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Are Amazon's margins razor thin? I'm trying to understand what compels them to be so toxic in their work environment. Especially compared to the people I know w

Are Amazon's margins razor thin? I'm trying to understand what compels them to be so toxic in their work environment. Especially compared to the people I know who work at Costco, I struggle to understand why Costco treats employees so well, and Amazon treats their employees so poorly. It's really sad, regardless.

zitterbewegung 9y ago
Yes, a famous quote by Bezos is "Your margin is my opportunity". Also, he runs the company the same way. A lot of capex for Amazon is reinvesting in the company.
- aylmao 9y ago
  Exactly. If there's money to re-invest, there should be money to treat employees at least decently.
  - mistermann 9y ago
    Unless the public can somehow get politicians to govern according to their desires, the way the world actually is, rather than how it should be, will continue to be defined by alpha leaders like Jeff Bezos and Xi Jinping.
    - aje403 9y ago
      The public does not know how the world is
  - StaticRedux 9y ago
    On the other side of the coin, if they hadn't spent the money on reinvesting, they wouldnt be the size they are now or employ as many people. (This is not saying they shouldn't treat employees better, just that the reason they employ so many people in the first place is bc of reinvesting and expanding to more areas. It's not as simplistic as, 'if they have the money they should spend it on people instead of business')
    - toomuchtodo 9y ago
      If you can't grow your business to be a monstrosity without treating your employees like slaves, your business should not exist.
      - 80386 9y ago
        I work at an Amazon warehouse. I'd rather be able to do that and write code on the side than be unemployed and have to live with my parents in the middle of nowhere. My parents don't even have an internet connection.
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
        aylmao 9y ago
        That's the problem with the current labour market. A job sounds almost like a favor, because it's better than nothing, but workers (should) have rights too. There will always be someone who has less and is therefore satisfied with less, and companies will capitalize on that to offer the bare minimum to get the job done. Ultimately the person who'd do the job for more gets no job, the person doing the job for less doesn't get a fair compensation, and the only party benefiting is the company.
        80386 9y ago
        Right, it's hard to get even a crappy job. Except at an Amazon warehouse. There were relatively few hoops to jump through, and I don't think I even had to interview for it. (Well, "crappy". Aside from the low pay and bad hours, it's alright. I haven't seen any of the abuses that get talked about, although I'm sure they happen elsewhere.) Over half of new hires quit or get fired - I'm not sure which, but probably both - in their first two months, and they mostly hire for 20 hrs/wk part-time schedules. So it's not hard to see why Amazon is an easy place to find work at. I've applied to a few hundred jobs in my life, ranging from software development to slinging lattes, and Amazon is the only company that's ever even given me an offer. Most of my male friends are in similar positions: they're pretty smart, but they can't get anything better than FC, retail, truck driver, that sort of thing. (Truck driver was, in terms of pay, the best outcome I know of, but that was one guy and he killed himself over it last year.) The impression I get from my (generally more successful) female friends is that the only things that matter nowadays are networking and credentials, and most public job postings are only put up as formalities.
- nostromo 9y ago
  I see this quote often, but it hasn't really panned out for Amazon in practice. I see other large tech companies (Google, Apple, Facebook) with these huge profit margins every quarter, year after year. Amazon has never made a dent in any of them, nor made a sizable profit themselves, despite all of that "opportunity." Perhaps he's not speaking of tech but of retail, in which case the margins of companies like Walmart are already incredibly tight.
  - zitterbewegung 9y ago
    I'm sorry I was unclear but the reason Amazon is purported to have low profits is due to the massive capital expenditure that they do year over year. Hypothetically they could turn a profit when they want to.
ProAm 9y ago
This is how you get your Amazon Prime same day/two day delivery.
- aylmao 9y ago
  I'm pretty sure they could still offer this service and treat employees well. Implying Amazon _needs_ to be like this is largely turning a blind eye to the problem.
  - ProAm 9y ago
    I agree, but Amazon maximizes their profit by using these conditions. They eek out profit margins by using human sacrifices.
- babygoat 9y ago
  If that’s true, then charge us more and be a real human.
  - aylmao 9y ago
    Thing is they don't need to. They could just tap a bit into their huge revenues before re-investing them in making planes or making huge acquisitions.
  - progval 9y ago
