5 ms·

Amazon Is Ripe For Disruption

14 points by lleims 14y ago

OafTobark 14y ago
As a I consumer, I love a lot of what Amazon does. As an entrepreneur, I do not envy their business. At best, I love their AWS side of things, not their low margin high volume retail side of things (with exception to some Prime related stuff like Instant Video) etc... I guess I love the tech parts, not the warehouse and retail selling part.
greenyoda 14y ago
"Amazon has created its dominant position by providing customers with what they want: (almost) any book, at a ridiculously low price, delivered rapidly." Amazon's prices aren't ridiculously low. For paper books, they're a little lower than the list price that book stores charge, which reflects Amazon's economies of scale and reduced staff costs (they don't have to pay to keep a bookstore open and staffed even if no customers are walking in for several hours). Their prices for Kindle books are, in fact, ridiculously high -- there's no way that a Kindle book could possibly cost more to produce and distribute than the paper version of the same book, but for certain titles, the Kindle version actually costs more. Also, while it may be possible for an author like JK Rowling, who is already a celebrity, to sell books from her own web site, an author who isn't successful yet probably won't get enough visitors at their site to justify the cost of building and running it.
- serge2k 14y ago
  I often see close to half the price of the bookstore when I check amazon. Of course this is in Canada where we get charged extra simply because publishers got away with it.
GabrielF00 14y ago
I looked at the Pottermore website, which the author seems to think is a model for disrupting Amazon. They don't seem to sell physical books, just eBooks and digital audio books. Fulfillment and distribution of physical items at a large scale is probably beyond the means of an individual author. Where they sell eBooks, Pottermore is branded with a Sony logo and it looks like Sony is running the store. So lets say that other big authors decide they want to do what JK Rowling is doing, run a store themselves and get the customer data. Couldn't Amazon say to the authors: "Okay, you run your store and get your data, but we'll handle the payments and the fulfillment for you instead of Sony. That way the customer can use their Amazon account and can take advantage of Amazon's customer service. Plus we can actually ship physical objects if they don't want ebooks." In that case it seems like Amazon could probably make just as much money as they are now. In fact, if you look at a lot of Kindle books they are actually sold by the publishers (Hatchette, Random House, etc.) rather than by Amazon, so it seems like that's what Amazon is already doing to some extent. I don't see the desire for better data as a disrupting factor for Amazon. There are some areas where Amazon needs to get better - recommendations and reviews are one and making it easier to actually find the one product out of 30,000 available that you want is another. That's a pretty hard problem to solve.
- prostoalex 14y ago
  I'm not sure how much of a disruption it is considering Amazon has been pushing exclusive print and electronic publishing for a while. Tim Ferriss is the latest out of somewhat famous authors to go exclusively through Amazon as publisher, distributor and retailer http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2011/08/18/the-4-hour-chef-the-new-book-with-amazon/ http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2011/08/18/the-4-hour-c...
joonix 14y ago
Books? I haven't perceived Amazon as a bookstore for a very long time. When I'm in a country that doesn't have Amazon, I'm not missing the bookstore, I'm missing the accessibility and convenience of a huge range of products at good prices shipped to my door in 2 days.

14 points by lleims 14y ago

As a I consumer, I love a lot of what Amazon does. As an entrepreneur, I do not envy their business. At best, I love their AWS side of things, not their low margin high volume retail side of things (with exception to some Prime related stuff like Instant Video) etc... I guess I love the tech parts, not the warehouse and retail selling part.

greenyoda 14y ago

"Amazon has created its dominant position by providing customers with what they want: (almost) any book, at a ridiculously low price, delivered rapidly." Amazon's prices aren't ridiculously low. For paper books, they're a little lower than the list price that book stores charge, which reflects Amazon's economies of scale and reduced staff costs (they don't have to pay to keep a bookstore open and staffed even if no customers are walking in for several hours). Their prices for Kindle books are, in fact, ridiculously high -- there's no way that a Kindle book could possibly cost more to produce and distribute than the paper version of the same book, but for certain titles, the Kindle version actually costs more. Also, while it may be possible for an author like JK Rowling, who is already a celebrity, to sell books from her own web site, an author who isn't successful yet probably won't get enough visitors at their site to justify the cost of building and running it.

serge2k 14y ago
I often see close to half the price of the bookstore when I check amazon. Of course this is in Canada where we get charged extra simply because publishers got away with it.

GabrielF00 14y ago

I looked at the Pottermore website, which the author seems to think is a model for disrupting Amazon. They don't seem to sell physical books, just eBooks and digital audio books. Fulfillment and distribution of physical items at a large scale is probably beyond the means of an individual author. Where they sell eBooks, Pottermore is branded with a Sony logo and it looks like Sony is running the store. So lets say that other big authors decide they want to do what JK Rowling is doing, run a store themselves and get the customer data. Couldn't Amazon say to the authors: "Okay, you run your store and get your data, but we'll handle the payments and the fulfillment for you instead of Sony. That way the customer can use their Amazon account and can take advantage of Amazon's customer service. Plus we can actually ship physical objects if they don't want ebooks." In that case it seems like Amazon could probably make just as much money as they are now. In fact, if you look at a lot of Kindle books they are actually sold by the publishers (Hatchette, Random House, etc.) rather than by Amazon, so it seems like that's what Amazon is already doing to some extent. I don't see the desire for better data as a disrupting factor for Amazon. There are some areas where Amazon needs to get better - recommendations and reviews are one and making it easier to actually find the one product out of 30,000 available that you want is another. That's a pretty hard problem to solve.

prostoalex 14y ago
I'm not sure how much of a disruption it is considering Amazon has been pushing exclusive print and electronic publishing for a while. Tim Ferriss is the latest out of somewhat famous authors to go exclusively through Amazon as publisher, distributor and retailer http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2011/08/18/the-4-hour-chef-the-new-book-with-amazon/ http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2011/08/18/the-4-hour-c...

joonix 14y ago

Books? I haven't perceived Amazon as a bookstore for a very long time. When I'm in a country that doesn't have Amazon, I'm not missing the bookstore, I'm missing the accessibility and convenience of a huge range of products at good prices shipped to my door in 2 days.