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Day Two to One Day

stratechery.com

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Re: Day Two to One Day

#31
Amazon declined when it opened up prime FBA to sellers from outside the USA to sell directly into the USA market. Listen for a second, The Chinese amazon accounts are ran by Chinese sellers who operate in a different culture and market that has different values and rules.

READ THIS: https://mywifequitherjob.com/why-chinese-sellers-are-dominat...

If you’ve shopped on Amazon lately, you’ve probably noticed that the platform has become a cesspool of non-name brand goods. And most of these products are sold by private label sellers, retail/online arbitragers and companies in China selling direct on Amazon.

Of these 3 types of sellers, the Chinese have been the fastest growing segment and they are utterly dominating the platform. In fact, they’ve pretty much taken over.

Here are a few statistics to describe the Asian invasion this past year…

Over 250,000 Chinese Sellers Joined Amazon Last Year 25% of Amazon’s 2 Million Sellers Are Based In China They Have Years Of Exporting Experience They Have A Pricing Advantage Over Other Sellers

We are now seeing the results of the inundation of Chinese sellers onto Amazon.

Re: Day Two to One Day

#32
post #6
post #4

Anazon is better than ever for brand name, known buys. Eg I recently ordered a UHD bluray movie, took about 15 seconds end to end and arrived in a day. They are terrible for everything else. Eg I bought a reading light. Which was a 10 minute sorting excersise trying to figure out which of a dozen nearly identical products was the least likely to burn down my house. Then trying to uncover which had real reviews and no…

And even for brand name items, you still have counterfeit worries (IE, many people refuse to buy flash storage at all from Amazon now), due to counterfeits from intermingling of "sold by amazon" and "shipped by amazon" items.

I'm not sure if the situation has changed, but it used to be that co-mingling was exclusively an aspect/option of FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon). They did not co-mingle their own inventory, so you could still be somewhat confident in purchasing products with Amazon as the seller of record, i.e. "Sold by Amazon".

I can't find anything to confirm or deny if this is still the case, but I haven't had any issues personally when sticking with products where Amazon is the seller of record. Although I have noticed the pricing and shipping time tend to be less competitive (I presumed because they don't access co-mingled inventory that's at a closer fulfillment center).

Re: Day Two to One Day

#33
post #7
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going from 2 days to 1 day has always felt more like a luxury to me – and one I am willing to pay for when needed. For 95% of the purchases I make 2 day shipping is more than quick enough.

fwiw: Many of us dinosaurs remember when you ordered things on Amazon, and it took a week and cost shipping. Prime, and 2-day shipping, felt like a luxury you don't need. (And many of us thought long and hard if we should spend, and then it turned out to be really convenient...) And those of us from the Triassic period even remember the days before Amazon, where you went to a bookstore, and you hoped they had a book…

"Whaddya mean 'we', paleface?"

I'm a happy non-Prime Amazon customer. I buy plenty of things from them, and I basically never need anything faster than their free shipping (which I'm pretty sure they deliberately slow down, holding back dispatching in order to incentivize customers to get Prime). I could easily afford a Prime subscription, but I don't see how it's more worth the money than a hundred other things I could drop ~£100/year on.

Are there really so few other people who feel that way?

Re: Day Two to One Day

#34

Jeff Bezos does not have integrity. We know this because of the way he treated Mackenzie Bezos. Now, we just have to see how far his lack of integrity will go in his business operation.

Tell us more about the in-depth and personal knowledge you have about the former Bezos marriage. Were you present for their marriage counseling? Their intimate disagreements? Tell us about how they interacted on a personal level and what their dynamic was together.

Marriages are complicated. What we see in public is very limited and far from the truth. Being the richest dude in the world means everything goes through a PR filter. Suggesting you know anything at all about their marriage is idiotic.

