25 ms·

The Anti-Amazon Alliance

681 points by kaboro 6y ago

pravda 6y ago
Who is paying a PR firm to pitch a story about the BASIC computer language? (as mentioned on linked page) https://twitter.com/CaseyNewton/status/1254875738425012224/photo/1 https://twitter.com/CaseyNewton/status/1254875738425012224/p...
tinyhouse 6y ago
Good article. There are a few unknowns still. 1. Is Google really all in on product search? Their product search is pretty bad at the moment and it's a very challenging search space, esp when you work with tens of thousands of retailers. Going directly to retailer/niche-platform sites usually works better for me. For example, for music related I go to reverb.com, for outdoor to rei.com, etc. I then to Google and Amazon for reviews if needed. 2. Distribution and fast shipping is something Amazon has invested in for decades. I still need to wait longer than a week to receive items from retailers such as REI and others. Not an easy problem to solve. 3. Competing with Prime. Amazon ships everything including groceries. That's a big plus of Prime. Not only you get fast shipment, but you get everything you may need so you rarely need to use a different service. And with a credit card from Amazon you get 5% cash back on purchases. Everything is included. Disclaimer. I own Amazon stock.
- elorant 6y ago
  Furthermore Amazon has warehouses all over the world. I see a product on the US site, I order it while in Greece, it ships from Germany or UK. Ordinary e-commerce can't provide that. If I order a product from a US based e-commerce firm I'll end up paying custom fees. Google's intervention doesn't provide any facilitation in this aspect.
- wpietri 6y ago
  I generally agree, but 3 is in abeyance right now; I'm getting faster delivery times from other places. And regarding 2, Amazon has been training me for a while (via slow-ship discounts and the Amazon Day thing) that I don't need everything right away. I don't know about everybody else, but that has definitely made it easier for me to try out other vendors.
  - nxc18 6y ago
    I’m not sure what’s going on with Amazon recently, but they’ve on multiple occasions told me that an item won’t ship or arrive until well into May, only for it to turn up next day. (edit: this is over the last 3 weeks for context) I wonder how much of their slow delivery is them under promising and how much is them actually not being able to get things out in a day or two. None of the other vendors I’ve worked with, except Nespresso oddly enough, have been able to match Amazon’s actual performance. I wonder if it’s just because I happen to be close to a lot of warehouses? Still very weird for Amazon to be sandbagging themselves regardless.
    - somethingwitty1 6y ago
      There was a giant banner at the top of their site that explained there was global health crisis and shipments of non-essentials could be delayed. They'd been asked (told in some cases) by governments and others to prioritize eseential product shipments, so they did. They also told suppliers to stop sending non-essentials for FBA. If they had capacity (and items on hand) they've been delivering non-essentials (I've gotten some of my stuff sooner too). There was a big article that blew up here about how France was going to fine them for shipping non-essentials/putting workers at risk and gave them 24 hours to change their entire warehouse workflow/technical systems (Amazon responded by saying they'd need to shutdown for a bit to avoid the fines as they reworked everything to comply).
      - eitally 6y ago
        And on this note, I was talking with my neighbor yesterday and he's having a related issue that only became an issue when Amazon enacted this covid-response policy. It used to be that it didn't particularly matter if your products were accurately mapped into Amazon's categories as long as they were searchable. Now, however, Amazon is refusing to ship (or receive FBA stock) for non-essential categories. My neighbor is a shoe salesman for a brand that has a full medical & industrial line ... but they weren't tagged into medical equipment categories at Amazon so he can't ship replenishment inventory. Amazon isn't allowing these mapping adjustments to be made at all right now for fear of abuse. Also, when FBA stock depletes, sellers have the individual option of whether to direct ship or not. Some are, and some are using expedited shipping, but others are either not shipping at all or are using the cheapest freight possible.
- ardy42 6y ago
  > Is Google really all in on product search? Their product search is pretty bad at the moment and it's a very challenging search space, esp when you work with tens of thousands of retailers. Honestly, Amazon's own product search is pretty terrible too, unless you're searching for a specific name-brand product. Google might not even have to be very good to be competitive. The best product search I've actually found is NewEgg's (for computer parts, specifically). They're the only one who's collected enough accurate product metadata to facet their results effectively.
  - thaeli 6y ago
    There are other specific sectors with great product search - RockAuto for car parts, for example. It's a striking example because the big auto parts stores (AutoZone, Advance Auto, Pep Boys, etc) all try to have an "Amazon style" search and it doesn't work. Heck, it doesn't work well on Amazon either. In the specific sector of car parts, search is based on the year, manufacturer, model, and trim line/options of the vehicle. What's weird to me is that every one of these retailers has a point of sale system that works on the "specify vehicle, list and search within parts" model, yet they're using a traditional/"Amazon style" search on their own website. RockAuto's site is ugly, but it's extremely functional. Their business model has complicated shipping (sometimes buying a more expensive item from the same warehouse as another item in your cart is less expensive after shipping than buying a less expensive item from a different warehouse) but there are UI affordances that make this easier to deal with. It's kind of sad that "show the shipping cost in the shopping cart, on the same page as the product list" is a noteworthy UI affordance, but it's so rare. (Also the option to select several items that meet spec, and it will automatically select the overall lowest cost after shipping set of products)
    - ars 6y ago
      The shipping is why I don't buy from RockAuto anymore.
    - jdhn 6y ago
      >RockAuto's site is ugly, but it's extremely functional. I went to their site to see how ugly it was, and was absolutely blown away by how visually terrible it is. Truly function before form.
- freeopinion 6y ago
  Using Amazon for reviews seems ironic to me. Product reviews highlight Amazon's single biggest weakness: trust. You can't trust any Amazon review. Many of Amazon's other failings also center around trust.
  - dylan604 6y ago
    You can't trust Amazon. period. full stop. Their reviews are total shite, that's for sure. However, you can't trust their product listings either that you'll actually receive what you thought you purchased.
  - tinyhouse 6y ago
    I don't disagree. But for some products it's sometimes hard to find reviews outside of Amazon. I also learned how to spot products that have fake reviews.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - superimposition 6y ago
    Agree. If folks have come across better sources for product reviews, would love to get your recommendation.
    - searchableguy 6y ago
      There are no universal sources. Each source should be viewed with skepticism. That said, I have found small discords to be pretty good for PC hardware/tech related recommendation. Reddit on the other hand seemed a bit terrible at times with outdated or overly fishy marketing power speaking instead of the consumer.
  - rootusrootus 6y ago
    Yes and no. They have a fake review problem, for sure. But it's usually fairly obvious which reviews are fake and which are not. And Amazon reviews have something I don't really see anywhere else -- pictures. That's a feature I really like.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- siruncledrew 6y ago
  Amazon is really good at being the ‘signal gateway’ in between inputs and outputs. Whether it is ecommerce or AWS. They take care of everything in the middle that many people don’t think about. Investing heavily in logistics connected to transactions is what made Amazon excel over Walmart, Target, UPS, Fedex, etc. How many companies setting out in online commerce have the amount of backbone infrastructure as Amazon? The closest I can think of is Taobao/Alibaba.
- pc86 6y ago
  I think just about everyone with a 401k owns Amazon stock at least indirectly, and I think it's a safe bet that unless an HN comment is coming from Daddy Bezos himself, it's unlikely-bordering-impossible to move the stock price either way.
- chrischen 6y ago
  1. The problem for me is that for any given product category, I don’t know who the online retailers are. For electronics there is microcenter.com, frys.com, tigerdirect.com, circuitcity.com, and many many more. 2. I think this is something that is burned into people’s heads but not actually true. Most retailers do offer pretty fast shipping. Even with prime you’re paying for fast shipping (in the membership fee).
  - ansible 6y ago
    > * For electronics there is microcenter.com, frys.com, tigerdirect.com, circuitcity.com, and many many more.* Definitely drop frys.com from the list, they are going out of business. Actually, except for microcenter.com, I wouldn't buy from the others either. newegg.com seems to have the best attribute filtering by far.
    - prismatk 6y ago
      If frys hasn't gone out of business yet, they're not going to - last one I was in only sold gift bags and batteries in a massive retail space and yet somehow they were still there. The retail gods must love Mr. Fry.
      - bsder 6y ago
