We live in the SF East Bay Area. The thing that blows my mind is the Same Day Delivery that Amazon periodically offers on some items -- consider the infrastructure (vehicles, scheduling, inventory, warehousing, etc) necessary to support that.
I have same day delivery here as well. What sucks is when Amazon uses Dynamex for same day delivery. They are awful. The last two same day delivery orders I had, Dynamex put the boxes on my driveway. I guess it was too far to walk the 20 feet or so to my front door.
I’ve seen new Amazon delivery people who don’t bother looking for the apartment they’re supposed to deliver to and they just leave the packages at the front of the building. Sloppy!
I'd love for them to offer the service to deliver packages into my hands. Literally. I don not want it dropped on my doorstep, I do not want to go pick it up from some distribution center or store. I want someone to walk up to me, and hand the package to me, wherever I am. UPS doesn't offer that. FedEx doesn't offer that. DHL doesn't offer that. The USPS doesn't offer that. Someone needs to. If that's Amazon, I'm all for it.
I am still upset that they destroyed all book stores so going to avoid them.
I kinda of agree. Now that they dont have the tax benefit working for them it seems their prices aren't what they used to be. Seriously what does Amazon do? They are just a giant middle man. That's it.
And bookstores or any other big box store aren't middle men? Even a company, like Sears, which puts their name on countless products, mostly sold goods from other vendors.
Amazon spends US$15Bn+ a year on R&D. As an example they created the Smart Speaker market. They do something...
Extremely doubtful they may have threw something together to say they were first but Apple had been making speakers for 20 years give or take, so not buying it.
I am still upset that they destroyed all book stores so going to avoid them.
I kinda of agree. Now that they dont have the tax benefit working for them it seems their prices aren't what they used to be. Seriously what does Amazon do? They are just a giant middle man. That's it.
And bookstores or any other big box store aren't middle men? Even a company, like Sears, which puts their name on countless products, mostly sold goods from other vendors.
Amazon spends US$15Bn+ a year on R&D. As an example they created the Smart Speaker market. They do something...
Extremely doubtful they may have threw something together to say they were first but Apple had been making speakers for 20 years give or take, so not buying it.
What do you mean "not buying it?" It's not a matter of opinion. Amazon created the Smart Speaker market. It didn't exist before Amazon made the Echo. What is there to dispute?
Actually, having all this competition for last mile delivery kind of makes for a worse experience on my end. Instead of having multiple delivery firms knock on my door or having to go to several different service points to pick up parcels, I'd be much happier with just one single delivery and one service point for all my stuff. Kind of like the good ole post office. That's for last mile, of course. Who handles the linehaul, I couldn't care less.
Given my routinely horrible experience with Amazon's own "in-house" delivery service, I wouldn't expect much. Their in-house service got to be so bad that I demanded Amazon stop shipping my orders using their own service rather than USPS, UPS, or FedEx, etc which offer accurate tracking and better, consistent service. It took a few tries and several phone calls to get it done, but they did finally agree to my request.
Wall Street quickly decides that Amazon becomes the company to beat.
That says it all. They think that Amazon can grow and grow and grow and grow and grow until ????? Their bubble has to burst at some point then they will want profits. But how many other businesses will have to go by the wayside before that happens.
Shop Local and buy locally grown food.
In NY, you can't grow tomatoes in winter. Oranges, bananas, avocados ever. Just to name a few. We'd go pretty hungry in the northeast most of the year. One of the great things about this country is we can experience avocados from California, potatoes from Idaho, grapefruit from Florida, beef from Texas or Illinois and bread made from wheat that comes from the midwest.
You don’t need mono culture oranges and bandannas to survive. Canned fruits and veggies work quite well off season. Americans are just spoiled. Eat seasonally, organic and locally when possible instead of shipping your food and water 6,000 miles before you consume it.
Amazon's stock price is based on constant expansion vs. actually being successful at making money, so this is the new shiny thing to dangle for investors. They can pretend for awhile that they're "taking on" FedEx and UPS.
So you think it’s a ruse and that they have no plans or desire to creating their own shipping company?
How’s drone delivery going? It’s off the news cycle now but was given a lot of attention for a minute.
Competition is good. Be interesting to see where this goes. I feel like shipping prices from some of these places are a bit out of touch.
1) How do you gauge that the cost of shipping an item across the country or around the world in 2 days as being "out of touch"? How would you gauge the price if you have no idea how much cargo planes, commercial jets with some cargo area, OTR trucks, local trucks, sorting facilities, and all the other infrastructure and personnel that goes into getting a package from A to B over an incredibly complex network, over a massive distance? I've studied this and I couldn't begin to claim any such thing.