    If you have Amazon Prime, you can choose to have a longer delay (ie. the same as non-Prime consumers) when selecting shipment options.
    - babygoat 9y ago
      My choices will not improve the conditions of warehouse workers.
dawnerd 9y ago
I’m wondering the same. It’s not like amazon is deeply discounting anything like they used to. Often cheaper to buy stuff at the big box stores - or at least the same price.
- jonknee 9y ago
  But they bring the products to your door...
  - dawnerd 9y ago
    So do Walmart/Target/bestbuy all with free shipping... I fail to see the point of that comparison really.
  - Lionsion 9y ago
    > But they bring the products to your door... That's being presented as some giant perk nowadays, but I don't really get the appeal. You're buying something sight-unseen and hoping what you'll get in a few days will match the mental images formed from the pictures. You can't size up the item in person, you don't get an excuse to leave the house, and you have to wait longer. If you don't like it, you have to go through the hassle of boxing it up, printing forms, and finding a post office.
    - jonknee 9y ago
      Depending on where you live it's a big pain to get to a store (rural people need to go far while in the city traffic makes going across town a huge pain). Not to mention not having to wait in a checkout line. I actually looked at my Amazon order history, it's beyond boring: soap that was out of stock last time I was at a physical store, washing machine cleaner, an OXO cutting board and a cheese grater, Anker USB charger, etc. I would never choose to go to a store and compare for any of these items and was quite happy to have them show up downstairs. If I do need to return I just print off a piece of paper and take the same box back downstairs (from my perspective way easier than having to go back to a store and wait in line).
kelukelugames 9y ago
Bezos. Jeff Bezos is the reason why Amazon treats workers they way they do. Compared to other tech giants, Amazon is incredibly anti-employee. Look at how their stocks vest. I worked at Microsoft during Balmer's reign. The founder/CEO's attitude dictates the work culture. And causes harm if it's bad. I live in Seattle and often hear this joke: Being an Amazon customer is the best. An investor is great. An employee not so much. I worked at Amazon in 2005 and was a customer before that. But I can't support Bezos anymore because he negatively impacts how people are treated. It's not on par with Nike's sweatshops in the 90s, but I still canceled Prime and stopped buying things from Amazon.
- gorbot 9y ago
  Not all employees are treated poorly. Yeah, the stock vest is back loaded, but they typically give cash upfront, which you could just turn around and buy stocks with..
  - aylmao 9y ago
    > which you could just turn around and buy stocks with. Which just benefits the company even further? Edit: if you downvote please reply. How will I correct my stance if I get no feedback? I'm not sure why I'm getting down voted. Edit: Thanks for the comments. I did assume this meant Amazon stock. Didn't think my comment sounded so combative until I was told.
    - timdorr 9y ago
      If you're buying AMZN on the market, that's coming from other investors, not the company itself. It's already sold that stock (the IPO was back in 96) and benefited directly from it at that time.
      - greedo 9y ago
        Well, increased buying of AMZN would drive the price higher, and ostensibly, this percolates up to Amazon and it's employees.
rando444 9y ago
Costco employees interact with customers.. Having a healthy interaction with customers is important, and treating employees well goes a long way in helping grow a customer base. Customers will never interact with the person that boxes their amazon shipment. Those individuals are not seen as people, but just a necessity to continue operations.
- j45 9y ago
  Costco (retail) appears to treat their employees much better - much higher base wages, regular increases in wage, benefits, etc. Also know a past Costco corporate employee and only had a positive impression.
  - jonknee 9y ago
    Retail positions are different than warehouse positions. It's like how UPS drivers make bank, but the guys who load the trucks break their backs for scratch (even with union representation!).
    - j45 9y ago
      There are warehouse positions in Costco as well. Costco seems to skirt labour laws a little less than other retailers.
    - foxyv 9y ago
      I worked at UPS as a package sorter/loader/unloader. The money was great and the part time position offered pretty good health and dental benefits. Only issue was the job was hard on my health. Weird hours and repetitive motion can tear your body to shreds if you let it. But the hours were consistent and there were plenty of opportunities to make extra money during the holidays.
  - jquery 9y ago
    Best teenage job I ever had. They treated us with respect and the pay was exceptional for the job, you could live a middle class lifestyle on it. Sundays they paid time and a half. They also had great holiday events, with a very memorable Christmas party I still cherish. I wish more retailers would treat their employees so well. EDIT: it does go to the top. The CEO resisted investor pressure to reduce wages and perks. Mad respect to him for treating his employees like people instead of cogs.
