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I can't be happier to see amazon struggle to keep their marketplace clean. It's the beginning of the downfall. They thought they could just be a logistic compan

by hirako2000 7y ago

I can't be happier to see amazon struggle to keep their marketplace clean. It's the beginning of the downfall. They thought they could just be a logistic company while eating up all the margin, profiting from defenceless sellers. I guess they got totally outsmarted. Can't keep a marketplace at the same level of standard as a direct seller. Selling millions of products doesn't seem to scale well. Worked for books, but even there, opening the door to seller accounts flooded the lists with copies, a ruin for publishers who touched the devil rather than staying away from it. I like amazon for many things they do well, but the truth is that they were never profitable with their previous business model. Now they've been turning directions to make a profit, it's the snowball to their death.

Accujack 7y ago
This is what happens when regulators don't promote a fair marketplace. With no competition, companies like Amazon stop caring and start to optimize to get the last few pennies out of each sale... which results in a drop in quality of the overall service and eventually either a long, slow death or a corporate sale. Because Amazon has out priced or out delivered many local stores, we don't have those choices any more. There's a place for companies like this, but they have so many advantages due to size that they have to be watched to ensure they don't step on smaller players just because they can.
- hirako2000 7y ago
  Could actually be a major factor yes. Surely contributing. I'm still unsure Amazon was ever profitable without the new practices, being a private company makes it even more difficult to figure that out.
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    Amazon is a public company.
  - acdha 7y ago
    Amazon has been profitable since the 90s, which is also when they went public (1997). This would be useful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Amazon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Amazon The key thing to remember is that they expanded aggressively. People who didn’t do their homework - like most pundits and media stock analyst/entertainers - would dismiss them as another unprofitable .com without recognizing that they were becoming profitable in each new market a few years after entry and could halt expansion if they had a cash squeeze. The other point was being comfortable with low margins: that disappointed people who wanted a rapidly climbing stock price but that wasn’t the company they were trying to build and they’ve left quite a few once-hot companies in the rubble.
- abfan1127 7y ago
  you just described how the market is correcting. Regulators would just get in the way of the correction.
  - kyanne 7y ago
    Regulators would ensure there would be nothing to correct
    - abfan1127 7y ago
      ummm. I'll disagree with you on that point. Regulators don't have the clairvoyance to know the market needs. They do have their own self interests and politics of their organizations to inhibit reaching market needs...
  - 9HZZRfNlpR 7y ago
    It corrects itself to next abusing monopoly since everyone is priced out from the market.
    - lonelappde 7y ago
      Your complaint that every bad monopoly is replaced by a better monopoly with lower prices?
      - uoaei 7y ago
        Not better, just lower prices.
        dlp211 7y ago
        Temporarily lower, usually subsidized by VC.
- sigstoat 7y ago
  > With no competition, companies like Amazon amazon has only got ~5% of the US retail market. this ongoing meme that they've got no competition is surreal.
  - Accujack 7y ago
    Name another online retailer that's bigger/better known. You can't compare them to the entire retail market. If anything, their competition is Wal-Mart's online service, or Ebay.
    - sigstoat 7y ago
      > You can't compare them to the entire retail market. sure i can. i do every time i buy something at my grocery store, or local retailers, that i could've gotten from amazon.
    - dsl 7y ago
