You fail to take into account reduced price sensitivity and price manipulation, for instance Whole Foods prices in my area, Tucson, are 30-50% higher than Sprout’s or Trader Joe’s, and that nominal sales and marketing and general administration DOES NOT cost $5 per order, but functions more as a fixed cost.
The Illusion of a Profitable Amazon Prime Now and Prime Fresh
71–80 of 85 posts
Re: The Illusion of a Profitable Amazon Prime Now and Prime Fresh
#72Amazon Flex will eventually encompass more than just delivering goods. Delivering people (uber/lyft). Retrieving packages from households and shipping them, maybe even last mile delivery? I feel like this article completely misses the point about the Amazon philosophy. It doesn't matter if Prime Now / Amazon Fresh are profitable. They aren't supposed to be profitable. They are building out the infrastructure of Amazo…
Yes the author is kinda silly. People have been writing these sorts of silly articles about Amazon for nearly 20 years. Yes, Amazon is wasting investor capital. No, investors don't care as long as the innovation and growth train continues. Still, as an Amazon investor, I do wonder why Amazon has to do everything themselves. It makes me nervous that they are essentially building or their own ride sharing network rathe…
> Still, as an Amazon investor, I do wonder why Amazon has to do everything themselves. It makes me nervous that they are essentially building or their own ride sharing network rather than leveraging existing networks.
When Prime Now started, there were no other companies that were doing what Amazon wanted to do. Let alone, keep up with the expansion that Prime Now has realized over the past few years. In addition to all that, Amazon loves to optimize every little detail. Flex is the logistics infrastructure that didn't exist to support Prime Now and other delivery programs such as Fresh, .com packages, etc.
Re: The Illusion of a Profitable Amazon Prime Now and Prime Fresh
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you would be hard-pressed to find an apartment complex without a leasing office. I have never seen that in the US. Mostly I think they are there to handle showing people around and finalizing leases. They also can handle maintenance disputes and forward complaints to the right people.
Commonly apartment complexes here (Finland) are owned by building-specific limited liability housing companies that do not make profit, with shares corresponding to apartments. Those shares are then owned by various individuals or rental companies, so a building office makes less sense. But if a rental provider company owns the complex outright, they still don't have building-specific offices, but just one central of…
That arrangement would be considered a co-op in the United States.
While such an arrangement is possible and legal everywhere something like 95% of all co-ops are in New York City.
Re: The Illusion of a Profitable Amazon Prime Now and Prime Fresh
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Droning looks like a gimmick today, but why should it be in the future? It's loud. And dangerous.
I'll be the devil's advocate here: Cars are loud and dangerous - we figured it out as a society.
No, we haven't. The more civilized among us, like the Dutch, have gotten rid of them as much as they can, and other places promote public transport too.
Re: The Illusion of a Profitable Amazon Prime Now and Prime Fresh
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes the author is kinda silly. People have been writing these sorts of silly articles about Amazon for nearly 20 years. Yes, Amazon is wasting investor capital. No, investors don't care as long as the innovation and growth train continues. Still, as an Amazon investor, I do wonder why Amazon has to do everything themselves. It makes me nervous that they are essentially building or their own ride sharing network rathe…
None of what you listed is happening in China. It also will not be happening anywhere at any time. Restaurants won't become industrial kitchens because that is not what restaurants are for.
Some restaurants are becoming just kitchens: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/oct/28/deliveroo-d...
These might take some of the business of physical restaurants - probably not a large amount, though.
Re: The Illusion of a Profitable Amazon Prime Now and Prime Fresh
#76The author dramatically underestimates the opportunities of scale and future tech in her model. Amazon is already: - Installing lockers into apartment communities https://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=6442600011 that make deliveries dramatically more efficient. - Predictive logistics & ordering patterns are a core Amazon discipline and they are world class at it. - Droning looks like a gimmick today, but why should i…
I'm an Amazon seller and Amazon can't even keep track of products in their own fulfillment centers. They've added $10k+ worth of random inventory into my account and I can't even find someone who cares enough to fix the mistake. My support ticket is 2+ months old now. At least I'm on the better end, I know someone else with the exact opposite problem who is magically losing inventory at Amazon's fulfillment centers... Based on this, I want to say that that future is off but it's probably a different team... From the top level, figuring that out probably isn't hard even if Amazon still has far to go when it comes to execution.
From the perception of someone who's currently learning how to code to build a restocking software for Amazon sellers.
Re: The Illusion of a Profitable Amazon Prime Now and Prime Fresh
#77Very good analysis of Amazon
Re: The Illusion of a Profitable Amazon Prime Now and Prime Fresh
#78Very good analysis on Amazon
Re: The Illusion of a Profitable Amazon Prime Now and Prime Fresh
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, but do you want that sort of food when you are sick? Plus I don't dig into my emergency supplies when there are other options available.
You need to rotate your supplies.
I put a note into my calendar with the expiry dates for the rations. I eat the rations when I have purchased a replacement.
Emergency food is emergency food.
Re: The Illusion of a Profitable Amazon Prime Now and Prime Fresh
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If you live in a house, there's a good chance that someone grabs your package off your porch. I don't know about "good chance". Small chance, perhaps. I've still never had a package stolen in 20+ years of ordering online. But many folks have packages delivered to work for this reason (and I admit I'm more likely to have expensive packages delivered to work). But the lockers solve a problem I don't really have, and…
It really depends on your area and living situation. I have a place in suburban Minneapolis and I could (and have) left packages sitting on my doorstep for weeks while on vacation. Still there when I got back - only a single lost package over about a decade now. I also have a place in Chicago. A package left outside at the door would be gone within hours as I live directly off a very busy street. Even if put inside,…
Isn’t that what Amazon’s IOT key is trying to solve?