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If Amazon is smart, they will keep their brand out of Whole Foods, at least until they rehabilitate it some. Neither media or public sentiment towards Amazon is

If Amazon is smart, they will keep their brand out of Whole Foods, at least until they rehabilitate it some. Neither media or public sentiment towards Amazon is great right now for a variety of reasons, many of which have been posted on HN. Some people are getting disturbed that it seems like they can only get important goods from one company; indeed, this is basically the monopoly future that Amazon wants. Personally, I don't want to feel like I'm being stalked or "optimized" by Amazon at my local Whole Foods. I don't think we've seen the end of non-Amazon retail yet. When almost every transaction is conducted through Skinnerian workflows developed by MBAs in Seattle and neural networks running in Virginia data centers, doing all your shopping at Walmart is an act of radical physicality.

tehlike 9y ago
As a consumer, amazon is a great brand.
- fnbr 9y ago
  I agree. It's only as a potential employer that they lose their luster.
  - prepend 9y ago
    They seem like a pretty good employer to me.
    - tehlike 9y ago
      I have knowledge from a swe friend, i heard it was not great compared to google, but that was 4 years ago. Disclaimer: google employee.
    - sincerely 9y ago
      they are notorious for overworking their warehouse and delivery workers and i have heard very mixed experiences of working for amazon in a dev or biz role.
- THE_PUN_STOPS 9y ago
  For now. It is textbook monopoly management to resist squeezing the customer until you’re dependent on them.
  - tehlike 9y ago
    Potentially. But there is always someone else to disrupt them. Amazon took the r&d cost, and showed what worked. They didnt reinvent the whole thing, they took prime membership from others (costco membership is similar, frequent flier programs are similar), packaged with a great customer service. They raised my expectation from online commerce. An example, my wife buys clothing from a european brand. Their website is borderline useless, customer service cannot locate orders. At some point they "paid" us to buy something by not properly marking returned item. Amazon is just there, it works for things i buy every single time.
    - AstralStorm 9y ago
      Ha, the fallacy that deferring the correction (potentially indefinitely) makes the situation better? What if nothing disrupts their entrenched market position? What if it happens in 5 generations or more? Will you want to tell your grandchildren you were waiting for the problem to resolve itself while they now suffer the consequences? What if, even worse, the disruption will not be a positive change but further race to the bottom?
      - lmm 9y ago
        Make hay while the sun shines. At the moment, Amazon offers consumers a great deal. If and when that ceases to be the case, we can do something about it at that point.
        AstralStorm 9y ago
        Consumers, yes. But consumers are not everything to a business. How about, say, employees?
greeneggs 9y ago
"…many of which have been posted on HN" It's easy to get into a bubble. Apple, Google, Microsoft, Coca Cola, Amazon. Top 5 brands of 2017, according to http://interbrand.com/best-brands/best-global-brands/2017/ranking/ http://interbrand.com/best-brands/best-global-brands/2017/ra... (And #8 is Facebook.)
adventured 9y ago
> I don't think we've seen the end of non-Amazon retail yet. Amazon is less than 3% of US retail. Walmart's retail business is three times the size of Amazon's retail business. And that's before we count the fact that half of Amazon's retail business, isn't Amazon at all. Amazon is not going to actually dominate all of retail. Amazon is not going to become a retail monopoly. Amazon is not going to build a retail business dramatically larger than Walmart's retail business. The shrieks to the contrary are strictly emotionalism rather than fact-based, just as they were 12 or 15 years ago when Walmart was going to destroy everything in retail and monopolize everything. It's just as silly and absurd to pretend Amazon is going to do the same thing. What Amazon has is an early lead in online retail, because they were an aggressive first mover. Only ~10-12% of US retail has moved online. As that percentage dramatically increases in the next 20 years, Amazon's total share of online commerce will fall accordingly. They're not going to be doing $3 trillion in annual sales in 15 years. It'll be extremely impressive if they can manage to one day catch up to Walmart's retail size. > Neither media or public sentiment towards Amazon is great right now Public sentiment towards Amazon is extraordinarily high. They typically have the highest, or one of the highest rated brands and consumer experiences. Their customer service is routinely voted as among the best of any company. What opinion pieces in the NY Times say about Amazon, are not at all representative of how the majority of people feel about Amazon. That's a classic echo chamber premise.
- gowld 9y ago
  > And that's before we count the fact that half of Amazon's retail business, isn't Amazon at all. What does that mean? Most of Walmart's business isn't Walmart either, it's their suppliers' business, and Walmart gets a cut. With FBA and drop-shippers, Amazon gets a cut. Amazon has just recently started a push into brick-and-mortar-stores, and less recently got into local delivery.
- mrep 9y ago
  > They're not going to be doing $3 trillion in annual sales in 15 years. Actually, they will hit that in 9 years if they can sustain their current growth rate. It'll take 15 years at half their current growth rate.
gowld 9y ago
Walmart is a better-loved brand than Amazon? and Whole Foods, aka "Whole Paycheck"?
whatyoucantsay 9y ago
> "Neither media or public sentiment towards Amazon is great right now for a variety of reasons, many of which have been posted on HN." And I'd thought it was downright fawning.