        > If frys hasn't gone out of business yet, they're not going to - last one I was in only sold gift bags and batteries in a massive retail space and yet somehow they were still there. I really don't understand why Fry's isn't out of business. Do they own the real estate they're sitting on or something? Are their online operations that profitable? Sure, a private company can carry losses for as long as they have money. But, why would you?
        rrdharan 6y ago
        A lot of people have been wondering the same thing: https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Is-Fry-s-Electronics-in-trouble-Company-denies-14945559.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Is-Fry-s-Electr... https://venturebeat.com/2019/09/10/frys-electronics-isnt-restocking-goods-in-multiple-stores/ https://venturebeat.com/2019/09/10/frys-electronics-isnt-res...
- autokad 6y ago
  Google was all in on cloud, and they have already had some layoffs in cloud, froze hiring, and are reducing spending on data center. Either Google never goes all in, or they do not know what all in means
- qppo 6y ago
  Google is unusable for product search. It's too heavily gamed and optimized not to show you things you want to buy, but things Google is paid to show you. It makes it too difficult to get the information you want to make the purchases you want. Try shopping for a car or hotel room sometime on Google. None of the information is reliable, and none if it is for what you want to see or ordered in a reasonable way to navigate. They're paying too much money to try and get your eyeballs at this point, and I wound up not making purchases because of it.
  - Allower 6y ago
    Yup this has been my experience as well
softwaredoug 6y ago
As a consultant, I see companies struggling to compete with Amazon (or Amazon-like companies). Most companies struggle for a couple of reasons - They are ego driven, with legacy execs & others relentlessly protecting their status - whereas Amazon is relentlessly data-driven - They have poor incentive structures and are feature factories. They value velocity over outcomes. Amazon, by being more data driven, is focused on being extremely outcome oriented - Because of the first 2, Amazon can give people and groups a tremendous amount of autonomy, whereas other orgs heavily micromanage or have structures that create more politics than value - There's little place to hide at Amazon (which means you might work your ass off!) To compete with Amazon, you have to learn from them, and be prepared to adopt their practices as the new industry norm. Not just dismiss them as some relentless and heartless evil empire.
- zbobet2012 6y ago
  I agree with your points, but I've also found another one that is far more common: They sell products at a loss to gain income in other places. For example, if you are a content producer you are competing with a company that sells "ad-free" video (Prime Video) attached to a low-cost service (Prime) so that they can sell more goods online. Amazon is killing content producers by running a negative margin content business to do sell-through on e-commerce. Amazon is killing video encoding business by selling a negative margin video encoder to sell through AWS compute. This is extremely common in every "field" Amazon is in. They run at negative margins in one huge sector of business because it drives massive income in another. That is a strategy only available to... monopolies. You can't afford to compete with them, because they are not _even trying_ to make a profit in your sector.
  - nitrogen 6y ago
    If they really are dumping, then I look forward to the lawsuit from all of their would-be competitors. That would help the increasingly centralized industry figure out what can be independent and what can only be done by monopolies.
    - 6y ago
wpietri 6y ago
I know Google's doing this for their own reasons, but I'll take the help. I've been an Amazon customer since 1997, but their recent anti-worker actions [1] were the straw [2] that broke the camel's back. I canceled my Prime account, and have decided to start my product search elsewhere. Google's product search has been long neglected, so it's great they're giving it some love. [1] E.g. from many: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/amazon-fires-two-employees-critical-warehouse-working-conditions-n1183331 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/amazon-fires-two-empl... [2] Previous straws including the steady decline of their website, increasing fraudulent goods, and so, so many bad customer service experiences.
- btmiller 6y ago
  You might not want to hear it, but those that were fired recently were using their company email address to organize union discussions. You just can’t do that, no matter how justified one is to pursue unionizing.
  - juliushuijnk 6y ago
    Why can't you?
  - Bahamut 6y ago
    That doesn't appear to be true: https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/employees/your-rights-during-union-organizing https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/em... > Also, restrictions on your efforts to communicate with co-workers cannot be discriminatory. For example, your employer cannot prohibit you from talking about the union during working time if it permits you to talk about other non-work-related matters during working time.
    - csharptwdec19 6y ago
      At that point the devil is in the details. I worked at a place where all emails had to be work related. That was in the Cable TV Industry. Which, in it's own way makes sense; that industry has a 'Owner'->'Prime Contractor'->'Subcontractor' tiered setup for work that has always had the unspoken purpose of preventing field workers and installers from unionizing. Wanted to send out an email about a fundraiser or special weekend craft thing? Had to have HR give the OK. -IF- Amazon had and enforced such a policy it could be considered non-discriminatory. But I'm somehow doubting such a policy is fully enforced even if it is on the books.
marban 6y ago
Meanwhile: https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/28/shopify-launches-shop-a-new-mobile-shopping-app/?ref=hvper.com https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/28/shopify-launches-shop-a-ne...
- lostmsu 6y ago
  TechCrunch started highjacking the back button :/
  - ignoramous 6y ago
    I almost always reach for the reader mode button. Then there are mirrors like these that clean up the clutter: https://outline.com/TxScD5 https://outline.com/TxScD5
  - asdff 6y ago
    Their RSS feed hasn't :)
koboll 6y ago
>as John Gruber put it on Daring Fireball, “Amazon isn’t hurting for revenue (especially now), but they are hurting for trust.” This is empirically false. Amazon is the second most-trusted brand in America. https://morningconsult.com/most-trusted-brands/ https://morningconsult.com/most-trusted-brands/ It's wild how easily SV types will tweet things like "No one trusts Amazon!" when the reality outside the Bay Area is so radically and demonstrably opposite.
- tantalor 6y ago
  Is this Simpon's paradox at work? Google is more trusted than Amazon in Gen-Z Adults, Millennials, and Gen-X, but overall Amazon beats Google. Google doesn't even make the top-25 of Boomers, but Amazon is #11. That's a little weird; does it explain the overall result?
  - three_seagrass 6y ago
    People trust the brands they grow up with. For example, Boomers trust Betty Crocker, Heinze, and AAA, which do not even show up for younger generations.
    - RonanTheGrey 6y ago
      I dunno, I'm a millennial and I grew up with all 3 of those featuring prominently in my childhood. Although, really only in my childhood..
  - jldugger 6y ago
    I feellike there isn't enough dimensionality in the data for Simpson's paradox explain that.
- freeopinion 6y ago
  Trusted by less than 40% of people. "Most trusted" does not seem to be a high bar. In fact it doesn't even seem to mean "generally trusted." I would say that they are hurting for trust, right along with everyone else.
flatTheCurve 6y ago
Why isn't Walmart the main competition? I rarely use Amazon because Walmart online is more often cheaper.
subhobroto 6y ago
Amazon is successful because they allow people to order cheap consumer goods real fast, sometimes same day and have a great return policy to boot. The typical consumer does not care about "Made in U.S.A" vs "Made in China" vs "Made in Taiwan". They do care whether it's $9 vs $27. The typical consumer does not care whether the workers were paid fair wages and given enough bathroom breaks so as not to urinate in a bottle to meet strict deadlines. They do care whether it's $9 vs $27. The typical consumer does not care whether the IP of a company was stolen and cheap copies were made that were defective and buggy compared to the original product. They do care whether it's $9 vs $27. If the $9 product does not work, they can buy 2 more to even break even or just return it and get something cheap instead. Thus, Amazon has figured out how to appeal to the typical consumer. Exploiting workers, suppliers, distributors, the country it's founded in are some of they way they deliver that promise. Jeff Bezos is not the monster here - he's just responding to market forces. Until the fundamental consumer model changes, competing with Amazon is not very logical or effective. It might make people feel good, but not effective. Can the competition provide the same product at $9 while doing all the warm and fuzzy things? That's the real question.
- seph-reed 6y ago
  > Jeff Bezos is not the monster here - he's just responding to market forces. Market forces are not moral. You don't get a free pass on your actions because you made a bunch of money.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - dsabanin 6y ago
    The way different societies organize themselves is they tend to incentivize behavior that is beneficial to their continuation. Society who incentivizes non-beneficial behavior will eventually collapse and be replaced by a more fitting one. If society is to give out free passes for suboptimal behavior to anyone, it's going to be to those who provide it the most value. Kind of like Amazon does to a lot of people right now.
BoysenberryPi 6y ago
