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Amazon has been doing this in parts of Germany since 2009. The results haven't been nearly as dramatic as the article predicts. As others have indicated, the
by wheels 14y ago
Amazon has been doing this in parts of Germany since 2009. The results haven't been nearly as dramatic as the article predicts. As others have indicated, the limiting factor isn't so much speed of delivery as the inclination to physically inspect items before buying them. That said, Zappos, now a part of Amazon, has succeeded in doing that in one of the markets that tends the most towards such. Even so, there are still a lot of places to buy shoes.
- AncientPC 14y agoI suspect this is a uniquely American thing. Similar to Dell's failed entrance into Asia, Americans are uniquely content with purchasing plenty of merchandise without ever physically examining the product.
- eswangren 14y agoWhy wOuld I feel the need to inspect a book before buying it? I am working under the assumption that no pages will be missing. It's worked out fine thus far. You do realize that purchasing items over the Internet has been working well for some time now, right?
- greghinch 14y agoYou've obviously not tried purchasing things in a 3rd world market, such as in China
- mseebach 14y agoYou're failing to account for the fairly sizable chunk of the world that's both not the US and not the third world. Such as Germany, where people do seem to prefer physically inspecting items.
- latch 14y agoChina hasn't been a 3rd world country for some time. It isn't even close. Sure there are massive pockets of poverty (with 1 billion people, there are massive pockets of everything)...but visit India or parts of Africa if you want to see what 3rd world is.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- cglace 14y agoIf we were going by the original definitions of first world, second world third world. China would be a second world country since it was aligned with Russia and not the US.
- billforsternz 14y agoNot really, the Russians and Chinese were both communist but were rivals rather than allies through most of the cold war.
- gaius 14y agoThere was no first and second, it's third world as in "third person". NATO, Warsaw Pact, everyone else.
- speleding 14y agoYes, there was a first and second world, it used to denote then Nato and USSR block respectively, that's how the third world got its name. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_World http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_World
- greghinch 14y agoI supposed you could call China not a 3rd world, but I've been to China, Nepal, and parts of Africa, and a lot of rural China looks like the poor parts of the other two. How people in poverty live in China is still quite a bit below how the impoverished live in western countries
- oinksoft 14y agoI like to flip a book open that I'm considering at a store to random sections. Not one of 20 pre-selected pages offered in some online shop, but just random places, so I can see if it's my speed. This has saved me from purchasing many (seemingly) awful works.
- robryan 14y agoGoogle Books supports that kind of browsing pretty well showing selected chunks of a lot of books.
- ciupicri 14y agoPurchasing from the Internet works fine until you have problems. Here in Romania you can't inspect the contents of the package until you sign for its delivery. Then if it's broken you get to keep the pieces, unless the merchant is nice. Of course, there's also the option of arguing with them, but it doesn't guarantee anything. I bought a couple of years ago an LCD monitors from today's Romanian Amazon wanna-be and they assured me that if the monitor has any broken pixels I can have it replaced. The next day after the delivery, I discovered I had 1 broken pixel. I called them back only to find out that they can replace it only if it has 3 or 4 broken pixels as specified by some ISO standard. After this, I regretted that I didn't buy the one that I saw in a regular store and worked fine.
- Evbn 14y agoMost stores in the world don't let you inspect the individual electronics object you will buy.
- zuppy 14y agoThat's not true (probably you didn't knew). If you buy something online, you have 10 days to return it without giving a reason (and if they don't specify that clearly when you buy it, the period extends to 30 days). That's the law, it doesn't matter if they agree or not.
- mayneack 14y agoIn Romania?
- Revisor 14y agoIn the whole EU the customer can return items purchased online up until X days since the purchase arrival where X varies by country. There are some exceptions like digital items, custom made ware, DVDs etc. Check your local laws.