ajeet_dhaliwal 9y ago
Would be interesting to know whether it's a local problem or happens in other Amazon warehouses too. I'm fortunate enough to have worked in the USA, Canada and the UK and out of the three, I've found culturally, coworkers in the UK seem to be more afraid of the what the boss will say all the time and there's a lot of micro management going on. This is just anecdotal of course on my experiences and I would like to know if this happened in Amazon's warehouses elsewhere.
- walshemj 9y ago
  They seem to (from overhearing covos on the train that serves the warehouse near MK) employ a lot of eu migrants from the poor countries that are used to abusive management an don't know their rights. It was also implied that there had been capture of first level supervisory positions who played favorites.
sremani 9y ago
Retail in general is thin-margin. That is why you see Amazon try out all sorts of things from cloud to videos, because their core is so thin margin, that any non-core looks more like an opportunity rather than spreading out resources, say in contrast to a Google or Facebook, who have solid cores high margins.
- aylmao 9y ago
  AWS has pretty good margins afaik. They have the money to make huge acquisitions and invest in planes, drones, etc. They have the money to treat their employees decently.
  - jonknee 9y ago
    And I doubt the AWS staff is peeing in bottles to make their numbers.
- dv_dt 9y ago
  But their pricing hasn't been best-possible for a while now. I've been more and more frequently finding better prices through other venues.
  - sol_remmy 9y ago
    That's because big box retailers are shipping at a loss: i ordered something from Home Depot that was $10 and got free shipping, 3-4 days too. For the same cost as the in-store item. No way is that profitable for them They're all okay losing money in the short temp to capture online consumers
    - dv_dt 9y ago
      Are small sellers on ebay selling at a loss too?
opencl 9y ago
Meanwhile they shove all of their software developers into one of the highest cost of living cities in the world and pay them six figure salaries.
- lr4444lr 9y ago
  You would think Amazon would be a pioneer in remote IT work, wouldn't you...
- umanwizard 9y ago
  Maybe it's changed since I lived there, but I don't really think Seattle is "one of the highest cost of living cities in the world". It is (or was) quite a bit cheaper than NYC or SF, for example.
  - bhandziuk 9y ago
    Seattle might not be the most expensive city to lie in but it is right up there. Same price as LA accoring to this data: https://www.nerdwallet.com/cost-of-living-calculator/compare/los-angeles-vs-seattle https://www.nerdwallet.com/cost-of-living-calculator/compare... And depending on how you break this list down (Exclude Bermuda from North American cities,bundle Bellevue/Seattle, Brooklyn NYC) it's in the top 10 https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/region_rankings.jsp?title=2018&region=021 https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/region_rankings.jsp?ti...
    - FireBeyond 9y ago
      Then again, it's quite a bit higher... "Cost of a gallon of gas in Seattle: $2.40"... try $3.79 this weekend.
      - bhandziuk 9y ago
        I bet those gas prices are fixed to some point in time. Might be too much work to keep up to date gas prices but not instantaneously update other parameters.
  - 9y ago
IncRnd 9y ago
Take a look at the operating margins for international(negative), NA(barely positive even), and AWS. Graphs for this are shown here: https://www.recode.net/2018/2/1/16961598/amazon-jeff-bezos-record-profit-11-quarter-q4-2017-earnings https://www.recode.net/2018/2/1/16961598/amazon-jeff-bezos-r... This is also in the article: The e-commerce giant posted a record profit of $1.9 billion during the last three months of 2017, marking the 11th straight quarter of positive net income for Jeff Bezos’s company. About $789 million of that can be attributed to a tax benefit resulting from President Trump’s tax plan. But even without the benefit, the profit number would have been the largest in the company’s history.
qudat 9y ago
> Are Amazon's margins razor thin? They don't make any money on distributing products.
j45 9y ago
The measure of innovation and progress is how a society treats it's most vulnerable members. With Amazon, it's hard to imagine all the smart people that are being paid well, and used indirectly to squeeze the folks on the "factory floor", however unintentional.
geodel 9y ago
So I need a replacement for broken GPS cradle mount. Can I get at Costco?, no, but I can buy a new GPS for a couple hundred. At Amazon I can buy this 6 dollar item and bundled with few more low price items I can get it delivered for free. Costco has far fewer SKUs and sell in bulk only high quality and price items. So they can afford to pay well because they only entertain customers which are spending far more for fewer high selling items and not few dollar obscure replacement parts.
gist 9y ago
Why is the assumption when articles like this are published that this is representative of what it's like working in an Amazon warehouse?