People in tech vastly overestimate the amount of people who dislike Amazon. Your Average Joe could not be happier with Amazon and does not give a second thought to their business practices or worker treatment.
- dylan604 6y ago
  Exactly why WalMart is still a thing
- astrea 6y ago
  Breaking news: people are generally selfish.
  - scrimps 6y ago
    Businesses hate competition.
  - jimmaswell 6y ago
    You're assuming most people can afford to martyr themselves to pay extra on every purchase out of a moral stance. Even if someone can afford that, I think it's been demonstrated futile to try to affect market behavior on the basis of employee treatment that's so normalized to everyone. Boycotts have worked on other specific issues on certain brands but it seems like people just don't care enough about Amazon's worker treatment or Nestle's horrible activities in Africa. So if those are never going to change without legislation then I can't really hold it against anyone for not paying out the nose to avoid Wal Mart and Amazon.
    - searchableguy 6y ago
      so everyone pays more in the long run.
  - asdff 6y ago
    Most people are just poorly informed.
- 6y ago
samirillian 6y ago
First, WordPress stuck with React after Facebook made the smallest licensing concession, then WordPress coordinated with Google developers on the WordPress.org source code to integrate with AMP, and now WooCommerce is partnering with Google, which of course they would feel compelled to do via a kind of prisoner's dilemma with their competitor, Shopify. People tend to deride WordPress source code on a technical level, but they forget about it and the ecosystem's importance as _free_, GPL tools that power over 1/4 of the web. Google is swinging its full weight into undermining this ecosystem so that it can turn WordPress.org source code into more ad real estate.
turtlebits 6y ago
It's common to dogpile on whoever's in the lead. I wish companies would just learn from Amazon and emulate the good parts. All the news articles about worker safety are about Amazon, but in my local grocery store chains, I see a total lack of masks and social distancing by workers.
MattGaiser 6y ago
Most non-Amazon businesses are mediocre. Most grocery stores still don't have online ordering. Years, and years, and years, after Amazon entered the field, the other grocers have just decided to lie down and die. Still waiting for Chapters (a bookstore in Canada) to start sending me reading good reading recommendations. Still waiting on VISA to make generalized gift cards which are not miserable to use. I'm trying to think of any industry Amazon took out when even tried to fight back. Most just whined their way into oblivion. The problem with non-Amazon companies is that they don't do anything excellently.
- arbuge 6y ago
  > Still waiting for Chapters (a bookstore in Canada) to start sending me reading good reading recommendations. OTOH, I am still waiting for Amazon to make the ads which appear on my Kindle lock screen have even a modicum of relevance to my buying/reading habits. As far as grocery stores are concerned, I find that their combination with Instacart does a great job on that front.
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  > Still waiting for Chapters (a bookstore in Canada) to start sending me reading good reading recommendations. Why do you need the store to recommend to you what to buy from them next? Obviously the store is only going to recommend content which maximally increases its profits, regardless of whether that content is worth your time or really in tune with your most passionate interests. Buying the book from a shop is a necessary evil (unless you just want to read pirated ebooks from LibGen for free like many Kindle owners are doing now), but for getting recommendations on what to read next, why not look to the numerous internet communities of passionate readers who are not motivated by financial self-interest and may better serve your particular tastes?
  - schnevets 6y ago
    I think it's the same reason torrents didn't completely destroy the entertainment industry. Consumers want a fresh new thing that seems to be made for them. I have lists upon lists of of music, library ebooks (the free way to not pay!), and video games as well as multiple lifetimes worth of free content on the internet. What today's consumer craves is for anyone to reach in, show them the next perfect thing, and promise that the barrier to entry will be worthwhile. Some fans immediately know what they want next thanks to friends, critics, or their own insatiable research, but most people* desire a buzz of encouragement to get them started. * I use the phrase "most people" very deliberately here. The Blue Ocean Strategy theorizes that there's always a new demographic to pursue. Reduce the barrier to entry and some increase in customer retention is almost guaranteed.
caogecym 6y ago
Google has been the starting shopping point for me, not Amazon. Probably because: 1. Easy to access - I just need to type the item I want in browser address bar 2. I feel Google is relatively quicker at returning result - couple hundred millisecond that I can feel 3. I usually do find what I need in Google result
ozkan 6y ago
Most companies are not customer obsessed, that's why they fail. Let me give you an example; I've bought a sofa set from Coleman, and supposedly I needed to measure the door, if the sofa can fix or not. Because of the shape of the hallway and entrance, the sleeper did not fix from door. And carrier guys did not want to push further. Luckily, my patio's door was large enough to fit. I've called Coleman and explained the situation, they demanded extra money from me, to deliver through patio's door, or they were gonna send it back, which I have to pay for shipment and 15% re-stocking fee. I come from another country, this would never be an issue. No matter what, carrier would deliver inside my home (either through front or back, or patio's door, or window), and never ask for extra. If I would have bought from Amazon, I'm sure that I could send back, or speak for another delivery option. This is why Amazon is winning, they are customer obsessed, they are there to help, even if they lose money.
- MattGaiser 6y ago
  Amazon would have the sense to have a popup with measurement instructions as they would learn from the first 5 times that happened and take action to ensure it never happened again. I used to work for a relatively large bank that for years didn't even track what customers were calling our mega call centre about. It took them a long time to realize that 25% of calls were password resets because the button was hard to see. They had recently expanded the call centre and all over a hard to see button.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  >This is why Amazon is winning, they are customer obsessed, they are there to help, even if they lose money. They are so customer obsessed that I can't trust the brand name AC adapter I purchase from them is made with quality materials from a trusted brand, or if it's a counterfeit sent to their warehouses and commingled with all of the other inventory. And they're so customer focused that they removed the option to restrict product searches to only show "shipped and sold by Amazon.com". The only thing their actions show me is that they're obsessed with higher profit margins, which can't be obtained by providing traditional retail services. They can achieve higher profit margins by simply being a platform and collecting a commission of all the transactions.
- 6y ago
emilecantin 6y ago
Lately (since the start of the COVID crisis), I find Amazon has become much worse. 2-week deliveries instead of 2-3 days, prices that are way too high, a lot of items out of stock, etc. For instance, I was looking at a cordless drill, and it was twice the price of Home Depot. Maybe Amazon will just fall on its own at some point.
- TheTrotters 6y ago
  That says little about Amazon. There’s a pandemic.
2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago
Oh boy, currently interviewing with Amazon. All of these negative articles have me spooked.
alkonaut 6y ago
These days when Sweden is often touted as “the experiment”, you can actually go there to see what e-commerce looks like in 2020 without Amazon. It might sound crazy but there is... no Amazon. If I go to amazon.se I end up at amazon.de There is no same day delivery of household products (like toilet paper). If I want a book I need to go to an online bookstore. Why this is I’m not sure. But it’s interesting.
- lucb1e 6y ago
  Same in the Netherlands, it was recently announced that Amazon will open a Dutch store (not sure when) but it was quite a shock for me when moving to Germany that people here have no clue how to order things other than by going to Amazon. Too much effort to use google and try different web shops if all the web shops can come to a monopolizing marketplace instead I guess? Too bad that the marketplace also competes with its own sellers and has deeper pockets than any of them because they all pay the Amazon tax on every purchase anyway. I'm trying to avoid it but between my poor German and few web shops catering to the tiny non-Amazon-going audience, it's hard.
  - dalai 6y ago
    In Germany there are a lot of price comparison sites, geizhals and idealo being just two examples. If I am looking for electronics the filtering capabilities of geizhals are way better than Amazon and it is often the case that I can get a better price in one of the many other web shops.
    - lucb1e 6y ago
      Geizhals is really crappy compared to the Tweakers Pricewatch I was used to, but yes I use that one to at least narrow down the comparison. Still, thanks for the tip!
    - alkonaut 6y ago
      Same in Sweden. What’s missing is the rock bottom pricing, simple listing and cheap delivery for more everyday items such as cables, toilet paper, ... The price comparison sites tend to be good for books, electronics etc but not food etc. I don’t need Amazon for books or computers but I envy those who can get a cable for $5 with shipping in a few hours when in a pickle. In that situation I have to go to the physical store.
thr0w__4w4y 6y ago
