Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Illusion of a Profitable Amazon Prime Now and Prime Fresh

stratelogical.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–85 of 85 posts

Re: The Illusion of a Profitable Amazon Prime Now and Prime Fresh

#81

Post by itronitron »

aresant wrote: post #16

The 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…

There must be a lot of slop still in the system, because I had 3 separate small packages (from the same order) delivered by 3 different vehicles to my door within the span of 30 minutes (on the same day) last week. All three items would have easily fit into the smallest box that they delivered. Presumably they had enough deliveries in my neighborhood to make this worthwhile.

Re: The Illusion of a Profitable Amazon Prime Now and Prime Fresh

#82

Post by jaclaz »

cheeze wrote: post #50
jaclaz wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Emergency trip to the hospital, no food at home? Prime Now. > Living alone sick, no food in the home? Prime Now. > Parents feeling poorly and I'm 3 states away? Prime Now. I hope that any of those three events don't happen to you (or to anyone else) very often. I mean, I perfectly understand the utility of the service, in a given set of "emergencies", but the profitability (at scale) would come if the service is use…

> Stuck at work late, need kitty litter but no local groceries are open by the time you leave? Prime now. > Need kitty litter but don't have a car and don't want to hulk 80 lbs of litter home? Prime now. > Need a random ass torx screw driver and don't want to drive to home depot across town? Prime now. > Forgot the ground beef but don't have time to get it because the oven is already on, cooking for the company comin…

>I don't think you need to cook up an emergency to have a good reason to use Prime Now. I have tons of 'micro emergencies' every month where I'd gladly tip my driver a bit to bring my items within a few hours.

Yep, your examples are a lot less "emergencies", the previous examples were all connected to unpleasant events, but - with all due respect - yours are all connected to the same "base issue", forgetting to procure in time (or in advance) whatever you need.

A very handy solution, in those cases.

Re: The Illusion of a Profitable Amazon Prime Now and Prime Fresh

#84

Post by tudelo »

AnssiH wrote: post #61
tudelo wrote: post #43

Earlier 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…

What's the upside for the company that owns the building?

Re: The Illusion of a Profitable Amazon Prime Now and Prime Fresh

#85

Post by CodeCube »

rndmize wrote: post #27
CodeCube wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah my dude, I'd almost venture to say that you are the outlier here (echo/bubbles, yay!). For many that I know, food is an on-demand lazy loaded resource. Sure, sometimes they buy groceries (usually when they run out of pop-tarts) ... But the odd day when they actually cook dinner, it's a trip to the store for just those ingredients that are necessary. Is it horribly wasteful and inefficient? yes. Does that get fac…

Efficiency aside, that feels like awful planning to me. Growing up in the Bay Area, the threat of a significant earthquake has been ever-present. My family always had several dozen bottles of water and a reasonable amount of canned/jarred/dried food around.

Yep! It's terrible planning ... but that doesn't take away from the fact that it's an absolute reality for a ton of people.
Post reply on HN