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Amazon Flex

flex.amazon.com

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Re: Amazon Flex

#151

Post by mnglkhn2 »

suvelx wrote: post #8

I've got a suspicion that Amazon has been trialling/building this in the UK since their purchase of Yodel, perhaps earlier. A number of times some bloke in a car has turned up and delivered me a package. No uniform, no branding. Just a phone running Amazon software. I can't say it's the greatest experience.

The same happened to me in Chicago this past Sunday. Can't say I didn't like it but it was weird to get a package on a Sunday. Especially since I want forewarned that it will happen and I just got a phone call that my package is downstairs.

Re: Amazon Flex

#152

Post by ceejayoz »

BrentOzar wrote: post #77
slayed0 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the drone plan was ever a serious short term consideration for 99.999% of Amazon's business

> I don't think the drone plan was ever a serious short term consideration for 99.999% of Amazon's business Right, but where would it be a serious short term consideration? Where's that .001%? If it's not in dense urban areas like Seattle and Chicago, I'm not sure where it would work, and those are the very areas where they're launching Flex.

> Right, but where would it be a serious short term consideration?

Public relations.

Re: Amazon Flex

#153

Post by LesZedCB »

ekianjo wrote: post #93
jcfrei wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with the ongoing commoditization of work is that it causes it to lose value. As a result the economy becomes more efficient. However the question is who benefits from this increase in efficiency? It certainly isn't the worker, whose labour becomes cheaper every year (there hasn't been an increase in real wages for over a decade now in the US). The consumer certainly benefits from lower prices. However who…

> However the question is who benefits from this increase in efficiency? Who benefited from Ford making cars more efficiently ? Their employees as well, since they could buy cars on their own at cheaper prices than the then available cars. Productivity gains improve life for EVERYONE, even the poorer ones. There's so many examples I don't even know what kind of point you are trying to make here. Improvements in agric…

That is textbook trickle down economics which we have had for several decades, and look where it got us. We have some of the worst income inequality in the world, if not the worst.

http://fortune.com/2014/10/31/inequality-wealth-income-us/

Re: Amazon Flex

#154

Post by jstalin »

shawnee_ wrote: post #118

Q: Where can I deliver with Amazon Flex? A: Amazon Flex is available now in Seattle. It will be available soon in New York, Baltimore, Miami, Dallas, Austin, Chicago, Indianapolis, Atlanta and Portland. Smart move by Amazon to refrain from making any Bay-area city one of its test markets. It's like Amazon is saying "we don't need to prove this will work in the bubble; let's base our test data set on realistic markets…

It's probably best to avoid California all together.

Re: Amazon Flex

#155

Post by ekianjo »

tokenizerrr wrote: post #140
ekianjo wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still waiting to see cashiers disappear in supermarkets. Or bakers, since bread and cake production could be completely automatized by now. Strangely they are not going away. I wonder why... People who predict extinction of jobs are usually wrong.

I would also like to add that large scale bread production is already mostly automated. You will still have local bakeries because fresh bread is nice, and the automation needs large factory halls that are unlikely to be near your home or match your schedule.

Indeed, but the point is that man-made bread > industrial bread in the end. It's not because you can automate something that it create better goods in the end.

If that was the case we would replace cooks with robots for a long time as well.

And of course the list goes on for many, many other professions.

It's obvious that the ones who predict massive automation of most jobs are thinking WAY AHEAD of their life. It's not going to happen anytime soon, no matter how much software and hardware is "eating the world". Making predictions is always a risky business... after all we were all supposed to have flying cars by 2015 and whatever, yet the best piece of tech we have is just a tiny computer in our pockets - that's a great achievement, but it's a little short of the dreams we had 30 years ago.