      > Name another online retailer that's bigger/better known. You literally named two. My father knows how to do only two things on his computer - check his email, and buy stuff on eBay. There is a "Walmart.com" desk and in-store signage in 5,000+ physical stores.
      - laughinghan 7y ago
        > You literally named two. Neither of those are bigger, in fact they're dramatically smaller, Amazon has 49.1% of the online retail market to eBay's 6.6% and Walmart's 3.7%, according to: https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/13/amazons-share-of-the-us-e-commerce-market-is-now-49-or-5-of-all-retail-spend/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/13/amazons-share-of-the-us-e-...
  - sharkmerry 7y ago
    All retail includes B+M stores no? Not necessarily a fair comparison. Same article says they control 49% of US E-commerce. https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/13/amazons-share-of-the-us-e-commerce-market-is-now-49-or-5-of-all-retail-spend/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/13/amazons-share-of-the-us-e-...
neonate 7y ago
Is there any evidence that any of this is affecting Amazon adversely? Or are we just wishfully thinking that it is because it should?
- hirako2000 7y ago
  Well, this isn't the first article on the subject in the last couple of months. look at the other comments. take a guess at how this kind of PR will do to amazon's sales/revenue and brand. I'm not saying they are suffering from it yet in term of financial, I could imagine their profit to be higher than ever on the market side of their biz today, but one can see a downturn in their future ability to grow and remain the dominant ecommerce in the west. (they've already totally lost the battles in the far east, even though they try there and there)
  - neonate 7y ago
    > take a guess at how this kind of PR will do to amazon's sales/revenue and brand My guess, sadly, is that it will round to nothing. Most likely the sheer volume of the bottom end of the mass market is worth a lot more to Amazon than elite users who post comments like these on forums like this. We may have been critical as early adopters but now have outlived our usefulness. I hope that's not true, but that's why I asked the question: what evidence is there? Maybe it's too early to see anything more than assorted anecdotes, but it's hard to know what those objectively amount to in an operation of Amazon's scale.
    - DaniloDias 7y ago
      I completely agree with you. The “negative PR argument” has become an indicator to me that someone has an extremely immature world view. There are anecdotes that reflect PR events that are catastrophic (Theranos). But most companies completely recover from PR bumps because most consumers only change their behavior in response to costs.
    - hirako2000 7y ago
      Who knows, it also depends on how Amazon adapts in the coming years. I just observe the trend, years ago I could hardly find any reason to complain about amazon, I didn't come across stories like this. I have not made a purchse on amazon for a long time, and when I did, it just cost me time to return an overpriced product having a dishonest description. Evaluate a provider for the quality of its service. Think how others from elite to mass consumers would perceive it in the long run, and you can guess the fate of that provider. Things move fast and many competitors are working at offering better user experience. We will see I guess.
boring_twenties 7y ago
Somewhat ironically books are the only area in which I have personally been dissatisfied with Amazon so far. (Since my first order from them, in 1998.) A book I ordered recently arrived in a flimsy envelope instead of a box. Needless to say it was damaged. Nothing major but having paid $30 for a 150-page paperback, I thought it was reasonable to complain. No problem. The replacement book came in the same envelope, with slightly different but still obvious damage. To my shame, I kept the second book. But next time I want to buy a physical book, I'll certainly look elsewhere.
wombat-man 7y ago
risk of counterfeit goods and really the cost of Prime have pushed me away from Amazon. I can get free overnight shipping from walmart if I just do batch orders of $35 or more. I don't care about their music, video or other misc services.