- ciupicri 14y agoThis was before any laws as far as I know. Also if I'm not mistaking, even with these laws the package must be intact. Otherwise I wonder if you can buy a TV or computer, use it for N days then return it. Do the same with the other stores until the first one forgets the repeat.
- justincormack 14y agoI have once bought a book with missing pages. Not common though.
- nickolai 14y ago> Why wOuld I feel the need to inspect a book before buying it? To make sure the pages will not start falling out before you're done reading it ? I had that happen to me several times with cheap paperbacks litterally falling apart before I was even through the first quarter of the book
- steve8918 14y agoAmazon has an absolutely amazing return policy. I've only returned an item once, but it was a $400 USB video adapter that didn't work with my monitors. I just printed out a UPS label, and returned it to the closest UPS store for free, and I got an instant refund.
- Alex3917 14y ago"Amazon has an absolutely amazing return policy." Watch out of Amazon Marketplace though. I bought a copy of The Wire through there that ended up being pirated (and terrible quality), and Amazon would neither refund the purchase nor shut down the vendor, even after we got a letter from HBO confirming that it was a pirated copy.
- ShabbyDoo 14y agoDid you contest the charge with your credit card provider? I can't imagine that Amazon would contest such a claim.
- robryan 14y agoWithout looking I'd be nearly certain that Amazon isn't going to take the hit for chargebacks on the marketplace. Appart from costing a heap it would just be inviting fraud.
- desas 14y agoIf they're like paypal they just don't contest and pass the hit on to the seller unless they can prove otherwise.
- robryan 14y agoYeah, I have found PayPal for all their supposed fraud protections to be quiet useless with preventing chargebacks. As a merchant you are also disadvantaged in that you aren't able to access any BIN/AVS data on the card yourself.
- robryan 14y agoI expect to eventually see big retail outlets where there is only stock for trying things out. No buying at the store but you could complete your online order while at the store and have it same day/ next day.
- mseebach 14y agoThere's no reason why this would be "big retail outlets" and not smaller boutiques. When you don't have to stock 5-15 pcs each of 30 flatscreen TVs, the local high-street enthusiast who actually knows stuff and can give you advice could see a renaissance. He doesn't even have to stock one of each, as "That one, but in 32 inches" is a viable order.
- dharbin 14y agoAnd the store makes money off of amazon affiliate links?
- MBCook 14y agoDoes anyone here remember catalog stores? That may not be the right name, I've only been in one once, and it has to have been over 15 years. You'd go in the store and look at the merchandise, all of it in glass cases. You'd use a little golf pencil to mark the order sheet they gave you at the door for what you wanted. When you were done shopping, you'd give your form to the guy at the register. They'd ring you up and someone in the back of the store would collect all the stuff you just bought from the warehouse racks and bring it out for you. I was amazed something like that existed in the 90s. I have a hard time envisioning that we'd see something like that again. I mean that's how grocery stores worked once, but the market changed with self-service. I'll occasionally "window shop" at stores, but I only do that if I know the prices are really different. If it's a $10 difference and I'm already in the store, why wait for someone to ship it to me, even if it arrives later that day?
- cglee 14y agoWhen Zappos first came out I thought they'd tank. I purchase new basketball/running shoes every 6months, and never ever make a new purchase without trying it on. Playing basketball or running with an even slightly uncomfortable shoe can lead to blistering, back problems, ankle sprains, etc. But my gf at the time thought it was brilliant. What I learned was that a lot of women's shoes are purchased based on anything except comfort. The quality can be shoddy, the wear can cause excruciating pain, yet some top brands sell for hundreds and even thousands a pair. Swing by the Nordstrom's women's shoe dept sometime and take a look at the quality of build. Eavesdrop a bit and take inventory of the questions the clients ask about. (Zappos is started by a bunch of ex-Nordy folks). To this day I've only purchased 1 pair of shoes on Zappos, and that's after I had bought it previously at the dept store (New Balance 993, imo best shoes for walking/running in case you're wondering).