wnevets 9y ago
> I'm trying to understand what compels them to be so toxic in their work environment. Their warehouse employees are extremely replaceable and amazon knows this.
- s73v3r_ 9y ago
  That shouldn't be an excuse for anyone with a shred of humanity or decency.
  - pnathan 9y ago
    and so? it's a power inequity and the mid-1800s into the early 1900s were marked by the workers who were treated like this struggling to take power back to force via the law better treatment. We mostly call those people "socialists" or "the labor movement" today.
TaylorAlexander 9y ago
In kingdoms and corporations, the more you keep from the masses, the more can go to the king. I think the fundamental reason we need democracy (at work and in civil society) is that humans have a hard time resisting riches for themselves even at the expense of others. Since these workers have no power at Amazon, they can’t effect the changes necessary to improve things. Incidentally a workers union could help here, though I think we’ve made it hard for those to thrive.
pacaro 9y ago
It’s worth recognizing also that the fulfillment part of the business has only one way to impact bottom line, by always cutting costs. We often talk about the importance of working for a profit center not a cost center within a business. Amazon fulfillment is a great example of this.
bluedino 9y ago
Same as Walmart.
hathawsh 9y ago
What's mysterious for me is just how much less Costco charges for staples than Amazon does. For example, for Honey Bunches of Oats cereal, Costco charges $0.15 per ounce (if you buy it locally), while Amazon charges $0.52 per ounce. Sometimes Costco even cuts 25% off that price. Bezos has a very long way to go if he wants to conquer that market! https://www.costco.com/Post-Honey-Bunches-of-Oats-with-Almonds%2C-48-oz.-.product.100368247.html https://www.costco.com/Post-Honey-Bunches-of-Oats-with-Almon... https://smile.amazon.com/Honey-Bunches-Oats-Almonds-14-5-Ounce/dp/B001EPQV1W https://smile.amazon.com/Honey-Bunches-Oats-Almonds-14-5-Oun...
- manigandham 9y ago
  Amazon is about convenience and variety first, followed closely by price. If you want to drive to Costco and buy the bulk-version of the few choices they have then yes they will be much cheaper.
  - Lionsion 9y ago
    > Amazon is about convenience and variety first, followed closely by price. If you want to drive to Costco and buy the bulk-version of the few choices they have then yes they will be much cheaper. I feel like that's pretty revisionist. For a very long time, shopping at Amazon was about price first, variety a close second, and convenience a very distant third. I doubt so many people would have developed a habit of shopping there so much if the advantages were truly "convenience and variety" first. Amazon's prices have gotten much less competitive the last several years, which has disrupted the value proposition that caused many people to choose it.
    - manigandham 9y ago
      You don't have to revise history to say that it's true today. They definitely had a price advantage for a long time because internet commerce didn't have sales tax and they gained a massive following by the time that was legislated away. I find it hard to believe that free 2 day shipping and free customer-first returns did not sway opinions though since it basically pushed the entire industry forward.
jxramos 9y ago
I don't know about Amazon workers but Costco workers are dang happy as far as I can see. Always jovial, joking, and teasing with each other. They seem to form good friend networks there working side by side and stuff.
- Lionsion 9y ago
  > but Costco workers are dang happy as far as I can see. Always jovial, joking, and teasing with each other. They seem to form good friend networks there working side by side and stuff. That margin is Amazon's opportunity. /s https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/706779-your-margin-is-my-opportunity https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/706779-your-margin-is-my-op...
  - jxramos 9y ago
    what sort of margin are we talking about and how does it translate to gross margin? Margin of comfort, of happiness?
abandonliberty 9y ago
Warehouse employees at Amazon are a stop-gap measure, and will only exist as long as they're more efficient than robots on a given task.
pascalxus 9y ago
It all starts with Bezos. But, look at all the engineers who work there with stockholmes syndrome. Most of Amazon's Glassdoor reviews are like 3,4 and 5 stars, then when you read the actual comments for those 5 star reviews, you see the horror that is amazon.
noelsusman 9y ago
They're less than razor thin. They generally lose money every time they sell you something. This has become less true over time with the explosion of third party sellers, but it's still generally true. The revenue from Amazon Prime subscriptions does not cover the costs of providing benefits to Amazon Prime subscribers. Costco has a different target market than Amazon. They target relatively well off people who can afford the upfront cost of a membership and have the capital to buy goods in bulk. That customer base places a relatively high value on customer service.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

