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While I agree that Amazon not having much success in this market is not a great sign, it seems like there are probably a number of other reasons they haven't be

While I agree that Amazon not having much success in this market is not a great sign, it seems like there are probably a number of other reasons they haven't been expanding the service. Amazon is trying to be the one spot you buy all physical goods, but it's been proven time and time again that getting to generalized, or trying to be all things, means you can't do all of them (or sometimes any of them) well. I think a new company with this focus definitely has the best chance of success. At which point, Amazon will probably buy them. For now though, please expand up to Marin!

frossie 14y ago
Yes. For example Amazon offers quite a poor consumer experience for clothing and shoes, even if they do sell them. There are reasons why Zappos can thrive (and presumably why Amazon acquired them). [Edit in response to comment below: I do not believe it is right to try something in a store and then go buy it online. Even if you believe that is okay, it actually proves that the purely-online consumer experience is sub-standard, otherwise why bother go to a store at all? While Amazon is great at issuing refunds for, say, non-functioning electronics, they don't issue full refunds if you buy a hat and there's nothing wrong with it but it doesn't quite fit/look right, and you have to pay for return shipping. Contrast this with the Zappos approach where returns are both free, and hassle-free].
- jmduke 14y ago
  My Amazon experience for clothing and shoes is roughly the same as for all other Amazon products; I visit a physical location to actually peruse/test the product (in this case, try it on) and then order it cheaply online. Do you have specific pain points, or is it the innate difficulty in online shopping for clothes?
  - hkmurakami 14y ago
    >My Amazon experience for clothing and shoes is roughly the same as for all other Amazon products; I visit a physical location to actually peruse/test the product (in this case, try it on) and then order it cheaply online. Because so many of us (including myself) now behave in this manner, I'm fairly convinced that most brick and mortar stores will have to assume an "annual dues" model a la Costco to survive. (and offer some form of competitive advantage over Amazon, of course -- ex: focusing on item discovery rather than cookie cutter merchandise, etc.)
  - AJ007 14y ago
    I can't speak for the other poster, but for me, its mostly a sorting problem. I do think Amazon has improved on this a lot. In the past I would find multiple listings, for the same product, from different merchants, under different names. As an example, if I am looking for a specific Diesel jean I have waist, length, wash, and cut. The wash might be either described correctly, "0073N", or incorrectly "Dark blue." Looking at it now, this is much improved over where it was just a year ago. On the other side of things, Amazon has a problem with fake products getting in their inventory by third party sellers being labelled as genuine -- another issue that has been getting better (The iPhone Charger listed as by Apple but priced like an iPhone app, was there for years.)
Wingman4l7 14y ago
Personally, I wish Amazon had stuck with books. IMO, their diversification has made their site organization suffer -- especially when they allowed 3rd-party sellers to create product listings (which led to maddening duplicates). I pray that Newegg's diversification from computer hardware won't have the same adverse effect, but it's probably a law of retail that it will.
- greghinch 14y ago
  I think the problem Amazon has dug for itself is by operating at razor thin profit margins, the volume has to be massive. That of course means crossing into more and more markets, and spreading itself more thin
  - Wingman4l7 14y ago
    Is there a formal term for this? Perhaps "the Walmart Effect"? =P
- dpeck 14y ago
  I don't think the problem is so much that they're too diversified, its that their search functionality has done a very poor job of keeping up with and supporting that diversification. It seems that I only have good results when I search for a specific $productname, and even then I get results for products with user comments reading something like "its not $productname but..." or "get a $productname instead". More frustrating is that these seem to be ahead of what I'm actually searching fairly often.
  - Wingman4l7 14y ago
    I really think the root problem is their allowance of 3rd-party sellers to create product listings. There needs to be a "master listing" for a specific product, to avoid the current problem of multiple duplicate listings -- which, like you said, may not actually be product X at all, but is product Y instead. It makes Amazon look like eBay. Don't even get me started the self-published ebook spam -- is Amazon just ignoring it?
- 14y ago

frossie 14y ago

Yes. For example Amazon offers quite a poor consumer experience for clothing and shoes, even if they do sell them. There are reasons why Zappos can thrive (and presumably why Amazon acquired them). [Edit in response to comment below: I do not believe it is right to try something in a store and then go buy it online. Even if you believe that is okay, it actually proves that the purely-online consumer experience is sub-standard, otherwise why bother go to a store at all? While Amazon is great at issuing refunds for, say, non-functioning electronics, they don't issue full refunds if you buy a hat and there's nothing wrong with it but it doesn't quite fit/look right, and you have to pay for return shipping. Contrast this with the Zappos approach where returns are both free, and hassle-free].

jmduke 14y ago
My Amazon experience for clothing and shoes is roughly the same as for all other Amazon products; I visit a physical location to actually peruse/test the product (in this case, try it on) and then order it cheaply online. Do you have specific pain points, or is it the innate difficulty in online shopping for clothes?
- hkmurakami 14y ago
  >My Amazon experience for clothing and shoes is roughly the same as for all other Amazon products; I visit a physical location to actually peruse/test the product (in this case, try it on) and then order it cheaply online. Because so many of us (including myself) now behave in this manner, I'm fairly convinced that most brick and mortar stores will have to assume an "annual dues" model a la Costco to survive. (and offer some form of competitive advantage over Amazon, of course -- ex: focusing on item discovery rather than cookie cutter merchandise, etc.)
- AJ007 14y ago
  I can't speak for the other poster, but for me, its mostly a sorting problem. I do think Amazon has improved on this a lot. In the past I would find multiple listings, for the same product, from different merchants, under different names. As an example, if I am looking for a specific Diesel jean I have waist, length, wash, and cut. The wash might be either described correctly, "0073N", or incorrectly "Dark blue." Looking at it now, this is much improved over where it was just a year ago. On the other side of things, Amazon has a problem with fake products getting in their inventory by third party sellers being labelled as genuine -- another issue that has been getting better (The iPhone Charger listed as by Apple but priced like an iPhone app, was there for years.)

Wingman4l7 14y ago

Personally, I wish Amazon had stuck with books. IMO, their diversification has made their site organization suffer -- especially when they allowed 3rd-party sellers to create product listings (which led to maddening duplicates). I pray that Newegg's diversification from computer hardware won't have the same adverse effect, but it's probably a law of retail that it will.

greghinch 14y ago
I think the problem Amazon has dug for itself is by operating at razor thin profit margins, the volume has to be massive. That of course means crossing into more and more markets, and spreading itself more thin
- Wingman4l7 14y ago
  Is there a formal term for this? Perhaps "the Walmart Effect"? =P
dpeck 14y ago
I don't think the problem is so much that they're too diversified, its that their search functionality has done a very poor job of keeping up with and supporting that diversification. It seems that I only have good results when I search for a specific $productname, and even then I get results for products with user comments reading something like "its not $productname but..." or "get a $productname instead". More frustrating is that these seem to be ahead of what I'm actually searching fairly often.
- Wingman4l7 14y ago
  I really think the root problem is their allowance of 3rd-party sellers to create product listings. There needs to be a "master listing" for a specific product, to avoid the current problem of multiple duplicate listings -- which, like you said, may not actually be product X at all, but is product Y instead. It makes Amazon look like eBay. Don't even get me started the self-published ebook spam -- is Amazon just ignoring it?
14y ago