Way way back, when Amazon got bigger than just books, my motivation for using them was a) very good selection (in one order, I can order bagel chips, wiper blades and a router?) and b) price. Implicit in this was authenticity and good customer service -- for me, if the product isn't the real thing, or the company is a nightmare to deal with, it's a non-starter. Well now here we are. Fake reviews, counterfeit products, most things (IME) are actually FBA or just outright 3rd party sellers (not automatically bad, but more opportunities for problems), their prices aren't competitive anymore... So, they've still got a lot of selection, although it's really more like shopping at a bazaar, since really their website is almost nothing more than Ebay in some sense, and I will say their customer service has almost w/o exception been stellar. But that's not enough anymore. We'll see. Nothing lasts forever. Either Amazon will get the wakeup call and tighten its ship, or it will become the next Ebay/Myspace/Craigslist (I'm deliberately just throwing the kitchen sink here). One last footnote -- just within the last week or so, 2 Amazon tech products that I've praised -- the Ring Doorbell and the Eero router(s) -- had firmware problems. Ring bricked itself (firmware update gone wrong) and had to be RMA'ed (they did it w/o any problem, and this was almost 2 years after purchase). The Eeros went into a cycle of resets and couldn't update their firmware.
- JKCalhoun 6y ago
  > it's really more like shopping at a bazaar, since really their website is almost nothing more than Ebay in some sense So, yeah, eBay, Ali-express ... might as well go there.
  - halbritt 6y ago
    I sometimes buy things from eBay when I know I'll get a counterfeit item from Amazon. ...strange world.
- Loughla 6y ago
  >their website is almost nothing more than Ebay in some sense I would argue that it's even worse. At least, IME, the ratings at E-bay for both sellers and products mean something. With Amazon, neither mean a damned thing anymore. It's just a crap shoot, unless you know exactly what you're already looking for. Amazon used to be nice, because you could actually do product research. The worst thing, again in my opinion, they've done is ruin the ability to actually compare products due to sketchy reviews.
dfee 6y ago
When he went and talked about AIDA - and presented the Swiffer video (which was great) - I was anticipating the classic scene from Glengarry Glenn Ross (aka Death of a Fucking Salesman). This is entry level domain material for anyone involved in sales: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4PE2hSqVnk https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4PE2hSqVnk
localhost 6y ago
If you’re trying to buy anything on Amazon right now, you’ll likely be frustrated by shipping times. It’s super inconsistent. For example, I got a keyboard delivered to me next day, but if I wanted to have cloth delivered it would take a month. So I’ve started sourcing things that I want to buy directly from the manufacturers. I really like the Shopify model, as they (currently) don’t compete with their customers unlike Amazon. I was rather surprised that I didn’t see more Shopify stores at some of the sites that I bought things from recently. My one recent example (a ski movement analysis sensor called Carv) was incredible - one click checkout using Apple Pay without having to enter anything to order. I’m hopeful that we can get a credible competitor to Amazon for independent manufacturers in the near future.
- rootusrootus 6y ago
  > frustrated by shipping times Personally, this is the issue with the largest effect on my willingness to try other e-commerce sites. When 1-2 day shipping becomes normal, it's hard to want to shop somewhere else like eBay when shipping times are usually in the 1-2+ week time frame. So when Amazon started telling me it would be 3-4 weeks before I got what I ordered (because apparently their definition of essential doesn't overlap completely with my own), I started looking other places.
  - localhost 6y ago
    This is why I'm looking forward to Shopify Fulfillment Network [1] helping to level the distribution playing field. [1] https://www.shopify.com/fulfillment https://www.shopify.com/fulfillment
    - rootusrootus 6y ago
      That's great to hear. I hope they have big funding, because they will need it.
tree3 6y ago
I'm a fan of Amazon.
kup0 6y ago
I have a lot of issues with Amazon in terms of worker treatment, etc - but admittedly, out of all the online shopping I've done, I still go back to Amazon because I get items delivered quickly, the prices in most categories (as a Prime member with free shipping) are still competitive with only the occasional exception, and every return I've done so far has been super easy. Despite its problems, it's still for sure the best shopping experience online overall for me, as much as I hate that to be true
LatteLazy 6y ago
At least at the moment, amazon is the only online shop operating here in the UK (also, Union coffee). 20 years ago, they were the only place with a website. Now they're the only place who can keep that website working and keep the infrastructure behind it working.
A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
It is interesting. There is definitely a concerted effort to take Amazon down. I can't really say I am against that outcome. The reason I find it interesting is that is not appear to be some grass root movement of customers ( despite good reasons, in my opinion, to switch ). And if that is the case, the question becomes what is behind that steady stream of anti-Amazon stories. Competitors? Bezos crossed someone too big to cross? My guess is as good as yours.
say_it_as_it_is 6y ago
The thing about anti-Amazon rhetoric is that it's easily debunked because so many people transact business through them. There's no need to take any "expert" or activist opinion on the matter. The proof is in your own life experience. If it's sunny outside but someone on the internet is telling you that it's raining, you probably should discount the opinion of that person, or ignore entirely. I have no doubt that people have been ripped off from Amazon but their customer service handles the situation very well. I don't like that Amazon is taking over the global economy and won't stop growing unless it is forced to. However, they're conducting business well. (I'm not affiliated with Amazon other than that I've been a customer since the 90s)
- MattGaiser 6y ago
  Those activists should focus their attention on all the businesses losing to Amazon who can’t be bothered to change their ways.
- ausbah 6y ago
  everything may be sunny on the outside, but it may pouring rain on the inside. most people's "life experience" with Amazon is most likely limited to shopping, but they likely don't see or consider other criticisms of Amazon such as monopoly power or anti-labor activities
- miscPerson 6y ago
  Amazon isn’t taking over the global economy. For instance, in retail, Walmart does substantially more business — via brick and mortar stores — and is rapidly growing online.
deleted 6y ago
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freeAgent 6y ago
The most obvious problems I face with Amazon are due almost entirely to how it's built and how it runs its third-party seller platform. There are duplicate product listings, fake products, fake reviews, and mixed inventory now to the extent that even buying something where "Amazon" is listed as the seller does not prevent you from getting inventory sourced by one of the third-party sellers of the same product. Because of this, I've found myself more and more going to alternatives where I can actually know and trust the retailer and supply chain. I long for the pre-platform Amazon days. The news that Amazon has also abused sellers on their platform should shock nobody. As soon as they got into selling house brands, the writing was on the wall. Ironically, I can actually trust Amazon's house brands to at least be legitimate, non-fake products even if they do tend to be cheaply made.
torgian 6y ago
At this point I'd argue it's better to shop at alibaba or aliexpress. Sure it might come from China, and sure it might be fake or broken, or a scam, but at least you _know_ you might get screwed.
0xDEADBEF 6y ago
I use a website called "Fakespot" to help identify all the spam. It isn't perfect though, but it helps to get a good idea on who is filling their products with fake reviews.
einpoklum 6y ago
If the competition involves other Trillion-or-so USD companies, than this is another step in the process of concentration of capital in society - as is the ascendance of Amazon. The amount of power Amazon already has in society is obscenely huge - even if it's not expressed in the form of giant portraits of Jeff Bezos hanging from the sides of buildings.
stevespang 6y ago
"If you’re an existing user of Merchant Center and Shopping ads, you don’t have to do anything to take advantage of the free listings, and for new users of Merchant Center, we’ll continue working to streamline the onboarding process over the coming weeks and months" So tell me that Google will not demand you provide your credit card upfront in the process . . .
gentleman11 6y ago
Would be nice to see more competition, but not because of prices or selection but because we want small nice-guys/girls to have a significant presence. If google and other huge companies are the competition, it doesn’t really improve that Shopify is cool for that: enables a ton of tiny online businesses to thrive
gerland 6y ago
Is modularisation really an answer or is this another case of "A Hundred Authors Against Einstein"? The reason why many people are still driven to Amazon is that dealing with separate entities is just annoying as hell. Small business is definitely less reliable than Amazon and even if client service has been declining, it's still has a predictable baseline. Product search also seems to be working much better in Amazon than in web search engines. If I have to choose between one average retailer and 100 better-and-worse retailers, then I will still use Amazon. Also - the long tail exists almost exclusively on Amazon.