- arjunnarayan 14y agoYes. The build quality of women's shoes is astoundingly bad. Sometimes I look at them and they literally feel like glued on piece of leather, pretty on the outside, and nothing more. It's interesting how two different markets have developed (men's shoes and women's shoes) that have such different parameters. Men's shoes have outstanding build quality --- to the point where a good pair of quality shoes gets resoled multiple times. Do women ever resole shoes?
- diffeomorph 14y agoThis isn't just true for women's shoes, but women's clothing in general. I don't understand the reasons, but men's clothing tends to be made with less design and more durability. A fashioner designer once told me he made the men's clothing first, then crafted the women's clothing out of its leftovers + some embellishments.
- valgaze 14y agoChristina Binkley in the WSJ had a great column on this topic titled "To Dress Well, a Woman Should Shop Like a Man": http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704405704576063962680112114.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870440570457606...
- philip1209 14y agoYes - I had a friend go on study abroad in London, and Prime shipping there meant free next-day delivery and cheap same-day delivery.
- rickmb 14y agoI suspect it's partially in American thing. In most European cities, the shops are around the corner. There's little effort involved, so Amazon doesn't sufficiently offset the advantages of instant gratification and being able to physically see stuff to make such a dramatic impact. Also, the different European attitude towards regulation has resulted in many cities actively protecting the kind of independent stores that make local shopping different from anonymous shopping malls full of the same franchises. There are plenty of areas in which brick-and-mortar shops will take a hit from online competitors, but I suspect the impact in Europe will be considerably smaller than in the land of strip malls and Wal-Marts, where commercial efficiency has already trumped the "user experience", and Amazon is simply a better option with few disadvantages.
- Tichy 14y agoCan't say I agree - shopping feels like a huge waste of time to me. Living in a big city in Europe, but still a shopping trip will take at least 1h. Of course for other people it is heaven.
- rickmb 14y agoOne hour still beats same day delivery on every front except having to put on pants and leave the house. People for whom that isn't a barrier form a considerable market (albeit that they may be underrepresented on HN...) But also, same day delivery is logistically near impossible and quite expensive in exactly those cities for exactly the same reasons. The density doesn't make them car friendly, and certainly not delivery van friendly.
- Tichy 14y agoMaybe, though I have to say same day delivery is not really the most important aspect to me. For example we get a box of groceries delivered once per week, which is a huge time saver. In general, any kind of thing I can get delivered I will probably prefer - within ecological bounds, but I think delivery vans might not even be that bad. Certainly more efficient than people driving to the mall by car, I presume.
- NatW 14y agoI think, non-dramatic european response may, in-part, be due to comparatively sparse product options on Amazon's european stores compared to its US .com offerings. I have used Amazon.fr while in Paris and have been disappointed by the limited offerings. Price is an issue, too: on Amazon.fr: when shopping for a TV, for instance, the prices were cheaper at Parisian retail stores.
- tsotha 14y agoAmazon used to consistently have the best price compared to the local retail stores (where I live in the US), but in recent years they've been tinkering with dynamic pricing, so if you buy something popular you're often better off checking around. I can't complain about selection, though. Particularly if you live in an area without boutique stores, Amazon US is likely to have every product you can buy locally.
- wahsd 14y agoGermany is about as different a market as one could get in the "advanced" economies. Drawing any conclusions from the effect it has or hasn't had on German retail is essentially and fundamentally flawed
- jordo37 14y agoHighly disagreed. I think assuming that people want an in-store experience when the extra information from online shopping is such a net gain is just an old way of thinking. Look at some of the work coming out of the best retailers, are from some of the researchers at Accenture Technology Labs into the Store of the Future. For many things, I care more about the information - does it work, does it fit, what do the reviews say? - than I do about touching the object. Even small retailers are starting to do this - if you look at http://www.marinelayer.com/ http://www.marinelayer.com/ - they offer approximations of sizing based on your height and weight.