371–380 of 443 posts
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Oil has varied in a range of about 23% in the last few weeks, and the USD to CNY rate. Raw material for many things (like plastics) and obviously used for transport.
Oil has primarily gone down. Demand destruction tends to do that.
I'm not sure why so many comments think this is a bad idea. I think it's a great idea and should be adopted by all retailers. We already do the same thing with sales tax. Tarriffs are close to sales tax in there effect to consumers so it makes sense to show it up front. It lets customers see just how much more they have to pay due to the, ever changing, tariffs. Good for Amazon.
It's apparently a partisan issue. Take a look at the White House's response. > * White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said she had discussed the Punchbowl News report with Trump, and his message about it was: "This is a hostile and political act by Amazon." * [1] The Trump administration has expressed a clear expectation that businesses like Amazon should pretend tariffs are paid by foreign countries. Transpa…
"This is hostile and political." --The President. No, Really. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/29/white-house-blasts-amazon-ov...
Apparently Amazon's temporary spine was made of slugs, and it just got salted.
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The chain, itself, did $11B in revenue in 2020 for its ~100 stores. It's privately held, largely by the family and their friends. I certainly don't doubt they've purchased other investments with the proceeds over time, but they're making plenty.
>The chain, itself, did $11B in revenue in 2020 for its ~100 stores. Revenue =/= profit. OpenAI has similar amount of revenue, but is nowhere near profitable. >I certainly don't doubt they've purchased other investments with the proceeds over time, but they're making plenty. The point isn't what they did with the profits, it's whether the profits are commensurate with the capital they put in (ie. return on equity).
I’m well aware. The assertion that gets made is “oh they’re low margin!” They are. But they have massive volume. So they make lots of money still.
> The point isn't what they did with the profits, it's whether the profits are commensurate with the capital they put in (ie. return on equity).
Well, they certainly didn’t start as billionaires a hundred years ago. The profits seem fine.
I’d be very happy to be in the business of selling $1 bills for $1.02, if the customer base is big enough.
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This line of thinking is what people are pushing to justify the insane tarriff policy. Amazon is evil, slave labor, they tarriff us, etc. I'm not saying these things aren't true. However, my problem with this argument is that it frames the consumer as a victim to Amazon and to the 'hollowing out of America'. Consumers have a choice - they love using Amazon and importing cheap goods. Where is the self-reflection?
> I'm not saying these things aren't true But it still seems like you’re disagreeing with my conclusion? Yes, consumers love cheap goods. And businesses love to make short term profits even if it means selling out the future by gutting American companies and turning them into mere distributors for Chinese companies. That’s why you need the government to intervene to change peoples’ behaviors. There is a reason we tax…
On a less sarcastic note, pretty much zero mainstream economists believe that tariffs will bring back manufacturing to the US. There are economists who think the US should manufacture more. They talk about taxing consumption more and savings/investment less. When you cite economists to tariff-enthusiasts, they usually reply with "economics is a scam!" or some such nonsense. That's only a breath away from an equally dumb Marxist line: "economists are just servants of The Capital". Bleh.
And I love Amazon. They're a fantastic company and have been since day 1. I'm a grown-up. If I want to buy cheap Chinese goods, I should be able to. And if that hurts Americans, that sucks for them, but I shouldn't have to pay a tax because some US company can't compete with Chinese companies. And if I lose my job because someone in China does it better/cheaper, I won't whine about it. I'll find something else to do.
On a "price awareness vein" - I've thought that a killer app would be a phone app that runs in a grocery store, it detects costs, brands, and sizes, and overlays two things 1) the option that is cheaper per mass and 2) whether there are cheaper options in other stores. Bonus for "this no-name is the same as that brand-name". Imagine waving your phone, or having on your VR glasses and getting this feedback "instantly"…
That sounds like living in hell, tbqh, especially with the selling data part.
But yah, completely with you on the "sales is hell" part, that bit was for the startup bros.
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Where exactly do you think Amazon's profits are coming from? Over half of their profit comes from AWS, and the retail side does not appear to have substantially different margins than brick and mortar retailers (~3% net margin).
The case maker HYTE calculates 25% as net margin for brick and mortar stores for MSRP and says stores are tough and won’t allow any % less margin. Update: oh and they also said stores won’t lower it because of the tariffs, making the stores more money.
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Where exactly do you think Amazon's profits are coming from? Over half of their profit comes from AWS, and the retail side does not appear to have substantially different margins than brick and mortar retailers (~3% net margin).
The fees they charge third party sellers are significant.
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> I'm not saying these things aren't true But it still seems like you’re disagreeing with my conclusion? Yes, consumers love cheap goods. And businesses love to make short term profits even if it means selling out the future by gutting American companies and turning them into mere distributors for Chinese companies. That’s why you need the government to intervene to change peoples’ behaviors. There is a reason we tax…
Yeah, let's ban machines in factories while we're at it. Then Americans will have the honor of stitching clothing and standing at conveyer belts. On a less sarcastic note, pretty much zero mainstream economists believe that tariffs will bring back manufacturing to the US. There are economists who think the US should manufacture more. They talk about taxing consumption more and savings/investment less. When you cite e…
Mainstream economists also widely agree corporate taxes and capital gains taxes are bad: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/07/19/157047211/six-.... Should we eliminate those taxes and have everyone pay a large VAT?
I don’t have confidence that economists have fully figured out how economies work or what the relevant trade offs are. Economics is somewhere between the social “sciences” and real science in terms of methodological reliability.
I’m not a Marxist, but I’m also not a religious zealot. I believe in aerospace engineers enough that I’m comfortable getting into a metal tube that’s 35,000 feet in the air. But I don’t have similar confidence in the postulates of economists.
> And if that hurts Americans. that sucks for them
The whole point of government is so people can vote to override anti-social individual behavior like this.
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The only tariff Amazon needs to display is the one they need to collect. You are right that more tariffs might've been applied along the way - but it's not relevant for what Amazon has to do.
The article being discussed isn’t about what Amazon has to do. It’s about them trying to expose the cost of tariffs so consumers know more than they typically do. It’s completely voluntary and intentional on their part. They’re basically quantifying the impact of trumps policies, probably in a way that will change people’s ideas about how it affects their pocketbook. In a way, they’re playing politics with this.
It is "playing politics" the same way listing the effect of taxes on the final cost of something is "playing politics".
This is just useful information for the consumer. It's absolutely absurd to think informing a customer of a cost increase is political.