681 points by kaboro 6y ago

Who is paying a PR firm to pitch a story about the BASIC computer language? (as mentioned on linked page) https://twitter.com/CaseyNewton/status/1254875738425012224/photo/1 https://twitter.com/CaseyNewton/status/1254875738425012224/p...

tinyhouse 6y ago

Good article. There are a few unknowns still. 1. Is Google really all in on product search? Their product search is pretty bad at the moment and it's a very challenging search space, esp when you work with tens of thousands of retailers. Going directly to retailer/niche-platform sites usually works better for me. For example, for music related I go to reverb.com, for outdoor to rei.com, etc. I then to Google and Amazon for reviews if needed. 2. Distribution and fast shipping is something Amazon has invested in for decades. I still need to wait longer than a week to receive items from retailers such as REI and others. Not an easy problem to solve. 3. Competing with Prime. Amazon ships everything including groceries. That's a big plus of Prime. Not only you get fast shipment, but you get everything you may need so you rarely need to use a different service. And with a credit card from Amazon you get 5% cash back on purchases. Everything is included. Disclaimer. I own Amazon stock.

elorant 6y ago
Furthermore Amazon has warehouses all over the world. I see a product on the US site, I order it while in Greece, it ships from Germany or UK. Ordinary e-commerce can't provide that. If I order a product from a US based e-commerce firm I'll end up paying custom fees. Google's intervention doesn't provide any facilitation in this aspect.
wpietri 6y ago
I generally agree, but 3 is in abeyance right now; I'm getting faster delivery times from other places. And regarding 2, Amazon has been training me for a while (via slow-ship discounts and the Amazon Day thing) that I don't need everything right away. I don't know about everybody else, but that has definitely made it easier for me to try out other vendors.
- nxc18 6y ago
  I’m not sure what’s going on with Amazon recently, but they’ve on multiple occasions told me that an item won’t ship or arrive until well into May, only for it to turn up next day. (edit: this is over the last 3 weeks for context) I wonder how much of their slow delivery is them under promising and how much is them actually not being able to get things out in a day or two. None of the other vendors I’ve worked with, except Nespresso oddly enough, have been able to match Amazon’s actual performance. I wonder if it’s just because I happen to be close to a lot of warehouses? Still very weird for Amazon to be sandbagging themselves regardless.
  - somethingwitty1 6y ago
    There was a giant banner at the top of their site that explained there was global health crisis and shipments of non-essentials could be delayed. They'd been asked (told in some cases) by governments and others to prioritize eseential product shipments, so they did. They also told suppliers to stop sending non-essentials for FBA. If they had capacity (and items on hand) they've been delivering non-essentials (I've gotten some of my stuff sooner too). There was a big article that blew up here about how France was going to fine them for shipping non-essentials/putting workers at risk and gave them 24 hours to change their entire warehouse workflow/technical systems (Amazon responded by saying they'd need to shutdown for a bit to avoid the fines as they reworked everything to comply).
    - eitally 6y ago
      And on this note, I was talking with my neighbor yesterday and he's having a related issue that only became an issue when Amazon enacted this covid-response policy. It used to be that it didn't particularly matter if your products were accurately mapped into Amazon's categories as long as they were searchable. Now, however, Amazon is refusing to ship (or receive FBA stock) for non-essential categories. My neighbor is a shoe salesman for a brand that has a full medical & industrial line ... but they weren't tagged into medical equipment categories at Amazon so he can't ship replenishment inventory. Amazon isn't allowing these mapping adjustments to be made at all right now for fear of abuse. Also, when FBA stock depletes, sellers have the individual option of whether to direct ship or not. Some are, and some are using expedited shipping, but others are either not shipping at all or are using the cheapest freight possible.
ardy42 6y ago
> Is Google really all in on product search? Their product search is pretty bad at the moment and it's a very challenging search space, esp when you work with tens of thousands of retailers. Honestly, Amazon's own product search is pretty terrible too, unless you're searching for a specific name-brand product. Google might not even have to be very good to be competitive. The best product search I've actually found is NewEgg's (for computer parts, specifically). They're the only one who's collected enough accurate product metadata to facet their results effectively.
- thaeli 6y ago
  There are other specific sectors with great product search - RockAuto for car parts, for example. It's a striking example because the big auto parts stores (AutoZone, Advance Auto, Pep Boys, etc) all try to have an "Amazon style" search and it doesn't work. Heck, it doesn't work well on Amazon either. In the specific sector of car parts, search is based on the year, manufacturer, model, and trim line/options of the vehicle. What's weird to me is that every one of these retailers has a point of sale system that works on the "specify vehicle, list and search within parts" model, yet they're using a traditional/"Amazon style" search on their own website. RockAuto's site is ugly, but it's extremely functional. Their business model has complicated shipping (sometimes buying a more expensive item from the same warehouse as another item in your cart is less expensive after shipping than buying a less expensive item from a different warehouse) but there are UI affordances that make this easier to deal with. It's kind of sad that "show the shipping cost in the shopping cart, on the same page as the product list" is a noteworthy UI affordance, but it's so rare. (Also the option to select several items that meet spec, and it will automatically select the overall lowest cost after shipping set of products)
  - ars 6y ago
    The shipping is why I don't buy from RockAuto anymore.
  - jdhn 6y ago
    >RockAuto's site is ugly, but it's extremely functional. I went to their site to see how ugly it was, and was absolutely blown away by how visually terrible it is. Truly function before form.
freeopinion 6y ago
Using Amazon for reviews seems ironic to me. Product reviews highlight Amazon's single biggest weakness: trust. You can't trust any Amazon review. Many of Amazon's other failings also center around trust.
- dylan604 6y ago
  You can't trust Amazon. period. full stop. Their reviews are total shite, that's for sure. However, you can't trust their product listings either that you'll actually receive what you thought you purchased.
- tinyhouse 6y ago
  I don't disagree. But for some products it's sometimes hard to find reviews outside of Amazon. I also learned how to spot products that have fake reviews.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- superimposition 6y ago
  Agree. If folks have come across better sources for product reviews, would love to get your recommendation.
  - searchableguy 6y ago
    There are no universal sources. Each source should be viewed with skepticism. That said, I have found small discords to be pretty good for PC hardware/tech related recommendation. Reddit on the other hand seemed a bit terrible at times with outdated or overly fishy marketing power speaking instead of the consumer.
- rootusrootus 6y ago
  Yes and no. They have a fake review problem, for sure. But it's usually fairly obvious which reviews are fake and which are not. And Amazon reviews have something I don't really see anywhere else -- pictures. That's a feature I really like.
deleted 6y ago
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siruncledrew 6y ago
Amazon is really good at being the ‘signal gateway’ in between inputs and outputs. Whether it is ecommerce or AWS. They take care of everything in the middle that many people don’t think about. Investing heavily in logistics connected to transactions is what made Amazon excel over Walmart, Target, UPS, Fedex, etc. How many companies setting out in online commerce have the amount of backbone infrastructure as Amazon? The closest I can think of is Taobao/Alibaba.
pc86 6y ago
I think just about everyone with a 401k owns Amazon stock at least indirectly, and I think it's a safe bet that unless an HN comment is coming from Daddy Bezos himself, it's unlikely-bordering-impossible to move the stock price either way.
chrischen 6y ago
1. The problem for me is that for any given product category, I don’t know who the online retailers are. For electronics there is microcenter.com, frys.com, tigerdirect.com, circuitcity.com, and many many more. 2. I think this is something that is burned into people’s heads but not actually true. Most retailers do offer pretty fast shipping. Even with prime you’re paying for fast shipping (in the membership fee).
- ansible 6y ago
  > * For electronics there is microcenter.com, frys.com, tigerdirect.com, circuitcity.com, and many many more.* Definitely drop frys.com from the list, they are going out of business. Actually, except for microcenter.com, I wouldn't buy from the others either. newegg.com seems to have the best attribute filtering by far.
  - prismatk 6y ago
    If frys hasn't gone out of business yet, they're not going to - last one I was in only sold gift bags and batteries in a massive retail space and yet somehow they were still there. The retail gods must love Mr. Fry.
    - bsder 6y ago
      > If frys hasn't gone out of business yet, they're not going to - last one I was in only sold gift bags and batteries in a massive retail space and yet somehow they were still there. I really don't understand why Fry's isn't out of business. Do they own the real estate they're sitting on or something? Are their online operations that profitable? Sure, a private company can carry losses for as long as they have money. But, why would you?
      - rrdharan 6y ago
        A lot of people have been wondering the same thing: https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Is-Fry-s-Electronics-in-trouble-Company-denies-14945559.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Is-Fry-s-Electr... https://venturebeat.com/2019/09/10/frys-electronics-isnt-restocking-goods-in-multiple-stores/ https://venturebeat.com/2019/09/10/frys-electronics-isnt-res...
autokad 6y ago
Google was all in on cloud, and they have already had some layoffs in cloud, froze hiring, and are reducing spending on data center. Either Google never goes all in, or they do not know what all in means
qppo 6y ago
Google is unusable for product search. It's too heavily gamed and optimized not to show you things you want to buy, but things Google is paid to show you. It makes it too difficult to get the information you want to make the purchases you want. Try shopping for a car or hotel room sometime on Google. None of the information is reliable, and none if it is for what you want to see or ordered in a reasonable way to navigate. They're paying too much money to try and get your eyeballs at this point, and I wound up not making purchases because of it.
- Allower 6y ago
  Yup this has been my experience as well

