shelf space.

That being said, it might make sense to keep the selection artificially small for multiple reasons.

Re: Amazon Unveils One-Hour Delivery Service

#76

Post by pwenzel »

mooreds wrote: post #24

It's hard for me to see how this doesn't hurt local vendors badly. Of course, it depends on what the the 25,000 items are, but that was one of the key differentiators between Amazon and local stores--if you needed something and you needed it now, the local store was the only option (things like cabling for a new TV, gifts for a party that night, etc). Now, for prime members in NYC at least, Amazon is a viable option.…

Don't forget the time you spend commuting to said brick-and-mortar store. Who wants to waste 45 minutes driving to and from Target, only to wait in line listening to screaming kids? There are only so many hours in a day.

I'll do my best to support my neighborhood hardware store, but I'll definitely delegate many purchases to Amazon Prime delivery if it means saving a trip to Target, Best Buy, or other big box store.

Re: Amazon Unveils One-Hour Delivery Service

#77

Post by walterbell »

Chevalier wrote: post #47
morgante wrote: post #43

I just placed an order with this new service (some HDMI cables for our office). The selection is pretty decent, definitely comparable to Google Shopping Express. One very odd note though: they ask for a variable tip to the delivery courier (something Google doesn't do). So even for "free" 2 hour delivery, you're paying for delivery. While I see how this is better for the courier, I think it's a big mistake—people hat…

Agreed on all counts. At least build the tip into the cost, like the ride-sharing services do. I'd vastly prefer doing away with tips altogether and just paying a living wage, but the least these services can do is to spare me extra work.

For personal deliveries, tip with cash, set online tip to zero.

For corporate deliveries, tip online according to corporate policy, no personal decision needed.

Re: Amazon Unveils One-Hour Delivery Service

#78

Post by somebodyother »

dkrich wrote: post #46
tesseractive wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another big difference between this and Wal-Mart is geography. Wal-Mart's strongest areas are less-densely-populated rural areas where one store can draw customers from miles around. And indeed -- you can't easily set up a same-day Amazon delivery service in rural America. The distances and low population density make it completely impractical. For the foreseeable future, Amazon will compete with Wal-Mart in these ar…

So then my question would be- where does Amazon store their inventory? They still have to figure out a way to give people selection and timely delivery but do so in a way that doesn't involve storing large amounts of inventory in expensive, densely-populated urban areas. The same rules apply to them as Wal-Mart in that regard. Wal-Mart could open a distribution center in Manhattan too, if the economics of it worked o…

They store it in New Jersey, for NYC, if you were wondering.

http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2014/07/amazon_warehouse_...

Re: Amazon Unveils One-Hour Delivery Service

#80

Post by slayed0 »

walterbell wrote: post #77
Chevalier wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed on all counts. At least build the tip into the cost, like the ride-sharing services do. I'd vastly prefer doing away with tips altogether and just paying a living wage, but the least these services can do is to spare me extra work.

For personal deliveries, tip with cash, set online tip to zero. For corporate deliveries, tip online according to corporate policy, no personal decision needed.

Regarding your first point, changing the tipping medium does not solve the underlying problem. Tipping sucks.
Post reply on HN