tehlike 9y ago

As a consumer, amazon is a great brand.

fnbr 9y ago
I agree. It's only as a potential employer that they lose their luster.
- prepend 9y ago
  They seem like a pretty good employer to me.
  - tehlike 9y ago
    I have knowledge from a swe friend, i heard it was not great compared to google, but that was 4 years ago. Disclaimer: google employee.
  - sincerely 9y ago
    they are notorious for overworking their warehouse and delivery workers and i have heard very mixed experiences of working for amazon in a dev or biz role.
THE_PUN_STOPS 9y ago
For now. It is textbook monopoly management to resist squeezing the customer until you’re dependent on them.
- tehlike 9y ago
  Potentially. But there is always someone else to disrupt them. Amazon took the r&d cost, and showed what worked. They didnt reinvent the whole thing, they took prime membership from others (costco membership is similar, frequent flier programs are similar), packaged with a great customer service. They raised my expectation from online commerce. An example, my wife buys clothing from a european brand. Their website is borderline useless, customer service cannot locate orders. At some point they "paid" us to buy something by not properly marking returned item. Amazon is just there, it works for things i buy every single time.
  - AstralStorm 9y ago
    Ha, the fallacy that deferring the correction (potentially indefinitely) makes the situation better? What if nothing disrupts their entrenched market position? What if it happens in 5 generations or more? Will you want to tell your grandchildren you were waiting for the problem to resolve itself while they now suffer the consequences? What if, even worse, the disruption will not be a positive change but further race to the bottom?
    - lmm 9y ago
      Make hay while the sun shines. At the moment, Amazon offers consumers a great deal. If and when that ceases to be the case, we can do something about it at that point.
      - AstralStorm 9y ago
        Consumers, yes. But consumers are not everything to a business. How about, say, employees?

greeneggs 9y ago

"…many of which have been posted on HN" It's easy to get into a bubble. Apple, Google, Microsoft, Coca Cola, Amazon. Top 5 brands of 2017, according to http://interbrand.com/best-brands/best-global-brands/2017/ranking/ http://interbrand.com/best-brands/best-global-brands/2017/ra... (And #8 is Facebook.)

adventured 9y ago

> I don't think we've seen the end of non-Amazon retail yet. Amazon is less than 3% of US retail. Walmart's retail business is three times the size of Amazon's retail business. And that's before we count the fact that half of Amazon's retail business, isn't Amazon at all. Amazon is not going to actually dominate all of retail. Amazon is not going to become a retail monopoly. Amazon is not going to build a retail business dramatically larger than Walmart's retail business. The shrieks to the contrary are strictly emotionalism rather than fact-based, just as they were 12 or 15 years ago when Walmart was going to destroy everything in retail and monopolize everything. It's just as silly and absurd to pretend Amazon is going to do the same thing. What Amazon has is an early lead in online retail, because they were an aggressive first mover. Only ~10-12% of US retail has moved online. As that percentage dramatically increases in the next 20 years, Amazon's total share of online commerce will fall accordingly. They're not going to be doing $3 trillion in annual sales in 15 years. It'll be extremely impressive if they can manage to one day catch up to Walmart's retail size. > Neither media or public sentiment towards Amazon is great right now Public sentiment towards Amazon is extraordinarily high. They typically have the highest, or one of the highest rated brands and consumer experiences. Their customer service is routinely voted as among the best of any company. What opinion pieces in the NY Times say about Amazon, are not at all representative of how the majority of people feel about Amazon. That's a classic echo chamber premise.

gowld 9y ago
> And that's before we count the fact that half of Amazon's retail business, isn't Amazon at all. What does that mean? Most of Walmart's business isn't Walmart either, it's their suppliers' business, and Walmart gets a cut. With FBA and drop-shippers, Amazon gets a cut. Amazon has just recently started a push into brick-and-mortar-stores, and less recently got into local delivery.
mrep 9y ago
> They're not going to be doing $3 trillion in annual sales in 15 years. Actually, they will hit that in 9 years if they can sustain their current growth rate. It'll take 15 years at half their current growth rate.

gowld 9y ago

Walmart is a better-loved brand than Amazon? and Whole Foods, aka "Whole Paycheck"?

whatyoucantsay 9y ago

> "Neither media or public sentiment towards Amazon is great right now for a variety of reasons, many of which have been posted on HN." And I'd thought it was downright fawning.