Accujack 7y ago

This is what happens when regulators don't promote a fair marketplace. With no competition, companies like Amazon stop caring and start to optimize to get the last few pennies out of each sale... which results in a drop in quality of the overall service and eventually either a long, slow death or a corporate sale. Because Amazon has out priced or out delivered many local stores, we don't have those choices any more. There's a place for companies like this, but they have so many advantages due to size that they have to be watched to ensure they don't step on smaller players just because they can.

hirako2000 7y ago
Could actually be a major factor yes. Surely contributing. I'm still unsure Amazon was ever profitable without the new practices, being a private company makes it even more difficult to figure that out.
- lonelappde 7y ago
  Amazon is a public company.
- acdha 7y ago
  Amazon has been profitable since the 90s, which is also when they went public (1997). This would be useful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Amazon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Amazon The key thing to remember is that they expanded aggressively. People who didn’t do their homework - like most pundits and media stock analyst/entertainers - would dismiss them as another unprofitable .com without recognizing that they were becoming profitable in each new market a few years after entry and could halt expansion if they had a cash squeeze. The other point was being comfortable with low margins: that disappointed people who wanted a rapidly climbing stock price but that wasn’t the company they were trying to build and they’ve left quite a few once-hot companies in the rubble.
abfan1127 7y ago
you just described how the market is correcting. Regulators would just get in the way of the correction.
- kyanne 7y ago
  Regulators would ensure there would be nothing to correct
  - abfan1127 7y ago
    ummm. I'll disagree with you on that point. Regulators don't have the clairvoyance to know the market needs. They do have their own self interests and politics of their organizations to inhibit reaching market needs...
- 9HZZRfNlpR 7y ago
  It corrects itself to next abusing monopoly since everyone is priced out from the market.
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    Your complaint that every bad monopoly is replaced by a better monopoly with lower prices?
    - uoaei 7y ago
      Not better, just lower prices.
      - dlp211 7y ago
        Temporarily lower, usually subsidized by VC.
sigstoat 7y ago
> With no competition, companies like Amazon amazon has only got ~5% of the US retail market. this ongoing meme that they've got no competition is surreal.
- Accujack 7y ago
  Name another online retailer that's bigger/better known. You can't compare them to the entire retail market. If anything, their competition is Wal-Mart's online service, or Ebay.
  - sigstoat 7y ago
    > You can't compare them to the entire retail market. sure i can. i do every time i buy something at my grocery store, or local retailers, that i could've gotten from amazon.
  - dsl 7y ago
    > Name another online retailer that's bigger/better known. You literally named two. My father knows how to do only two things on his computer - check his email, and buy stuff on eBay. There is a "Walmart.com" desk and in-store signage in 5,000+ physical stores.
    - laughinghan 7y ago
      > You literally named two. Neither of those are bigger, in fact they're dramatically smaller, Amazon has 49.1% of the online retail market to eBay's 6.6% and Walmart's 3.7%, according to: https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/13/amazons-share-of-the-us-e-commerce-market-is-now-49-or-5-of-all-retail-spend/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/13/amazons-share-of-the-us-e-...
- sharkmerry 7y ago
  All retail includes B+M stores no? Not necessarily a fair comparison. Same article says they control 49% of US E-commerce. https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/13/amazons-share-of-the-us-e-commerce-market-is-now-49-or-5-of-all-retail-spend/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/13/amazons-share-of-the-us-e-...

neonate 7y ago

Is there any evidence that any of this is affecting Amazon adversely? Or are we just wishfully thinking that it is because it should?

hirako2000 7y ago
Well, this isn't the first article on the subject in the last couple of months. look at the other comments. take a guess at how this kind of PR will do to amazon's sales/revenue and brand. I'm not saying they are suffering from it yet in term of financial, I could imagine their profit to be higher than ever on the market side of their biz today, but one can see a downturn in their future ability to grow and remain the dominant ecommerce in the west. (they've already totally lost the battles in the far east, even though they try there and there)
- neonate 7y ago
  > take a guess at how this kind of PR will do to amazon's sales/revenue and brand My guess, sadly, is that it will round to nothing. Most likely the sheer volume of the bottom end of the mass market is worth a lot more to Amazon than elite users who post comments like these on forums like this. We may have been critical as early adopters but now have outlived our usefulness. I hope that's not true, but that's why I asked the question: what evidence is there? Maybe it's too early to see anything more than assorted anecdotes, but it's hard to know what those objectively amount to in an operation of Amazon's scale.
  - DaniloDias 7y ago
    I completely agree with you. The “negative PR argument” has become an indicator to me that someone has an extremely immature world view. There are anecdotes that reflect PR events that are catastrophic (Theranos). But most companies completely recover from PR bumps because most consumers only change their behavior in response to costs.
  - hirako2000 7y ago
    Who knows, it also depends on how Amazon adapts in the coming years. I just observe the trend, years ago I could hardly find any reason to complain about amazon, I didn't come across stories like this. I have not made a purchse on amazon for a long time, and when I did, it just cost me time to return an overpriced product having a dishonest description. Evaluate a provider for the quality of its service. Think how others from elite to mass consumers would perceive it in the long run, and you can guess the fate of that provider. Things move fast and many competitors are working at offering better user experience. We will see I guess.

boring_twenties 7y ago

Somewhat ironically books are the only area in which I have personally been dissatisfied with Amazon so far. (Since my first order from them, in 1998.) A book I ordered recently arrived in a flimsy envelope instead of a box. Needless to say it was damaged. Nothing major but having paid $30 for a 150-page paperback, I thought it was reasonable to complain. No problem. The replacement book came in the same envelope, with slightly different but still obvious damage. To my shame, I kept the second book. But next time I want to buy a physical book, I'll certainly look elsewhere.

wombat-man 7y ago

risk of counterfeit goods and really the cost of Prime have pushed me away from Amazon. I can get free overnight shipping from walmart if I just do batch orders of $35 or more. I don't care about their music, video or other misc services.