Re: Amazon Flex

#156

Post by dragonwriter »

suvelx wrote: post #96
SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

E-commerce companies have 2 points of contact with the customer - the website and the courier. It makes no sense whatsoever to me why there's this ongoing race to the bottom on the courier side of things while companies spend more and more on the website side. I suppose at that point they already have your money, so what if this delivery experience is awful? Yodel are worse than useless, and I can't see this being mu…

What I don't understand, is why I can't pick my delivery slot for free. Everybody has jobs. Everybody finds it annoying to buy something on line. You never know when it's going to turn up. You have to take a day off, and hope your driver is competent at his job. Why can't you just say "I'll be at home on Thursday after 5pm. Call me on #555-333-9999 if you have any issues". Courier delivers the package after 5pm on Th…

> What I don't understand, is why I can't pick my delivery slot for free.

Because picking a delivery slot imposes a constraint which creates a cost for the delivery provider.

> Everybody has jobs. Everybody finds it annoying to buy something on line. You never know when it's going to turn up. You have to take a day off, and hope your driver is competent at his job.

Most everybody has jobs, but most people I know don't find it annoying to buy stuff online; many people can have packages delivered to work, and many people have no problems with packages delivered to their home when they aren't there.

> Why can't you just say "I'll be at home on Thursday after 5pm. Call me on #555-333-9999 if you have any issues". Courier delivers the package after 5pm on Thursday.

Because, as you note, everyone has jobs, and if there was no cost to request delivery times, pretty much everyone would request something like "after 5pm". Which would eliminate the freedom of delivery companies to efficiently use delivery vehicles. Which would drive up their costs.

Asking for something which imposes an additional constraint on the service provider which has a cost to fulfill either costs everyone extra to subsidize you, or must cost you extra.

Re: Amazon Flex

#158

Post by scrollaway »

ekianjo wrote: post #148
scrollaway wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is it's a pretty terrible example for you to pick. Baking is not a low-skill menial job. It's certainly not first in line in the "jobs that will get replaced by a machine" domino line.

It's actually a pretty good example because bread making can be completely automatized starting from ingredients mixing, to baking, packing and delivery to your supermarket. yet bakers do not disappear. What's not valid about this example?

You seem to be under the impression that baker and industrial bread maker are the same job. They are not. And the latter has long been (mostly) done by machine.

This seems relevant: "There isn’t a rule of economics that says better technology makes more, better jobs for horses. It sounds shockingly dumb to even say that out loud, but swap horses for humans and suddenly people think it sounds about right."

Re: Amazon Flex

#159

Post by stronglikedan »

mnglkhn2 wrote: post #151
suvelx wrote: post #8

I've got a suspicion that Amazon has been trialling/building this in the UK since their purchase of Yodel, perhaps earlier. A number of times some bloke in a car has turned up and delivered me a package. No uniform, no branding. Just a phone running Amazon software. I can't say it's the greatest experience.

The same happened to me in Chicago this past Sunday. Can't say I didn't like it but it was weird to get a package on a Sunday. Especially since I want forewarned that it will happen and I just got a phone call that my package is downstairs.

USPS delivers my Amazon packages on Sundays for a while now. I love it. I just wish more items were available for Sunday delivery. I suppose it won't be long now though.

Re: Amazon Flex

#160

Post by jlgaddis »

herge wrote: post #132
shawnee_ wrote: post #118

Q: Where can I deliver with Amazon Flex? A: Amazon Flex is available now in Seattle. It will be available soon in New York, Baltimore, Miami, Dallas, Austin, Chicago, Indianapolis, Atlanta and Portland. Smart move by Amazon to refrain from making any Bay-area city one of its test markets. It's like Amazon is saying "we don't need to prove this will work in the bubble; let's base our test data set on realistic markets…

Also, gentrification and the rights of workers in a sharing economy are still hot-button political issues in the Bay-area. Who's going to picket Amazon Flex in Indianapolis?

I don't know about the Bay Area, but there's a huge Amazon distribution facility just outside of Indianapolis so I'm guessing there are similar facilities in/near each of the cities they're launching in.
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