softwaredoug 6y ago

As a consultant, I see companies struggling to compete with Amazon (or Amazon-like companies). Most companies struggle for a couple of reasons - They are ego driven, with legacy execs & others relentlessly protecting their status - whereas Amazon is relentlessly data-driven - They have poor incentive structures and are feature factories. They value velocity over outcomes. Amazon, by being more data driven, is focused on being extremely outcome oriented - Because of the first 2, Amazon can give people and groups a tremendous amount of autonomy, whereas other orgs heavily micromanage or have structures that create more politics than value - There's little place to hide at Amazon (which means you might work your ass off!) To compete with Amazon, you have to learn from them, and be prepared to adopt their practices as the new industry norm. Not just dismiss them as some relentless and heartless evil empire.

zbobet2012 6y ago
I agree with your points, but I've also found another one that is far more common: They sell products at a loss to gain income in other places. For example, if you are a content producer you are competing with a company that sells "ad-free" video (Prime Video) attached to a low-cost service (Prime) so that they can sell more goods online. Amazon is killing content producers by running a negative margin content business to do sell-through on e-commerce. Amazon is killing video encoding business by selling a negative margin video encoder to sell through AWS compute. This is extremely common in every "field" Amazon is in. They run at negative margins in one huge sector of business because it drives massive income in another. That is a strategy only available to... monopolies. You can't afford to compete with them, because they are not _even trying_ to make a profit in your sector.
- nitrogen 6y ago
  If they really are dumping, then I look forward to the lawsuit from all of their would-be competitors. That would help the increasingly centralized industry figure out what can be independent and what can only be done by monopolies.
  - 6y ago

wpietri 6y ago

I know Google's doing this for their own reasons, but I'll take the help. I've been an Amazon customer since 1997, but their recent anti-worker actions [1] were the straw [2] that broke the camel's back. I canceled my Prime account, and have decided to start my product search elsewhere. Google's product search has been long neglected, so it's great they're giving it some love. [1] E.g. from many: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/amazon-fires-two-employees-critical-warehouse-working-conditions-n1183331 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/amazon-fires-two-empl... [2] Previous straws including the steady decline of their website, increasing fraudulent goods, and so, so many bad customer service experiences.

btmiller 6y ago
You might not want to hear it, but those that were fired recently were using their company email address to organize union discussions. You just can’t do that, no matter how justified one is to pursue unionizing.
- juliushuijnk 6y ago
  Why can't you?
- Bahamut 6y ago
  That doesn't appear to be true: https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/employees/your-rights-during-union-organizing https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/em... > Also, restrictions on your efforts to communicate with co-workers cannot be discriminatory. For example, your employer cannot prohibit you from talking about the union during working time if it permits you to talk about other non-work-related matters during working time.
  - csharptwdec19 6y ago
    At that point the devil is in the details. I worked at a place where all emails had to be work related. That was in the Cable TV Industry. Which, in it's own way makes sense; that industry has a 'Owner'->'Prime Contractor'->'Subcontractor' tiered setup for work that has always had the unspoken purpose of preventing field workers and installers from unionizing. Wanted to send out an email about a fundraiser or special weekend craft thing? Had to have HR give the OK. -IF- Amazon had and enforced such a policy it could be considered non-discriminatory. But I'm somehow doubting such a policy is fully enforced even if it is on the books.

marban 6y ago

Meanwhile: https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/28/shopify-launches-shop-a-new-mobile-shopping-app/?ref=hvper.com https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/28/shopify-launches-shop-a-ne...

lostmsu 6y ago
TechCrunch started highjacking the back button :/
- ignoramous 6y ago
  I almost always reach for the reader mode button. Then there are mirrors like these that clean up the clutter: https://outline.com/TxScD5 https://outline.com/TxScD5
- asdff 6y ago
  Their RSS feed hasn't :)

koboll 6y ago

>as John Gruber put it on Daring Fireball, “Amazon isn’t hurting for revenue (especially now), but they are hurting for trust.” This is empirically false. Amazon is the second most-trusted brand in America. https://morningconsult.com/most-trusted-brands/ https://morningconsult.com/most-trusted-brands/ It's wild how easily SV types will tweet things like "No one trusts Amazon!" when the reality outside the Bay Area is so radically and demonstrably opposite.

tantalor 6y ago
Is this Simpon's paradox at work? Google is more trusted than Amazon in Gen-Z Adults, Millennials, and Gen-X, but overall Amazon beats Google. Google doesn't even make the top-25 of Boomers, but Amazon is #11. That's a little weird; does it explain the overall result?
- three_seagrass 6y ago
  People trust the brands they grow up with. For example, Boomers trust Betty Crocker, Heinze, and AAA, which do not even show up for younger generations.
  - RonanTheGrey 6y ago
    I dunno, I'm a millennial and I grew up with all 3 of those featuring prominently in my childhood. Although, really only in my childhood..
- jldugger 6y ago
  I feellike there isn't enough dimensionality in the data for Simpson's paradox explain that.
freeopinion 6y ago
Trusted by less than 40% of people. "Most trusted" does not seem to be a high bar. In fact it doesn't even seem to mean "generally trusted." I would say that they are hurting for trust, right along with everyone else.

flatTheCurve 6y ago

Why isn't Walmart the main competition? I rarely use Amazon because Walmart online is more often cheaper.

subhobroto 6y ago

Amazon is successful because they allow people to order cheap consumer goods real fast, sometimes same day and have a great return policy to boot. The typical consumer does not care about "Made in U.S.A" vs "Made in China" vs "Made in Taiwan". They do care whether it's $9 vs $27. The typical consumer does not care whether the workers were paid fair wages and given enough bathroom breaks so as not to urinate in a bottle to meet strict deadlines. They do care whether it's $9 vs $27. The typical consumer does not care whether the IP of a company was stolen and cheap copies were made that were defective and buggy compared to the original product. They do care whether it's $9 vs $27. If the $9 product does not work, they can buy 2 more to even break even or just return it and get something cheap instead. Thus, Amazon has figured out how to appeal to the typical consumer. Exploiting workers, suppliers, distributors, the country it's founded in are some of they way they deliver that promise. Jeff Bezos is not the monster here - he's just responding to market forces. Until the fundamental consumer model changes, competing with Amazon is not very logical or effective. It might make people feel good, but not effective. Can the competition provide the same product at $9 while doing all the warm and fuzzy things? That's the real question.

seph-reed 6y ago
> Jeff Bezos is not the monster here - he's just responding to market forces. Market forces are not moral. You don't get a free pass on your actions because you made a bunch of money.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- dsabanin 6y ago
  The way different societies organize themselves is they tend to incentivize behavior that is beneficial to their continuation. Society who incentivizes non-beneficial behavior will eventually collapse and be replaced by a more fitting one. If society is to give out free passes for suboptimal behavior to anyone, it's going to be to those who provide it the most value. Kind of like Amazon does to a lot of people right now.

