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Amazon Business

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Re: Amazon Business

#11

Post by georgemcbay »

testingonprod wrote: post #5

So where does that leave Costco and Sam's Club?

Today? Fine.

In the future? Very possibly in the same unfortunate spot a lot of bookstores and then general B&M retail chains were put in due to Internet-shopping in general but Amazon particularly.

IMO they have a lot of reason to be worried mid to long term if they are paying attention, especially in light of Amazon's obvious push to get things delivered to you ridiculously fast if you opt for it (and this goes way beyond their whole drone PR).

Re: Amazon Business

#13

Post by bane »

jonknee wrote: post #9
bane wrote: post #2

This is a great idea. It's amazing how many businesses keep Office Depot and Staples (and other office supply companies) on life-support simply because they're setup to handle corporate accounts. So now there's almost no reason to go to either place unless you need to print off in volume (becoming less and less common) or need something absolutely right now this second.

Staples isn't on life support, it was the second largest online retailer in 2014 (more than Wal-Mart, Apple, etc etc). I'm sure they're concerned about this move though, but they have a nice advantage over Amazon for doing their own deliveries through their physical stores.

> they have a nice advantage over Amazon for doing their own deliveries through their physical stores.

That is a nice point. Staples.com has been growing and is robust, while Staples Inc. stores have been shrinking (they're closing 225 stores by the end of 2015).

They don't break out brick & mortar from on-line in their earnings reports, so you have to infer.

Re: Amazon Business

#14

Post by qsun »

Someone1234 wrote: post #4

Everyone is going to focus on the discounts thing, but I think this is the real USP (over a standard account): > Create a single or multi-user business account, approve orders I've been in a lot of companies where they want to offload buying (e.g. office supplies, computer equipment) but don't have a dedicated department to oversee it, and don't really want to be handing out the company credit card to every employee…

This is awesome.

> Create a single or multi-user business account, approve orders

This alone is a killing point. If all the orders to the same company (location) are aggregated and shipped based on a predefined schedule (like every Monday).

And with this, pantry can be filled with food that people actually want.

Re: Amazon Business

#16

Post by mmahemoff »

Someone1234 wrote: post #4

Everyone is going to focus on the discounts thing, but I think this is the real USP (over a standard account): > Create a single or multi-user business account, approve orders I've been in a lot of companies where they want to offload buying (e.g. office supplies, computer equipment) but don't have a dedicated department to oversee it, and don't really want to be handing out the company credit card to every employee…

A multi-user business account is even bigger when you consider this is more than just the sale of physical products. It's also computing services via AWS, hiring remote workers via Mech Turk, and books+apps+other virtual goods via Kindle/App marketplace.

Amazon just launched local services too, so this could let an authorised employee hire contractors under a managed, audited, workflow.

(I don't know if all of those services are available now, but I bet they will be in the future.)

Re: Amazon Business

#17

Post by keenerd »

jasode wrote: post #10

Based on Amazon's choice of clipart images (bulk janitorial supplies) and verbage (lab beakers, break room snacks) they chose to highlight this launch, it looks like AmazonBusiness is competing with companies like Global Industrial[1], ULINE[2], etc more so than Office Depot and Staples. Most of the items (paper, pens, etc) people bought from Office Depot, they could get already get from the normal amazon.com/office.…

Unrelated, but have you looked at the high end (+$100) AmazonBasic items? Monitor swing arms, paper shredders, a fire pit, and a gas-powered patio heater. Tripods get an honorable mention at $80.

I'm not sure who these are being sold to, and why under the Basics label.

Re: Amazon Business

#19

Post by stevenleeg »

vosper wrote: post #7

Unconstructive nitpick: the text quality in the images on that page is awful. Very aliased, and the letters seem kind of randomly sized and kerned. It's quite strange.

I noticed this as well. It's because they're rendering text in jpegs which is not a great idea for legibility...

Strange choice from such a large technology company.

Re: Amazon Business

#20

Post by okbake »

vosper wrote: post #7

Unconstructive nitpick: the text quality in the images on that page is awful. Very aliased, and the letters seem kind of randomly sized and kerned. It's quite strange.

Yeah, that stood out to me too. I feel like these were design proofs that someone just threw on the page instead of building them out. Possibly someone who doesn't do much web dev. Even the markup is odd: tables with
's between them for the image rows and each image link is using an image that spans the entire image instead of just using an anchor.
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