4 ms·

monopoly? amazon? not even close. ecommerce is price driven, there is no customer loyalty online. cloud computing, 100s providers are offering cheaper services

by snambi 14y ago

monopoly? amazon? not even close. ecommerce is price driven, there is no customer loyalty online. cloud computing, 100s providers are offering cheaper services already. its a surprise AMZN is still surviving.

ericd 14y ago
No customer loyalty? Have you ever met anyone who uses Prime? I and many others I know go straight there and will pay a premium to make sure it comes from Amazon, because I know if something goes wrong, it won't be a pain in my ass. This industry is consolidating because there's a great option that is essentially a no-brainer in almost every way.
- codexon 14y ago
  I don't have Prime but I have shopped at Amazon a few times. However, I don't think I will be a "loyal" customer due to a recent incident. There was a sale going on for a particular item, so I logged in and bought it. However I didn't see the order in my account. After waiting for an hour and refreshing a few times, I got locked out saying that my account was potentially compromised (it wasn't, I just hadn't logged in for several months, and I was on a different IP). I immediately restored access by verifying my email again, however it canceled my order and cleared my entire order history. I spent the next hour talking to a customer service representative who seemed to be from India, and kept asking me for the order number when my entire ordering history was wiped by their system. By the time I got this point through his thick skull, he said they couldn't do anything about it, and by that time the sale was over. This seems like a pain in the ass to me.
- rdl 14y ago
  I mainly buy from Amazon, but largely as a "default fail-through" option for random goods (and books/kindle of course). I'd probably buy camera gear from B&H preferentially if they added a few features to their buying process (tracking all my equipment whether bought there or elsewhere, checking compatibility, maintenance, etc.). I'd buy computer equipment, car accessories, etc. from other vertical vendors who do the same thing (and generally do buy from Tirerack for that purpose) There's loyalty to Amazon, but it's not absolute. I could start a new retailer in a given niche today and probably defeat Amazon in that niche.
  - ericd 14y ago
    Yeah, I just haven't put the effort into scoping out exceptional vertical vendors with the exception of electronics, so Amazon gets a very large percentage of my purchases, and I'd imagine that most people are the same way - buy from niche retailers in the things they understand well and buy a lot of, otherwise, Amazon.
jaytaylor 14y ago
Where is cheaper than Amazon? Please, show me a list of these hundreds of providers..
Tichy 14y ago
No customer loyalty, except to Amazon. I like to shop there because I know they won't make a fuss if there is a problem with the product. That's worth some money (should they ever be more expensive than somebody else).
phaus 14y ago
Assume that you are correct. How do you ensure that your prices are the lowest? Supply chain management and volume. Short of Wal-Mart performing a miracle or spending tens of billions of dollars restructuring their entire business, Amazon is pretty much guaranteed to establish a retail monopoly in the U.S. No one else has the resources to dethrone Amazon, and I'm not entirely convinced that Wal-Mart can do it either.
gfodor 14y ago
anyone paying attention realizes AWS has been permanently 2-3 years ahead of everyone else, and that's being generous, in terms of capabilities. the reason is they are one of the few companies in a position to both offer extensive cloud services and eat their own dogfood on a massive scale. this, combined with AMZN's obsessions with undercutting competitors on price, locks them into the head of the pack. in the long run, it will just be GOOG, MSFT, AMZN, and maybe CRM or other large scale sass providers who can pull it off at the right price. RAX et al are fucked imho b/c of the dogfood gap.

by snambi 14y ago

ericd 14y ago

No customer loyalty? Have you ever met anyone who uses Prime? I and many others I know go straight there and will pay a premium to make sure it comes from Amazon, because I know if something goes wrong, it won't be a pain in my ass. This industry is consolidating because there's a great option that is essentially a no-brainer in almost every way.

codexon 14y ago
I don't have Prime but I have shopped at Amazon a few times. However, I don't think I will be a "loyal" customer due to a recent incident. There was a sale going on for a particular item, so I logged in and bought it. However I didn't see the order in my account. After waiting for an hour and refreshing a few times, I got locked out saying that my account was potentially compromised (it wasn't, I just hadn't logged in for several months, and I was on a different IP). I immediately restored access by verifying my email again, however it canceled my order and cleared my entire order history. I spent the next hour talking to a customer service representative who seemed to be from India, and kept asking me for the order number when my entire ordering history was wiped by their system. By the time I got this point through his thick skull, he said they couldn't do anything about it, and by that time the sale was over. This seems like a pain in the ass to me.
rdl 14y ago
I mainly buy from Amazon, but largely as a "default fail-through" option for random goods (and books/kindle of course). I'd probably buy camera gear from B&H preferentially if they added a few features to their buying process (tracking all my equipment whether bought there or elsewhere, checking compatibility, maintenance, etc.). I'd buy computer equipment, car accessories, etc. from other vertical vendors who do the same thing (and generally do buy from Tirerack for that purpose) There's loyalty to Amazon, but it's not absolute. I could start a new retailer in a given niche today and probably defeat Amazon in that niche.
- ericd 14y ago
  Yeah, I just haven't put the effort into scoping out exceptional vertical vendors with the exception of electronics, so Amazon gets a very large percentage of my purchases, and I'd imagine that most people are the same way - buy from niche retailers in the things they understand well and buy a lot of, otherwise, Amazon.

jaytaylor 14y ago

Where is cheaper than Amazon? Please, show me a list of these hundreds of providers..

Tichy 14y ago

No customer loyalty, except to Amazon. I like to shop there because I know they won't make a fuss if there is a problem with the product. That's worth some money (should they ever be more expensive than somebody else).

phaus 14y ago

Assume that you are correct. How do you ensure that your prices are the lowest? Supply chain management and volume. Short of Wal-Mart performing a miracle or spending tens of billions of dollars restructuring their entire business, Amazon is pretty much guaranteed to establish a retail monopoly in the U.S. No one else has the resources to dethrone Amazon, and I'm not entirely convinced that Wal-Mart can do it either.

gfodor 14y ago

anyone paying attention realizes AWS has been permanently 2-3 years ahead of everyone else, and that's being generous, in terms of capabilities. the reason is they are one of the few companies in a position to both offer extensive cloud services and eat their own dogfood on a massive scale. this, combined with AMZN's obsessions with undercutting competitors on price, locks them into the head of the pack. in the long run, it will just be GOOG, MSFT, AMZN, and maybe CRM or other large scale sass providers who can pull it off at the right price. RAX et al are fucked imho b/c of the dogfood gap.