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> I’m sure Amazon will be just fine but it seems like they’ll need to do something at some point Their e-commerce arm has a lot of competition on the horizon f

> I’m sure Amazon will be just fine but it seems like they’ll need to do something at some point Their e-commerce arm has a lot of competition on the horizon from Costco, Walmart, Bestbuy, Home Depot, and the 2 million shopify stores being run by mom and pops. All of those, aside from Walmart, you can mostly be sure you’re not getting ripped off and know what you’re buying up front. Bezos based his business model on long term customer trust, and he’s not really there anymore. You see these magazine articles of him hanging out at pool parties with celebrities in his beach shorts and it makes you wonder where the priorities of the company are now.

simonh 5y ago
Bezos has been transitioning out of day-to-day operations at Amazon through the year. Andy Jassy is the new CEO.
- m463 5y ago
  I wonder if the metrics for CEO are OKR not "is what we are creating good"
- dylan604 5y ago
  Think of Amazon as a plane with Bezos as the pilot. The nosedive of the plane started while Bezos was still in control. Bezos realized the dive was unrecoverable (or at least decided the effort was too much for him and just didn't want to go down with it), so he started looking for his parachute. He also found a co-pilot to start training, but the co-pilot didn't seem to be concerned about the diving trajectory. Bezos is now totally safe no longer being on the plane as he's safely used his parachute. Jassy now gets the blame when the plane ultimately goes down. Jassy would have to simply be an amazing pilot to pull the plane out of the dive.
  - CSSer 5y ago
    Are we just completely forgetting about AWS here?
    - dylan604 5y ago
      Is there a way to refer to amazon retail site only? You say the word Amazon, and >99% of people think of the retail website.
      - CSSer 5y ago
        My original point was that it's not just about brand perception, but that was largely on based on my incorrect belief that AWS is a much larger portion of Amazon's revenue than it is in reality. I thought it was like 40-50%, but it's actually only 14.5%. Interestingly, I found this quote from the source[0]: > AWS’ revenue makes up 14.5% of Amazon’s total revenue of $110.8 billion. And for the first time ever, revenue from AWS, advertising, third-party seller services and Prime subscriptions ($55.9 million) surpassed revenue from Amazon’s retail and product sales ($54.9 billion). This certainly reinforces your point! It sure sounds like Amazon retail is a sort of loss leader. [0]: https://www.fiercetelecom.com/platforms/aws-to-rescue-3q-revenues-16-1b https://www.fiercetelecom.com/platforms/aws-to-rescue-3q-rev...
        dylan604 5y ago
        >This certainly reinforces your point! It sure sounds like Amazon retail is a sort of loss leader. "Your margin is my opportunity" --Jeff Bezos Jeff's ethos seems to be undercut everybody at any chance. That seems to include people using his platform in the form of plainly labeled Amazon branded products or Amazon owned brands of other names. Open a platform to sell things. Open that platform to allow 3rd parties to sell things while taking a cut. Aggregate all of that sales data to find what items are worthy of selling those items directly screwing the 3rd parties.
  - simonh 5y ago
    Can you point out on this graph where you think the plane started nose diving: https://www.statista.com/chart/4298/amazons-long-term-growth/ https://www.statista.com/chart/4298/amazons-long-term-growth... EDIT: OK, you're talking about customer experience and maybe that's a long term risk, but as long as that graph continues it's trend not many people at the top of Amazon are going to share our frustration as customers. There are plenty of customers out there throwing money at them.

simonh 5y ago

Bezos has been transitioning out of day-to-day operations at Amazon through the year. Andy Jassy is the new CEO.

m463 5y ago
I wonder if the metrics for CEO are OKR not "is what we are creating good"
dylan604 5y ago
Think of Amazon as a plane with Bezos as the pilot. The nosedive of the plane started while Bezos was still in control. Bezos realized the dive was unrecoverable (or at least decided the effort was too much for him and just didn't want to go down with it), so he started looking for his parachute. He also found a co-pilot to start training, but the co-pilot didn't seem to be concerned about the diving trajectory. Bezos is now totally safe no longer being on the plane as he's safely used his parachute. Jassy now gets the blame when the plane ultimately goes down. Jassy would have to simply be an amazing pilot to pull the plane out of the dive.
- CSSer 5y ago
  Are we just completely forgetting about AWS here?
  - dylan604 5y ago
    Is there a way to refer to amazon retail site only? You say the word Amazon, and >99% of people think of the retail website.
    - CSSer 5y ago
      My original point was that it's not just about brand perception, but that was largely on based on my incorrect belief that AWS is a much larger portion of Amazon's revenue than it is in reality. I thought it was like 40-50%, but it's actually only 14.5%. Interestingly, I found this quote from the source[0]: > AWS’ revenue makes up 14.5% of Amazon’s total revenue of $110.8 billion. And for the first time ever, revenue from AWS, advertising, third-party seller services and Prime subscriptions ($55.9 million) surpassed revenue from Amazon’s retail and product sales ($54.9 billion). This certainly reinforces your point! It sure sounds like Amazon retail is a sort of loss leader. [0]: https://www.fiercetelecom.com/platforms/aws-to-rescue-3q-revenues-16-1b https://www.fiercetelecom.com/platforms/aws-to-rescue-3q-rev...
      - dylan604 5y ago
        >This certainly reinforces your point! It sure sounds like Amazon retail is a sort of loss leader. "Your margin is my opportunity" --Jeff Bezos Jeff's ethos seems to be undercut everybody at any chance. That seems to include people using his platform in the form of plainly labeled Amazon branded products or Amazon owned brands of other names. Open a platform to sell things. Open that platform to allow 3rd parties to sell things while taking a cut. Aggregate all of that sales data to find what items are worthy of selling those items directly screwing the 3rd parties.
- simonh 5y ago
  Can you point out on this graph where you think the plane started nose diving: https://www.statista.com/chart/4298/amazons-long-term-growth/ https://www.statista.com/chart/4298/amazons-long-term-growth... EDIT: OK, you're talking about customer experience and maybe that's a long term risk, but as long as that graph continues it's trend not many people at the top of Amazon are going to share our frustration as customers. There are plenty of customers out there throwing money at them.