Amazon Buys Thousands of Its Own Truck Trailers • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon Buys Thousands of Its Own Truck Trailers

#51

Post by addicted » Sat, Dec 05, 2015, 12:02 AM UTC

ArkyBeagle wrote: post #49

akg_67 wrote: post #29

Amazon is following Walmart playbook. This is what Walmart did to make sure timely (Just-in-Time) Delivery between their warehouse and retail locations. There are business case study on how Walmart used their own freight truck network to beat their retail rivals by dedicating more space in a retail store to retail shelves instead of storing inventory.

Precisely. Later, they simply leased the space out to corporations like P&G (or their subs ) and offered logistics/freight service. WalMart was the first retail network to roll up the whole day every day into a single ( green-bar) report on Mr. Sam's desk.

This points to what I don't understand about the Amazon financial story.

Walmart built up their massive infrastructure business while being simultaneously immensely profitable. However, at Amazon, building out infrastructure comes at the expense of profits.

What am I missing that a lot of smart people are seeing in Amazon?

Re: Amazon Buys Thousands of Its Own Truck Trailers

#52

Post by ZanyProgrammer » Sat, Dec 05, 2015, 12:02 AM UTC

notatoad wrote: post #13

mfenniak wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But... how does the truck have the inventory to fulfill whatever is ordered, within 30 minutes? You don't know in advance what "the day's deliveries" are going to be, or where they will be, because the drone deliveries are on-demand.

At the scale amazon operates at, you probably do know in advance what the day's deliveries will be. I'm sure they could fill a truck with product, cruise a set route, and be reasonably certain it would all be delivered by the end of the day.

Considering the more esoteric books I've ordered off Amazon...I dunno how they'd stock them like that.

Re: Amazon Buys Thousands of Its Own Truck Trailers

#53

Post by gist » Sat, Dec 05, 2015, 12:05 AM UTC

chiph wrote: post #26

From people I know in the trucking business, the problem with delivering to Amazon's warehouses is inefficiencies in getting the trucks into and out of the yard. They're just not being run well. Stories of 50-truck-long queues being run off by the local police for blocking entrances to other nearby businesses.. Hopefully this will help, as the trucks can deadhead[0] to their warehouse and do a drop/hook[1], with the…

"[0] Drive just the truck portion, without a trailer."

I always thought that deadhead meant the trailer was empty on a backhaul (or whatever it's called). I guess no trailer is the equivalent of empty trailer?

Re: Amazon Buys Thousands of Its Own Truck Trailers

#54

Post by srameshc » Sat, Dec 05, 2015, 12:19 AM UTC

srameshc wrote: post #7

Amazon is trying to build its own logistics with drones and is probably well aware of self driven trucks (which many automotive companies are testing ). To build on that, all it will need for now are those Truck Trailer. As the self driving automotive industry gets more mature in near future, their trucking partners will be replaced eventually. And who knows it might already be working on its own Self Driven automoti…

Amazon will have to build efficient container or trailer management system if it has to use self driven trailers. May be this will give a little better idea on what I am talking about. http://fleetowner.com/blog/aiming-self-driving-freight

Re: Amazon Buys Thousands of Its Own Truck Trailers

#55

Post by akg_67 » Sat, Dec 05, 2015, 12:43 AM UTC

addicted wrote: post #51

ArkyBeagle wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Precisely. Later, they simply leased the space out to corporations like P&G (or their subs ) and offered logistics/freight service. WalMart was the first retail network to roll up the whole day every day into a single ( green-bar) report on Mr. Sam's desk.

This points to what I don't understand about the Amazon financial story. Walmart built up their massive infrastructure business while being simultaneously immensely profitable. However, at Amazon, building out infrastructure comes at the expense of profits. What am I missing that a lot of smart people are seeing in Amazon?

Pursuit of market share vs pursuit of profit. Amazon seems to want to dominate every market they want to get into. While Walmart focused on dominating one market - retail.

I compare Amazon story to Gold Rush. Once Amazon penetrates gold mining business, it wants to move into business of providing tools for gold mining, storage, distribution, and consumption. The profits from the initial gold mining efforts goes into building organizational infrastructure of gold vertical as well as entry into another new vertical.