I say this as someone with no love for Bezos or Amazon. The assumption that you know something because you've read tabloids is a big reason the world is fucked right now

Re: Day Two to One Day

#35
There is so much about Amazon that is clearly in the 'Day 2' territory. I am not as swayed by one day shipping as the author is. Yes, its a big challenge and yes it makes things even more likely that Amazon will hurt brick and mortar stores (as an experiment look at the commercial retail space in your town and see how many 'things' retailers there are. Not as many as there were, and in some places entire city blocks have given way to 'services' retailers (salons and restaurants)

Amazon continues to struggle with counterfeits in their inventory. They continue to struggle with market vendors who give shoddy service. They continue to struggle with customer perception when something is "sold by amazon" and then ships from Malaysia by boat. They continue to have failures in even their 2 day "prime" when the two days only starts when the item ships, and it can take a week for an item to go from "ordered" to "shipped". And as they crack down on both buyer and seller fraud, it gets harder for legitimate customers to make a return claim.

All in all I am pretty bearish on them.

Re: Day Two to One Day

#36

One-day shipping is definitely a logistical leap for mankind but I often wonder the environmental impact that is accrued in the pursuit of total convenience. Also, their Prime branded delivery trucks are driven by gig workers, essentially making Prime the Uber of the delivery world. I just wonder how sustainable it all is. What level of convenience will be demanded next and what cost will that pose to the environment…

I guess it might be a net good environmentally. Packaging is bad, but driving to the nearest store to get a single item could be worse. Convenient delivery will decrease the latter.

Has anyone seen data on this?

I recently starting making an effort to purchase things like paper towels, Advil, toothpaste, etc from Target (in person) instead of buying from Amazon to reduce the amount of packaging I have to recycle and throw away.

I still feel like it's a net benefit, but that's purely a _feeling_.

Re: Day Two to One Day

#37

One-day shipping is definitely a logistical leap for mankind but I often wonder the environmental impact that is accrued in the pursuit of total convenience. Also, their Prime branded delivery trucks are driven by gig workers, essentially making Prime the Uber of the delivery world. I just wonder how sustainable it all is. What level of convenience will be demanded next and what cost will that pose to the environment…

I guess it might be a net good environmentally. Packaging is bad, but driving to the nearest store to get a single item could be worse. Convenient delivery will decrease the latter.

On the other hand, if I'm going to drive to the store, I'm likely to plan ahead a little and pick up a number of items in one trip, rather than ordering them one by one online. (Or even ordering them all at once through Amazon, but having them arrive in a dozen separate deliveries.)

I don't remember when I last drove to a store to get a single item. (I do occasionally walk or cycle down to the high street for an individual item such as milk, though it's more usually a handful of things.)

Re: Day Two to One Day

#38

One-day shipping is definitely a logistical leap for mankind but I often wonder the environmental impact that is accrued in the pursuit of total convenience. Also, their Prime branded delivery trucks are driven by gig workers, essentially making Prime the Uber of the delivery world. I just wonder how sustainable it all is. What level of convenience will be demanded next and what cost will that pose to the environment…

Back in 1994 I could order something out of a computer shopper magazine and have it at my house the next day using Airborne express, I was amazed at the time (it usually arrived before 10am) and still kind of am.

Yeah, it’s still a step backward from Cyberian Outpost. (Though Prime Now / same-day is a step up when available.)

Re: Day Two to One Day

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what am I missing about their apparent lack of focus I'd guess it is not that they don't know or they can't fix it, it is that they just don't care. Considering the resources at their disposal, they can fix this problem easily. It is probably not (yet) a problem big enough to hurt them financially, so they don't put any effort into it. Every decision is probably purely driven by financial motive.

As you get bigger, the people organization becomes more complex. Changing the simplest of things become a complex song and dance of internal political posturing and maneuvering. Then changing people's mindsets and attitudes become even more difficult as people above them fear they will kill the golden goose if they try to change the mechanisms of how people work. This is a problem as old as time itself. This is why s…

What is political about banning products that are counterfeit, dangerous, obviously poor quality etc? And fake reviews too. This is something that requires no discussion or thought, isn't it?

Re: Day Two to One Day

#40

There is so much about Amazon that is clearly in the 'Day 2' territory. I am not as swayed by one day shipping as the author is. Yes, its a big challenge and yes it makes things even more likely that Amazon will hurt brick and mortar stores (as an experiment look at the commercial retail space in your town and see how many 'things' retailers there are. Not as many as there were, and in some places entire city blocks…

>> All in all I am pretty bearish on them.

Who will "kill" them ? What will the e-commerce market look like in 10 years - and could that be without Amazon as a major competitor ?

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