zitterbewegung 9y ago

Yes, a famous quote by Bezos is "Your margin is my opportunity". Also, he runs the company the same way. A lot of capex for Amazon is reinvesting in the company.

aylmao 9y ago
Exactly. If there's money to re-invest, there should be money to treat employees at least decently.
- mistermann 9y ago
  Unless the public can somehow get politicians to govern according to their desires, the way the world actually is, rather than how it should be, will continue to be defined by alpha leaders like Jeff Bezos and Xi Jinping.
  - aje403 9y ago
    The public does not know how the world is
- StaticRedux 9y ago
  On the other side of the coin, if they hadn't spent the money on reinvesting, they wouldnt be the size they are now or employ as many people. (This is not saying they shouldn't treat employees better, just that the reason they employ so many people in the first place is bc of reinvesting and expanding to more areas. It's not as simplistic as, 'if they have the money they should spend it on people instead of business')
  - toomuchtodo 9y ago
    If you can't grow your business to be a monstrosity without treating your employees like slaves, your business should not exist.
    - 80386 9y ago
      I work at an Amazon warehouse. I'd rather be able to do that and write code on the side than be unemployed and have to live with my parents in the middle of nowhere. My parents don't even have an internet connection.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - aylmao 9y ago
        That's the problem with the current labour market. A job sounds almost like a favor, because it's better than nothing, but workers (should) have rights too. There will always be someone who has less and is therefore satisfied with less, and companies will capitalize on that to offer the bare minimum to get the job done. Ultimately the person who'd do the job for more gets no job, the person doing the job for less doesn't get a fair compensation, and the only party benefiting is the company.
        80386 9y ago
        Right, it's hard to get even a crappy job. Except at an Amazon warehouse. There were relatively few hoops to jump through, and I don't think I even had to interview for it. (Well, "crappy". Aside from the low pay and bad hours, it's alright. I haven't seen any of the abuses that get talked about, although I'm sure they happen elsewhere.) Over half of new hires quit or get fired - I'm not sure which, but probably both - in their first two months, and they mostly hire for 20 hrs/wk part-time schedules. So it's not hard to see why Amazon is an easy place to find work at. I've applied to a few hundred jobs in my life, ranging from software development to slinging lattes, and Amazon is the only company that's ever even given me an offer. Most of my male friends are in similar positions: they're pretty smart, but they can't get anything better than FC, retail, truck driver, that sort of thing. (Truck driver was, in terms of pay, the best outcome I know of, but that was one guy and he killed himself over it last year.) The impression I get from my (generally more successful) female friends is that the only things that matter nowadays are networking and credentials, and most public job postings are only put up as formalities.
nostromo 9y ago
I see this quote often, but it hasn't really panned out for Amazon in practice. I see other large tech companies (Google, Apple, Facebook) with these huge profit margins every quarter, year after year. Amazon has never made a dent in any of them, nor made a sizable profit themselves, despite all of that "opportunity." Perhaps he's not speaking of tech but of retail, in which case the margins of companies like Walmart are already incredibly tight.
- zitterbewegung 9y ago
  I'm sorry I was unclear but the reason Amazon is purported to have low profits is due to the massive capital expenditure that they do year over year. Hypothetically they could turn a profit when they want to.

ProAm 9y ago

This is how you get your Amazon Prime same day/two day delivery.

aylmao 9y ago
I'm pretty sure they could still offer this service and treat employees well. Implying Amazon _needs_ to be like this is largely turning a blind eye to the problem.
- ProAm 9y ago
  I agree, but Amazon maximizes their profit by using these conditions. They eek out profit margins by using human sacrifices.
babygoat 9y ago
If that’s true, then charge us more and be a real human.
- aylmao 9y ago
  Thing is they don't need to. They could just tap a bit into their huge revenues before re-investing them in making planes or making huge acquisitions.
- progval 9y ago
  If you have Amazon Prime, you can choose to have a longer delay (ie. the same as non-Prime consumers) when selecting shipment options.
  - babygoat 9y ago
    My choices will not improve the conditions of warehouse workers.