BoysenberryPi 6y ago

People in tech vastly overestimate the amount of people who dislike Amazon. Your Average Joe could not be happier with Amazon and does not give a second thought to their business practices or worker treatment.

dylan604 6y ago
Exactly why WalMart is still a thing
astrea 6y ago
Breaking news: people are generally selfish.
- scrimps 6y ago
  Businesses hate competition.
- jimmaswell 6y ago
  You're assuming most people can afford to martyr themselves to pay extra on every purchase out of a moral stance. Even if someone can afford that, I think it's been demonstrated futile to try to affect market behavior on the basis of employee treatment that's so normalized to everyone. Boycotts have worked on other specific issues on certain brands but it seems like people just don't care enough about Amazon's worker treatment or Nestle's horrible activities in Africa. So if those are never going to change without legislation then I can't really hold it against anyone for not paying out the nose to avoid Wal Mart and Amazon.
  - searchableguy 6y ago
    so everyone pays more in the long run.
- asdff 6y ago
  Most people are just poorly informed.
6y ago

samirillian 6y ago

First, WordPress stuck with React after Facebook made the smallest licensing concession, then WordPress coordinated with Google developers on the WordPress.org source code to integrate with AMP, and now WooCommerce is partnering with Google, which of course they would feel compelled to do via a kind of prisoner's dilemma with their competitor, Shopify. People tend to deride WordPress source code on a technical level, but they forget about it and the ecosystem's importance as _free_, GPL tools that power over 1/4 of the web. Google is swinging its full weight into undermining this ecosystem so that it can turn WordPress.org source code into more ad real estate.

turtlebits 6y ago

It's common to dogpile on whoever's in the lead. I wish companies would just learn from Amazon and emulate the good parts. All the news articles about worker safety are about Amazon, but in my local grocery store chains, I see a total lack of masks and social distancing by workers.

MattGaiser 6y ago

Most non-Amazon businesses are mediocre. Most grocery stores still don't have online ordering. Years, and years, and years, after Amazon entered the field, the other grocers have just decided to lie down and die. Still waiting for Chapters (a bookstore in Canada) to start sending me reading good reading recommendations. Still waiting on VISA to make generalized gift cards which are not miserable to use. I'm trying to think of any industry Amazon took out when even tried to fight back. Most just whined their way into oblivion. The problem with non-Amazon companies is that they don't do anything excellently.

arbuge 6y ago
> Still waiting for Chapters (a bookstore in Canada) to start sending me reading good reading recommendations. OTOH, I am still waiting for Amazon to make the ads which appear on my Kindle lock screen have even a modicum of relevance to my buying/reading habits. As far as grocery stores are concerned, I find that their combination with Instacart does a great job on that front.
Mediterraneo10 6y ago
> Still waiting for Chapters (a bookstore in Canada) to start sending me reading good reading recommendations. Why do you need the store to recommend to you what to buy from them next? Obviously the store is only going to recommend content which maximally increases its profits, regardless of whether that content is worth your time or really in tune with your most passionate interests. Buying the book from a shop is a necessary evil (unless you just want to read pirated ebooks from LibGen for free like many Kindle owners are doing now), but for getting recommendations on what to read next, why not look to the numerous internet communities of passionate readers who are not motivated by financial self-interest and may better serve your particular tastes?
- schnevets 6y ago
  I think it's the same reason torrents didn't completely destroy the entertainment industry. Consumers want a fresh new thing that seems to be made for them. I have lists upon lists of of music, library ebooks (the free way to not pay!), and video games as well as multiple lifetimes worth of free content on the internet. What today's consumer craves is for anyone to reach in, show them the next perfect thing, and promise that the barrier to entry will be worthwhile. Some fans immediately know what they want next thanks to friends, critics, or their own insatiable research, but most people* desire a buzz of encouragement to get them started. * I use the phrase "most people" very deliberately here. The Blue Ocean Strategy theorizes that there's always a new demographic to pursue. Reduce the barrier to entry and some increase in customer retention is almost guaranteed.

caogecym 6y ago

Google has been the starting shopping point for me, not Amazon. Probably because: 1. Easy to access - I just need to type the item I want in browser address bar 2. I feel Google is relatively quicker at returning result - couple hundred millisecond that I can feel 3. I usually do find what I need in Google result

ozkan 6y ago

Most companies are not customer obsessed, that's why they fail. Let me give you an example; I've bought a sofa set from Coleman, and supposedly I needed to measure the door, if the sofa can fix or not. Because of the shape of the hallway and entrance, the sleeper did not fix from door. And carrier guys did not want to push further. Luckily, my patio's door was large enough to fit. I've called Coleman and explained the situation, they demanded extra money from me, to deliver through patio's door, or they were gonna send it back, which I have to pay for shipment and 15% re-stocking fee. I come from another country, this would never be an issue. No matter what, carrier would deliver inside my home (either through front or back, or patio's door, or window), and never ask for extra. If I would have bought from Amazon, I'm sure that I could send back, or speak for another delivery option. This is why Amazon is winning, they are customer obsessed, they are there to help, even if they lose money.

MattGaiser 6y ago
Amazon would have the sense to have a popup with measurement instructions as they would learn from the first 5 times that happened and take action to ensure it never happened again. I used to work for a relatively large bank that for years didn't even track what customers were calling our mega call centre about. It took them a long time to realize that 25% of calls were password resets because the button was hard to see. They had recently expanded the call centre and all over a hard to see button.
lotsofpulp 6y ago
>This is why Amazon is winning, they are customer obsessed, they are there to help, even if they lose money. They are so customer obsessed that I can't trust the brand name AC adapter I purchase from them is made with quality materials from a trusted brand, or if it's a counterfeit sent to their warehouses and commingled with all of the other inventory. And they're so customer focused that they removed the option to restrict product searches to only show "shipped and sold by Amazon.com". The only thing their actions show me is that they're obsessed with higher profit margins, which can't be obtained by providing traditional retail services. They can achieve higher profit margins by simply being a platform and collecting a commission of all the transactions.
6y ago

emilecantin 6y ago

Lately (since the start of the COVID crisis), I find Amazon has become much worse. 2-week deliveries instead of 2-3 days, prices that are way too high, a lot of items out of stock, etc. For instance, I was looking at a cordless drill, and it was twice the price of Home Depot. Maybe Amazon will just fall on its own at some point.

TheTrotters 6y ago
That says little about Amazon. There’s a pandemic.

2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago

Oh boy, currently interviewing with Amazon. All of these negative articles have me spooked.

alkonaut 6y ago

These days when Sweden is often touted as “the experiment”, you can actually go there to see what e-commerce looks like in 2020 without Amazon. It might sound crazy but there is... no Amazon. If I go to amazon.se I end up at amazon.de There is no same day delivery of household products (like toilet paper). If I want a book I need to go to an online bookstore. Why this is I’m not sure. But it’s interesting.

lucb1e 6y ago
Same in the Netherlands, it was recently announced that Amazon will open a Dutch store (not sure when) but it was quite a shock for me when moving to Germany that people here have no clue how to order things other than by going to Amazon. Too much effort to use google and try different web shops if all the web shops can come to a monopolizing marketplace instead I guess? Too bad that the marketplace also competes with its own sellers and has deeper pockets than any of them because they all pay the Amazon tax on every purchase anyway. I'm trying to avoid it but between my poor German and few web shops catering to the tiny non-Amazon-going audience, it's hard.
- dalai 6y ago
  In Germany there are a lot of price comparison sites, geizhals and idealo being just two examples. If I am looking for electronics the filtering capabilities of geizhals are way better than Amazon and it is often the case that I can get a better price in one of the many other web shops.
  - lucb1e 6y ago
    Geizhals is really crappy compared to the Tweakers Pricewatch I was used to, but yes I use that one to at least narrow down the comparison. Still, thanks for the tip!
  - alkonaut 6y ago
    Same in Sweden. What’s missing is the rock bottom pricing, simple listing and cheap delivery for more everyday items such as cables, toilet paper, ... The price comparison sites tend to be good for books, electronics etc but not food etc. I don’t need Amazon for books or computers but I envy those who can get a cable for $5 with shipping in a few hours when in a pickle. In that situation I have to go to the physical store.

thr0w__4w4y 6y ago

Way way back, when Amazon got bigger than just books, my motivation for using them was a) very good selection (in one order, I can order bagel chips, wiper blades and a router?) and b) price. Implicit in this was authenticity and good customer service -- for me, if the product isn't the real thing, or the company is a nightmare to deal with, it's a non-starter. Well now here we are. Fake reviews, counterfeit products, most things (IME) are actually FBA or just outright 3rd party sellers (not automatically bad, but more opportunities for problems), their prices aren't competitive anymore... So, they've still got a lot of selection, although it's really more like shopping at a bazaar, since really their website is almost nothing more than Ebay in some sense, and I will say their customer service has almost w/o exception been stellar. But that's not enough anymore. We'll see. Nothing lasts forever. Either Amazon will get the wakeup call and tighten its ship, or it will become the next Ebay/Myspace/Craigslist (I'm deliberately just throwing the kitchen sink here). One last footnote -- just within the last week or so, 2 Amazon tech products that I've praised -- the Ring Doorbell and the Eero router(s) -- had firmware problems. Ring bricked itself (firmware update gone wrong) and had to be RMA'ed (they did it w/o any problem, and this was almost 2 years after purchase). The Eeros went into a cycle of resets and couldn't update their firmware.

