4 ms·

I see two sides to this. First; the closing paragraph of the article, clearly intended to convince you amazon is out to get you once they've wiped out all the

I see two sides to this. First; the closing paragraph of the article, clearly intended to convince you amazon is out to get you once they've wiped out all the other competition. That's all fine and dandy, and isn't I don't think directly controverted by evidence; but in the same statement, I think it is far from affirmed. The second side, then, is what I see this all as evidence of. Disclaimer, I know fuck all about the subtleties of running large businesses, but when you step back and look at the what they're doing at a high level, expanding facilities, exploring new markets, new products, during what is as the article stated an investment boom time and where maintaining a certain level of revenue might be a "somewhat safe bet", it makes sense to me that you would use this time to make more bets. Risk becomes more acceptable when you're not living dollar to dollar; the box of nails anecdote, simple as it is, spoke buckets to me. (maybe I'm overreading.) At the risk of showing extreme naivete, I would LOVE to for once believe that a company is simply using all of its financial resources to continually try to provide optimal and novel services. Shipping goes up in price; that's how the market works when you add more services without anyone funding em, the cash has to come from somewhere. I guess my hope is that the shipping is only raising due to their trying to provide new services, and that there will still be sufficient competition that amazon hasn't killed off to prevent this from going out of hand; and that it was just as I said above, a way to fund growth and try to balance for changing economic times, and not a sign of the impinging amazon monopolypse. Oops, suddenly essay, and now I'm late for work...

Spooky23 13y ago
It's not some grand conspiracy, but if you lack competitive pressure, all of the sudden price competitiveness and service become less important. I grew up in a rural area. When Wal-Mart came at first, it was amazing. Clean stores, low prices, excellent service. They managed to put Ames, Jamesway and a few other marginal discount chains out of business. The convenience of driving to Wal-Mart and buying anything is more convenient that the closer speciality retailer, and thathelped kill of the specialty small retailers (hardware stores, etc). They mortally wounded K-Mart. They did this with ruthless efficiency and great service. Now, Wal-Mart owns the rural market. Guess what? The lines are like DMV, the stores are filthy and poorly merchandised (in the grocery section, they don't even unpack boxes), and the prices are often not so good. I hope that Amazon doesn't go that way, but history suggests otherwise.
- marincounty 13y ago
  It seems like an enevitably? Almost a Law? I once heard a Restuant Entrepreneur state that every resturant should fire their staff every 6 months--it got rid of any theft, an dead attitudes--supposedly? I think the only company I haven't seen go down this route is UPS? Their workers seem pretty happy?
  - Spooky23 13y ago
    It sucks that people get rewarded in the marketplace for being assholes like that. Theft is a part of the background noise in a cash business like a bar or restaurant -- a business owner is delusional if they think theft goes away when one set of people do. My grandfather owned bars for many years. I remember him saying that he got more worried about bartenders who "weren't" stealing from him (either money, booze or pilferage) -- he assumed that if he didn't know about it, the guy was too smart and could do real damage. UPS treats their people well and works them hard, and they have a strong union. The net result is that they make money, and they have a motivated workforce that performs and gets treated relatively fairly.
- notTHAT1337 13y ago
  Pay did not scale with Walmart's business. So you get sub-par skilled employees who only care about having a job to make a little money, and even then, most REALLY don't care. If you pay for an $8/hour employee, you're gonna get exactly that. If you don't promote and dismiss employees you're going to bottleneck on lackluster performance
- Daniel_Newby 13y ago
  Could you give an example of a crappy no-competition Walmart? I've only ever seen the nicer ones.

Spooky23 13y ago

It's not some grand conspiracy, but if you lack competitive pressure, all of the sudden price competitiveness and service become less important. I grew up in a rural area. When Wal-Mart came at first, it was amazing. Clean stores, low prices, excellent service. They managed to put Ames, Jamesway and a few other marginal discount chains out of business. The convenience of driving to Wal-Mart and buying anything is more convenient that the closer speciality retailer, and thathelped kill of the specialty small retailers (hardware stores, etc). They mortally wounded K-Mart. They did this with ruthless efficiency and great service. Now, Wal-Mart owns the rural market. Guess what? The lines are like DMV, the stores are filthy and poorly merchandised (in the grocery section, they don't even unpack boxes), and the prices are often not so good. I hope that Amazon doesn't go that way, but history suggests otherwise.

marincounty 13y ago
It seems like an enevitably? Almost a Law? I once heard a Restuant Entrepreneur state that every resturant should fire their staff every 6 months--it got rid of any theft, an dead attitudes--supposedly? I think the only company I haven't seen go down this route is UPS? Their workers seem pretty happy?
- Spooky23 13y ago
  It sucks that people get rewarded in the marketplace for being assholes like that. Theft is a part of the background noise in a cash business like a bar or restaurant -- a business owner is delusional if they think theft goes away when one set of people do. My grandfather owned bars for many years. I remember him saying that he got more worried about bartenders who "weren't" stealing from him (either money, booze or pilferage) -- he assumed that if he didn't know about it, the guy was too smart and could do real damage. UPS treats their people well and works them hard, and they have a strong union. The net result is that they make money, and they have a motivated workforce that performs and gets treated relatively fairly.
notTHAT1337 13y ago
Pay did not scale with Walmart's business. So you get sub-par skilled employees who only care about having a job to make a little money, and even then, most REALLY don't care. If you pay for an $8/hour employee, you're gonna get exactly that. If you don't promote and dismiss employees you're going to bottleneck on lackluster performance
Daniel_Newby 13y ago
Could you give an example of a crappy no-competition Walmart? I've only ever seen the nicer ones.