dawnerd 9y ago

I’m wondering the same. It’s not like amazon is deeply discounting anything like they used to. Often cheaper to buy stuff at the big box stores - or at least the same price.

jonknee 9y ago
But they bring the products to your door...
- dawnerd 9y ago
  So do Walmart/Target/bestbuy all with free shipping... I fail to see the point of that comparison really.
- Lionsion 9y ago
  > But they bring the products to your door... That's being presented as some giant perk nowadays, but I don't really get the appeal. You're buying something sight-unseen and hoping what you'll get in a few days will match the mental images formed from the pictures. You can't size up the item in person, you don't get an excuse to leave the house, and you have to wait longer. If you don't like it, you have to go through the hassle of boxing it up, printing forms, and finding a post office.
  - jonknee 9y ago
    Depending on where you live it's a big pain to get to a store (rural people need to go far while in the city traffic makes going across town a huge pain). Not to mention not having to wait in a checkout line. I actually looked at my Amazon order history, it's beyond boring: soap that was out of stock last time I was at a physical store, washing machine cleaner, an OXO cutting board and a cheese grater, Anker USB charger, etc. I would never choose to go to a store and compare for any of these items and was quite happy to have them show up downstairs. If I do need to return I just print off a piece of paper and take the same box back downstairs (from my perspective way easier than having to go back to a store and wait in line).

kelukelugames 9y ago

Bezos. Jeff Bezos is the reason why Amazon treats workers they way they do. Compared to other tech giants, Amazon is incredibly anti-employee. Look at how their stocks vest. I worked at Microsoft during Balmer's reign. The founder/CEO's attitude dictates the work culture. And causes harm if it's bad. I live in Seattle and often hear this joke: Being an Amazon customer is the best. An investor is great. An employee not so much. I worked at Amazon in 2005 and was a customer before that. But I can't support Bezos anymore because he negatively impacts how people are treated. It's not on par with Nike's sweatshops in the 90s, but I still canceled Prime and stopped buying things from Amazon.

gorbot 9y ago
Not all employees are treated poorly. Yeah, the stock vest is back loaded, but they typically give cash upfront, which you could just turn around and buy stocks with..
- aylmao 9y ago
  > which you could just turn around and buy stocks with. Which just benefits the company even further? Edit: if you downvote please reply. How will I correct my stance if I get no feedback? I'm not sure why I'm getting down voted. Edit: Thanks for the comments. I did assume this meant Amazon stock. Didn't think my comment sounded so combative until I was told.
  - timdorr 9y ago
    If you're buying AMZN on the market, that's coming from other investors, not the company itself. It's already sold that stock (the IPO was back in 96) and benefited directly from it at that time.
    - greedo 9y ago
      Well, increased buying of AMZN would drive the price higher, and ostensibly, this percolates up to Amazon and it's employees.

rando444 9y ago

Costco employees interact with customers.. Having a healthy interaction with customers is important, and treating employees well goes a long way in helping grow a customer base. Customers will never interact with the person that boxes their amazon shipment. Those individuals are not seen as people, but just a necessity to continue operations.

j45 9y ago
Costco (retail) appears to treat their employees much better - much higher base wages, regular increases in wage, benefits, etc. Also know a past Costco corporate employee and only had a positive impression.
- jonknee 9y ago
  Retail positions are different than warehouse positions. It's like how UPS drivers make bank, but the guys who load the trucks break their backs for scratch (even with union representation!).
  - j45 9y ago
    There are warehouse positions in Costco as well. Costco seems to skirt labour laws a little less than other retailers.
  - foxyv 9y ago
    I worked at UPS as a package sorter/loader/unloader. The money was great and the part time position offered pretty good health and dental benefits. Only issue was the job was hard on my health. Weird hours and repetitive motion can tear your body to shreds if you let it. But the hours were consistent and there were plenty of opportunities to make extra money during the holidays.
- jquery 9y ago
  Best teenage job I ever had. They treated us with respect and the pay was exceptional for the job, you could live a middle class lifestyle on it. Sundays they paid time and a half. They also had great holiday events, with a very memorable Christmas party I still cherish. I wish more retailers would treat their employees so well. EDIT: it does go to the top. The CEO resisted investor pressure to reduce wages and perks. Mad respect to him for treating his employees like people instead of cogs.