JKCalhoun 6y ago
> it's really more like shopping at a bazaar, since really their website is almost nothing more than Ebay in some sense So, yeah, eBay, Ali-express ... might as well go there.
- halbritt 6y ago
  I sometimes buy things from eBay when I know I'll get a counterfeit item from Amazon. ...strange world.
Loughla 6y ago
>their website is almost nothing more than Ebay in some sense I would argue that it's even worse. At least, IME, the ratings at E-bay for both sellers and products mean something. With Amazon, neither mean a damned thing anymore. It's just a crap shoot, unless you know exactly what you're already looking for. Amazon used to be nice, because you could actually do product research. The worst thing, again in my opinion, they've done is ruin the ability to actually compare products due to sketchy reviews.

dfee 6y ago

When he went and talked about AIDA - and presented the Swiffer video (which was great) - I was anticipating the classic scene from Glengarry Glenn Ross (aka Death of a Fucking Salesman). This is entry level domain material for anyone involved in sales: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4PE2hSqVnk https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4PE2hSqVnk

localhost 6y ago

If you’re trying to buy anything on Amazon right now, you’ll likely be frustrated by shipping times. It’s super inconsistent. For example, I got a keyboard delivered to me next day, but if I wanted to have cloth delivered it would take a month. So I’ve started sourcing things that I want to buy directly from the manufacturers. I really like the Shopify model, as they (currently) don’t compete with their customers unlike Amazon. I was rather surprised that I didn’t see more Shopify stores at some of the sites that I bought things from recently. My one recent example (a ski movement analysis sensor called Carv) was incredible - one click checkout using Apple Pay without having to enter anything to order. I’m hopeful that we can get a credible competitor to Amazon for independent manufacturers in the near future.

rootusrootus 6y ago
> frustrated by shipping times Personally, this is the issue with the largest effect on my willingness to try other e-commerce sites. When 1-2 day shipping becomes normal, it's hard to want to shop somewhere else like eBay when shipping times are usually in the 1-2+ week time frame. So when Amazon started telling me it would be 3-4 weeks before I got what I ordered (because apparently their definition of essential doesn't overlap completely with my own), I started looking other places.
- localhost 6y ago
  This is why I'm looking forward to Shopify Fulfillment Network [1] helping to level the distribution playing field. [1] https://www.shopify.com/fulfillment https://www.shopify.com/fulfillment
  - rootusrootus 6y ago
    That's great to hear. I hope they have big funding, because they will need it.

tree3 6y ago

I'm a fan of Amazon.

kup0 6y ago

I have a lot of issues with Amazon in terms of worker treatment, etc - but admittedly, out of all the online shopping I've done, I still go back to Amazon because I get items delivered quickly, the prices in most categories (as a Prime member with free shipping) are still competitive with only the occasional exception, and every return I've done so far has been super easy. Despite its problems, it's still for sure the best shopping experience online overall for me, as much as I hate that to be true

LatteLazy 6y ago

At least at the moment, amazon is the only online shop operating here in the UK (also, Union coffee). 20 years ago, they were the only place with a website. Now they're the only place who can keep that website working and keep the infrastructure behind it working.

A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago

It is interesting. There is definitely a concerted effort to take Amazon down. I can't really say I am against that outcome. The reason I find it interesting is that is not appear to be some grass root movement of customers ( despite good reasons, in my opinion, to switch ). And if that is the case, the question becomes what is behind that steady stream of anti-Amazon stories. Competitors? Bezos crossed someone too big to cross? My guess is as good as yours.

say_it_as_it_is 6y ago

The thing about anti-Amazon rhetoric is that it's easily debunked because so many people transact business through them. There's no need to take any "expert" or activist opinion on the matter. The proof is in your own life experience. If it's sunny outside but someone on the internet is telling you that it's raining, you probably should discount the opinion of that person, or ignore entirely. I have no doubt that people have been ripped off from Amazon but their customer service handles the situation very well. I don't like that Amazon is taking over the global economy and won't stop growing unless it is forced to. However, they're conducting business well. (I'm not affiliated with Amazon other than that I've been a customer since the 90s)

MattGaiser 6y ago
Those activists should focus their attention on all the businesses losing to Amazon who can’t be bothered to change their ways.
ausbah 6y ago
everything may be sunny on the outside, but it may pouring rain on the inside. most people's "life experience" with Amazon is most likely limited to shopping, but they likely don't see or consider other criticisms of Amazon such as monopoly power or anti-labor activities
miscPerson 6y ago
Amazon isn’t taking over the global economy. For instance, in retail, Walmart does substantially more business — via brick and mortar stores — and is rapidly growing online.

deleted 6y ago

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freeAgent 6y ago

The most obvious problems I face with Amazon are due almost entirely to how it's built and how it runs its third-party seller platform. There are duplicate product listings, fake products, fake reviews, and mixed inventory now to the extent that even buying something where "Amazon" is listed as the seller does not prevent you from getting inventory sourced by one of the third-party sellers of the same product. Because of this, I've found myself more and more going to alternatives where I can actually know and trust the retailer and supply chain. I long for the pre-platform Amazon days. The news that Amazon has also abused sellers on their platform should shock nobody. As soon as they got into selling house brands, the writing was on the wall. Ironically, I can actually trust Amazon's house brands to at least be legitimate, non-fake products even if they do tend to be cheaply made.

torgian 6y ago

At this point I'd argue it's better to shop at alibaba or aliexpress. Sure it might come from China, and sure it might be fake or broken, or a scam, but at least you _know_ you might get screwed.

0xDEADBEF 6y ago

I use a website called "Fakespot" to help identify all the spam. It isn't perfect though, but it helps to get a good idea on who is filling their products with fake reviews.

einpoklum 6y ago

If the competition involves other Trillion-or-so USD companies, than this is another step in the process of concentration of capital in society - as is the ascendance of Amazon. The amount of power Amazon already has in society is obscenely huge - even if it's not expressed in the form of giant portraits of Jeff Bezos hanging from the sides of buildings.

stevespang 6y ago

"If you’re an existing user of Merchant Center and Shopping ads, you don’t have to do anything to take advantage of the free listings, and for new users of Merchant Center, we’ll continue working to streamline the onboarding process over the coming weeks and months" So tell me that Google will not demand you provide your credit card upfront in the process . . .

gentleman11 6y ago

Would be nice to see more competition, but not because of prices or selection but because we want small nice-guys/girls to have a significant presence. If google and other huge companies are the competition, it doesn’t really improve that Shopify is cool for that: enables a ton of tiny online businesses to thrive

gerland 6y ago

Is modularisation really an answer or is this another case of "A Hundred Authors Against Einstein"? The reason why many people are still driven to Amazon is that dealing with separate entities is just annoying as hell. Small business is definitely less reliable than Amazon and even if client service has been declining, it's still has a predictable baseline. Product search also seems to be working much better in Amazon than in web search engines. If I have to choose between one average retailer and 100 better-and-worse retailers, then I will still use Amazon. Also - the long tail exists almost exclusively on Amazon.