Re: Amazon Buys Thousands of Its Own Truck Trailers

#56

Post by gtremper » Sat, Dec 05, 2015, 12:59 AM UTC

jonknee wrote: post #41

jacquesm wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whoever dreamed that up was watching minority report.

It made more sense a few years ago when there weren't distro centers near most major population centers and 1hr delivery options. Pre-shipping isn't going to be 1hr by much!

Maybe that's how they've implemented 1hr shipping?

Re: Amazon Buys Thousands of Its Own Truck Trailers

#57

Post by ArkyBeagle » Sat, Dec 05, 2015, 2:01 AM UTC

addicted wrote: post #51

ArkyBeagle wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Precisely. Later, they simply leased the space out to corporations like P&G (or their subs ) and offered logistics/freight service. WalMart was the first retail network to roll up the whole day every day into a single ( green-bar) report on Mr. Sam's desk.

This points to what I don't understand about the Amazon financial story. Walmart built up their massive infrastructure business while being simultaneously immensely profitable. However, at Amazon, building out infrastructure comes at the expense of profits. What am I missing that a lot of smart people are seeing in Amazon?

They're deliberately trying to see just how far they can push the envelope of consumer surplus. It's a lot based in Sam Walton's philosophy, only moreso and with the sort of fanatical SiVa approach.

My grandparents were from Arkansas ( hence the moniker ) and the frugality ethos Sam Walton lived is how they lived.

What you are seeing is people going very long.

Everything at Amazon is an API. That's very real leadership. I doubt that will stop until everything everywhere ( except for small reservations of respite from this phenomenon ) is an API. And WalMart is not in any way any sort of aggregator. You bend to their will to sell through them. It's an unpleasant process. I'm not even sure Amazon knows their little stores are there much.

Re: Amazon Buys Thousands of Its Own Truck Trailers

#58

Post by ArkyBeagle » Sat, Dec 05, 2015, 2:04 AM UTC

douche wrote: post #50

ArkyBeagle wrote: post #48

People who do not understand WalMart are doomed to reinvent it.

Probably I have been watching too much South Park, but this instantly made me think of the final scene of "Something Wall Mart This Way Comes"

That episode is a work of genius. With poop jokes.

Re: Amazon Buys Thousands of Its Own Truck Trailers

#59

Post by Spooky23 » Sat, Dec 05, 2015, 2:08 AM UTC

addicted wrote: post #51

ArkyBeagle wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Precisely. Later, they simply leased the space out to corporations like P&G (or their subs ) and offered logistics/freight service. WalMart was the first retail network to roll up the whole day every day into a single ( green-bar) report on Mr. Sam's desk.

This points to what I don't understand about the Amazon financial story. Walmart built up their massive infrastructure business while being simultaneously immensely profitable. However, at Amazon, building out infrastructure comes at the expense of profits. What am I missing that a lot of smart people are seeing in Amazon?

Walmart isn't very profitable by tech standards... 3.5%.

That's why imo Amazon is a big hype machine. All of these warehouses speed delivery but add overheads.

Their stock pricing assumes they are a tech play that they'll magically achieve walmart style scope with high margins.

I wonder what happens when rates spike.

Re: Amazon Buys Thousands of Its Own Truck Trailers

#60

Post by ArkyBeagle » Sat, Dec 05, 2015, 3:29 AM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #59

addicted wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This points to what I don't understand about the Amazon financial story. Walmart built up their massive infrastructure business while being simultaneously immensely profitable. However, at Amazon, building out infrastructure comes at the expense of profits. What am I missing that a lot of smart people are seeing in Amazon?

Walmart isn't very profitable by tech standards... 3.5%. That's why imo Amazon is a big hype machine. All of these warehouses speed delivery but add overheads. Their stock pricing assumes they are a tech play that they'll magically achieve walmart style scope with high margins. I wonder what happens when rates spike.

But Amazon Prime is terrifyingly great. It would now be officially hard to give up.