ajeet_dhaliwal 9y ago

Would be interesting to know whether it's a local problem or happens in other Amazon warehouses too. I'm fortunate enough to have worked in the USA, Canada and the UK and out of the three, I've found culturally, coworkers in the UK seem to be more afraid of the what the boss will say all the time and there's a lot of micro management going on. This is just anecdotal of course on my experiences and I would like to know if this happened in Amazon's warehouses elsewhere.

walshemj 9y ago
They seem to (from overhearing covos on the train that serves the warehouse near MK) employ a lot of eu migrants from the poor countries that are used to abusive management an don't know their rights. It was also implied that there had been capture of first level supervisory positions who played favorites.

sremani 9y ago

Retail in general is thin-margin. That is why you see Amazon try out all sorts of things from cloud to videos, because their core is so thin margin, that any non-core looks more like an opportunity rather than spreading out resources, say in contrast to a Google or Facebook, who have solid cores high margins.

aylmao 9y ago
AWS has pretty good margins afaik. They have the money to make huge acquisitions and invest in planes, drones, etc. They have the money to treat their employees decently.
- jonknee 9y ago
  And I doubt the AWS staff is peeing in bottles to make their numbers.
dv_dt 9y ago
But their pricing hasn't been best-possible for a while now. I've been more and more frequently finding better prices through other venues.
- sol_remmy 9y ago
  That's because big box retailers are shipping at a loss: i ordered something from Home Depot that was $10 and got free shipping, 3-4 days too. For the same cost as the in-store item. No way is that profitable for them They're all okay losing money in the short temp to capture online consumers
  - dv_dt 9y ago
    Are small sellers on ebay selling at a loss too?

opencl 9y ago

Meanwhile they shove all of their software developers into one of the highest cost of living cities in the world and pay them six figure salaries.

lr4444lr 9y ago
You would think Amazon would be a pioneer in remote IT work, wouldn't you...
umanwizard 9y ago
Maybe it's changed since I lived there, but I don't really think Seattle is "one of the highest cost of living cities in the world". It is (or was) quite a bit cheaper than NYC or SF, for example.
- bhandziuk 9y ago
  Seattle might not be the most expensive city to lie in but it is right up there. Same price as LA accoring to this data: https://www.nerdwallet.com/cost-of-living-calculator/compare/los-angeles-vs-seattle https://www.nerdwallet.com/cost-of-living-calculator/compare... And depending on how you break this list down (Exclude Bermuda from North American cities,bundle Bellevue/Seattle, Brooklyn NYC) it's in the top 10 https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/region_rankings.jsp?title=2018&region=021 https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/region_rankings.jsp?ti...
  - FireBeyond 9y ago
    Then again, it's quite a bit higher... "Cost of a gallon of gas in Seattle: $2.40"... try $3.79 this weekend.
    - bhandziuk 9y ago
      I bet those gas prices are fixed to some point in time. Might be too much work to keep up to date gas prices but not instantaneously update other parameters.
- 9y ago

IncRnd 9y ago

Take a look at the operating margins for international(negative), NA(barely positive even), and AWS. Graphs for this are shown here: https://www.recode.net/2018/2/1/16961598/amazon-jeff-bezos-record-profit-11-quarter-q4-2017-earnings https://www.recode.net/2018/2/1/16961598/amazon-jeff-bezos-r... This is also in the article: The e-commerce giant posted a record profit of $1.9 billion during the last three months of 2017, marking the 11th straight quarter of positive net income for Jeff Bezos’s company. About $789 million of that can be attributed to a tax benefit resulting from President Trump’s tax plan. But even without the benefit, the profit number would have been the largest in the company’s history.

qudat 9y ago

> Are Amazon's margins razor thin? They don't make any money on distributing products.

j45 9y ago

The measure of innovation and progress is how a society treats it's most vulnerable members. With Amazon, it's hard to imagine all the smart people that are being paid well, and used indirectly to squeeze the folks on the "factory floor", however unintentional.

geodel 9y ago

So I need a replacement for broken GPS cradle mount. Can I get at Costco?, no, but I can buy a new GPS for a couple hundred. At Amazon I can buy this 6 dollar item and bundled with few more low price items I can get it delivered for free. Costco has far fewer SKUs and sell in bulk only high quality and price items. So they can afford to pay well because they only entertain customers which are spending far more for fewer high selling items and not few dollar obscure replacement parts.

gist 9y ago

Why is the assumption when articles like this are published that this is representative of what it's like working in an Amazon warehouse?

wnevets 9y ago

> I'm trying to understand what compels them to be so toxic in their work environment. Their warehouse employees are extremely replaceable and amazon knows this.

s73v3r_ 9y ago
That shouldn't be an excuse for anyone with a shred of humanity or decency.
- pnathan 9y ago
  and so? it's a power inequity and the mid-1800s into the early 1900s were marked by the workers who were treated like this struggling to take power back to force via the law better treatment. We mostly call those people "socialists" or "the labor movement" today.

