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Amazon Business

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Re: Amazon Business

#41

Post by r00fus »

georgemcbay wrote: post #11
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…

Costco + Google Shopping Express for me beats Amazon Prime. Same day delivery is better than 2-day or even next day. Prices are better, and I can even order fruits.

If Google keeps expanding Express, Amazon may be in a position where they're playing catch-up.

Re: Amazon Business

#42

Post by hackuser »

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…

> You don't have to give other employees the company credit card (presumably) and the orders come back to management for final approval.

I've seen this for many years in other vendors.

Re: Amazon Business

#43

Post by exmadscientist »

brianolson wrote: post #22

This is replacing "Amazon Supply" which was the acquisition of smallparts.com , which was one of the best ways I knew to get a box of just the right bolts. But now they're closing that down and folding it in to this other thing? Does "Buy products available exclusively to Amazon Business customers" mean that those products get hidden behind some new special section of amazon? Do I have to get an "Amazon Business" acc…

All of the fasteners I've bought on AmazonSupply have also been available on Amazon proper, they were just harder to find there. I really hope Amazon can improve their search interface for this stuff. While AmazonSupply was much better than Amazon itself or Grainger, McMaster still destroys everyone else in this space -- McMaster wins a lot of business based on nothing more than the ease of finding products on their website.

Re: Amazon Business

#45

Post by kriro »

Would be extremely awesome if university libraries could be hooked up and I could select a book on amazon and they'd approve it. The current ordering system here takes long and the books are usually more expensive, too.

Same goes for our procurement department. You find stuff on amazon (or other sites) and they just order it somewhere else for more money and it takes forever. I think I'll have a talk with them. They could essentially outsource the procurement to the employees (who'd gladly do it) and would only have to approve/deny stuff. The current process for standard stuff is pretty much "found it on amazon, sent a link, they ordered it somewhere else after x-time"

Re: Amazon Business

#46

Post by forrestthewoods »

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.

OfficeMax has 11.2 billion per year in revenue. Staples has 24.38 billion a year. Not bad for life support!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Depot http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staples_Inc.

Re: Amazon Business

#50

Post by keenerd »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #31
keenerd wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basics was launched to compete with the likes of Monoprice. And due to the pricing structure of FBA, it doesn't make much sense for 3rd parties to sell items through Amazon for under $10. The majority of Basics items are inexpensive to take advantage of this. Almost every item in the Basics catalog are items that a person will buy at least once a year. How many copper fire pits do you think the average person buys pe…

My Basics purchases so far: mouse, bluetooth keyboard, capacitive stylus, travel case for a portable hard drive, HDMI cable, USB extension cable, USB hub. Here's the first page of results if I search Amazon for "amazonbasics": "portable power bank", USB--Lightning cable (6 feet) (I assume this is for connecting an iPhone to a USB port?), 67-inch monopod, bluetooth "audio receiver", travel case for small electronics,…

I'm not exactly a good data point because I hate buying things without a good reason and buy stuff as infrequently as possible. But I also keep good records of my purchases. On average every year despite being anti-consumerism* I will buy one set of rechargable batteries, one cable, one charger, one protective case, one adapter. (So far only one of my purchases have been from Basics.)

8 of 16 of the search results fit this (rather arbitrary) "once a year" description.

Anyway, on your own purchases. Stylus, case, cable, cable. Basics has only been around for six years. And you really need to count all of the non-Basics purchases, because that is what Amazon is trying to capture.

* I don't feel this way, but multiple people have told me the economy would collapse if everyone acted the way I do.

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