2) Have you considered how many packages Amazon ships through these services? Are you familiar with economies of scale? What if Amazon pulling out of, say, UPS, means they can't pack transport vehicles to the same extent, or if revenue goes down that they have to close stores and other facilities, lose staff, or cut hours of operations to try to stay in the black? What if this results in having to raise prices because they've lost their largest customer, and one that kept things moving through the channel, so now you not only have higher costs, but also slower delivery and worse customer service? Think of what Amazon has done to the B&M stores. You'd think that they'd have great customer service since it's the one thing they can offer that Amazon can't, and yet Amazon's chat-based CSRs have been great and going into a Staples has been a nightmare, IMO.
I wasn't talking about Amazon, I was talking about FedEx and UPS. The amount to ship a 2lb package 100 miles away at UPS vs USPS is vastly different.
Competition is good. Be interesting to see where this goes. I feel like shipping prices from some of these places are a bit out of touch.
1) How do you gauge that the cost of shipping an item across the country or around the world in 2 days as being "out of touch"? How would you gauge the price if you have no idea how much cargo planes, commercial jets with some cargo area, OTR trucks, local trucks, sorting facilities, and all the other infrastructure and personnel that goes into getting a package from A to B over an incredibly complex network, over a massive distance? I've studied this and I couldn't begin to claim any such thing.
2) Have you considered how many packages Amazon ships through these services? Are you familiar with economies of scale? What if Amazon pulling out of, say, UPS, means they can't pack transport vehicles to the same extent, or if revenue goes down that they have to close stores and other facilities, lose staff, or cut hours of operations to try to stay in the black? What if this results in having to raise prices because they've lost their largest customer, and one that kept things moving through the channel, so now you not only have higher costs, but also slower delivery and worse customer service? Think of what Amazon has done to the B&M stores. You'd think that they'd have great customer service since it's the one thing they can offer that Amazon can't, and yet Amazon's chat-based CSRs have been great and going into a Staples has been a nightmare, IMO.
I wasn't talking about Amazon, I was talking about FedEx and UPS. The amount to ship a 2lb package 100 miles away at UPS vs USPS is vastly different.
And? How do you gauge the costs for USPS v publicly traded companies, or their efficiencies and other costs since they offer different services?
I am still upset that they destroyed all book stores so going to avoid them.
Ditto here.
You guys really blame Amazon for customers choosing not go into B&M bookstores as often? You know the customer had a choice on where to shop, right?
You know Amazon dropped the price so much lower than the brick and mortar stores (more than just B&N, Borders, etc) and undercut them to drive them out of business. The took losses on books so they could corner the market and yes people chose to go along. Now opening up their own brick and mortar stores is basically pissing on the graves of every indie and national chains put out of business.
James
And? The customer still has to choose whether they want that to support a company that they believe is playing unfairly? Suggesting Amazon forced customers to not enter a B&M store is akin to anti-Apple trolls coming her to claim Apple forced customers to do anything simply because they were convenient and/or competitively priced.
My rural mail carriers sometimes can't fit all the packages in their personal vehicles, so the packages get delivered the next day.
UPS will sometimes run behind and claim that "the receiving business was closed" (my address is residential) and deliver the next day.
The good thing is that I rarely have to pay for Amazon Prime as a result. Every time a delivery is late, Amazon gives me either a discount or a free month of Prime. I don't mind waiting an extra day for a package to arrive.
Wait they do that? I never get discount for late packages.
Coincidentally I just saw this story on the local Austin news. I believe the packages were being delivered from a local Amazon fulfillment center by a contracted third-party delivery person or business, not by of the the big shippers like FedEx or UPS. So basically, the stuff was being shipped "by Amazon". I hope this is not an early indication of Amazon's in-house shipping services.
Yikes. If they are throwing all this to their own contract-based AMZL then FedEx and others have nothing to fear. Go look around for 'AMZL problems' etc. could add own experience but anecdotal.
Wall Street quickly decides that Amazon becomes the company to beat.
That says it all. They think that Amazon can grow and grow and grow and grow and grow until ????? Their bubble has to burst at some point then they will want profits. But how many other businesses will have to go by the wayside before that happens.
Shop Local and buy locally grown food.
In NY, you can't grow tomatoes in winter. Oranges, bananas, avocados ever. Just to name a few. We'd go pretty hungry in the northeast most of the year. One of the great things about this country is we can experience avocados from California, potatoes from Idaho, grapefruit from Florida, beef from Texas or Illinois and bread made from wheat that comes from the midwest.
You don’t need mono culture oranges and bandannas to survive. Canned fruits and veggies work quite well off season. Americans are just spoiled. Eat seasonally, organic and locally when possible instead of shipping your food and water 6,000 miles before you consume it.
If you want to live in 1918 I guess.
And if you do this the monoculture will be you with the removal of all ethnic markets that allow folks access to fresh fruits and food from their home countries. A “local only” food policy is inherently racist.
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https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/amazon-driver-poops-driveway_us_5a218ed5e4b0a02abe90ec11
And if you do this the monoculture will be you with the removal of all ethnic markets that allow folks access to fresh fruits and food from their home countries. A “local only” food policy is inherently racist.