TaylorAlexander 9y ago

In kingdoms and corporations, the more you keep from the masses, the more can go to the king. I think the fundamental reason we need democracy (at work and in civil society) is that humans have a hard time resisting riches for themselves even at the expense of others. Since these workers have no power at Amazon, they can’t effect the changes necessary to improve things. Incidentally a workers union could help here, though I think we’ve made it hard for those to thrive.

pacaro 9y ago

It’s worth recognizing also that the fulfillment part of the business has only one way to impact bottom line, by always cutting costs. We often talk about the importance of working for a profit center not a cost center within a business. Amazon fulfillment is a great example of this.

bluedino 9y ago

Same as Walmart.

hathawsh 9y ago

What's mysterious for me is just how much less Costco charges for staples than Amazon does. For example, for Honey Bunches of Oats cereal, Costco charges $0.15 per ounce (if you buy it locally), while Amazon charges $0.52 per ounce. Sometimes Costco even cuts 25% off that price. Bezos has a very long way to go if he wants to conquer that market! https://www.costco.com/Post-Honey-Bunches-of-Oats-with-Almonds%2C-48-oz.-.product.100368247.html https://www.costco.com/Post-Honey-Bunches-of-Oats-with-Almon... https://smile.amazon.com/Honey-Bunches-Oats-Almonds-14-5-Ounce/dp/B001EPQV1W https://smile.amazon.com/Honey-Bunches-Oats-Almonds-14-5-Oun...

manigandham 9y ago
Amazon is about convenience and variety first, followed closely by price. If you want to drive to Costco and buy the bulk-version of the few choices they have then yes they will be much cheaper.
- Lionsion 9y ago
  > Amazon is about convenience and variety first, followed closely by price. If you want to drive to Costco and buy the bulk-version of the few choices they have then yes they will be much cheaper. I feel like that's pretty revisionist. For a very long time, shopping at Amazon was about price first, variety a close second, and convenience a very distant third. I doubt so many people would have developed a habit of shopping there so much if the advantages were truly "convenience and variety" first. Amazon's prices have gotten much less competitive the last several years, which has disrupted the value proposition that caused many people to choose it.
  - manigandham 9y ago
    You don't have to revise history to say that it's true today. They definitely had a price advantage for a long time because internet commerce didn't have sales tax and they gained a massive following by the time that was legislated away. I find it hard to believe that free 2 day shipping and free customer-first returns did not sway opinions though since it basically pushed the entire industry forward.

jxramos 9y ago

I don't know about Amazon workers but Costco workers are dang happy as far as I can see. Always jovial, joking, and teasing with each other. They seem to form good friend networks there working side by side and stuff.

Lionsion 9y ago
> but Costco workers are dang happy as far as I can see. Always jovial, joking, and teasing with each other. They seem to form good friend networks there working side by side and stuff. That margin is Amazon's opportunity. /s https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/706779-your-margin-is-my-opportunity https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/706779-your-margin-is-my-op...
- jxramos 9y ago
  what sort of margin are we talking about and how does it translate to gross margin? Margin of comfort, of happiness?

abandonliberty 9y ago

Warehouse employees at Amazon are a stop-gap measure, and will only exist as long as they're more efficient than robots on a given task.

pascalxus 9y ago

It all starts with Bezos. But, look at all the engineers who work there with stockholmes syndrome. Most of Amazon's Glassdoor reviews are like 3,4 and 5 stars, then when you read the actual comments for those 5 star reviews, you see the horror that is amazon.

noelsusman 9y ago

They're less than razor thin. They generally lose money every time they sell you something. This has become less true over time with the explosion of third party sellers, but it's still generally true. The revenue from Amazon Prime subscriptions does not cover the costs of providing benefits to Amazon Prime subscribers. Costco has a different target market than Amazon. They target relatively well off people who can afford the upfront cost of a membership and have the capital to buy goods in bulk. That customer base places a relatively high value on customer service.

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