We will never know the number of small businesses that had to shut down because unlike Amazon, they couldn't nor wouldn't indebt themselves to grow indefinitely (aka survive)
The amount of talent and efficiency in the economy that Amazon has crushed..
The "efficiency" that amazon has "crushed". Is this serious?
They offered at home COVID PCR tests. The normal timeline was you'd take it and drop it off at 5PM at your UPS store. By 10AM-11AM (Pacific) the next day they had results. Along the way you had full tracking. In transit, at lab etc. Registering the thing was a photo of the barcode.
We had major medical providers getting paid major money that would take a WEEK (!!) to get results back. I saw on my insurance they were charging something like $289 per test because the person that picked them up was a "medical professional". So despite millions / billions, I was getting better service from my $39 amazon test.
This test included 2 day delivery (free) to me, it included priority overnight delivery back to amazon + lab work + web tools etc. They must have (smartly) located the lab near UPS worldship.
Same with shipping and logistics. The USPS, with a guaranteed nationwide monopoly on certain services struggles to get me stuff on time. Fedex is even worse for some reason. Amazon is an absolute machine where I am. We have same day, next day and two day delivery that is HIGHLY reliable and efficient. We can drop stuff off back at Kohls etc without even packing it. We can pickup from Amazon lockers, or have them deliver inside our house if we want.
When folks talk about how inefficient amazon is I want to know what they are comparing them to. Fedex? Some walmart warehouse?
I think it’s not efficiency of getting a product to a customer that Amazon has squashed, rather the efficiency of innovation that comes with competition.
Amazon still has competition, both from brick and mortar stores that will let you actually touch the product and go home with it the same day, and from other online stores that can also ship stuff to you within a few days. What does Amazon sell that you cannot get something similar to from some other store?
they also provide an experience with far larger externalities (e.g. a massive fleet of vans wandering around and polluting all day) that the customer isn't paying for. i wonder why they're so popular
Is the fleet of polluting vans worse than every single delivery target hopping in their polluting cars and driving to the store (the model that amazon displaced?)
I don't think so. I think delivery has been demonstrated to be significantly "greener" than everyone individually driving to each store one by one.
Exactly this. One of the best things governments could do to help lower greenhouse gasses is incentivize people to get their goods delivered instead of going to the store. So much fuel is wasted moving a ~2 ton vehicle and a >100 lbs person to the store so they can pick up, often, <100 lbs of goods. That's <5% fuel efficiency.
Just from my side once we switched more to delivery we are driving a TON less.
We used to go a few cities over for some thing, whole foods for example not in our city so we'd go over to it to grab some stuff, then to target for a few things etc etc. All that driving has evaporated - we are cooking at home more too.
"i'm pretty sure you know it."
Please cite something rather than ascribing a (false) view to someone else. I don't know your "fact" because it seems like you are lying based on my direct experience.
I'm sure you can find a thousand articles/discussions online about the math behind how driving cars to stores is significantly more polluting than "salesman problem"ing a single delivery truck.
Bonus: it's far easier to electrify or improve 1 delivery truck than it is the 100 cars it's displacing.
> Same with shipping and logistics. The USPS, with a guaranteed nationwide monopoly on certain services struggles to get me stuff on time. Fedex is even worse for some reason. Amazon is an absolute machine where I am. We have same day, next day and two day delivery that is HIGHLY reliable and efficient. We can drop stuff off back at Kohls etc without even packing it. We can pickup from Amazon lockers, or have them deliver inside our house if we want.
Why does amazon still use freight companies like USPS and FedEX? At this point, I feel like amazon should open up physical locations where people can pick up/drop off packages (this includes returns). Perhaps even maintain inventory and have a showroom for people who want to walk in and purchase something.
The return flow varies. Amazon knows what type of package your item(s) were sent it. If it didn't come in a box, you'll be forced to buy one at USPS. If you are lucky enough to have Kohls as a dropoff option, then this isn't an issue. I'm not sure what determines USPS or Kohls as the return location when you print the waybill.
> Why does amazon still use freight companies like USPS
From my understanding - USPS offers fixed rate deliveries to the entire US, so amazon can use them in all cases where it would cost them more than the fixed price to deliver something (incidentally, this probably drives this cost up)
> open up physical locations where people can pick up
imo, amazon lockers are probably going to start accepting returns at some point, if the logistics for it makes sense
USPS actually works well with Amazon, because amazon sometimes uses them for last mile.
Somehow Amazon seems to basically deliver to the local post office, so stuff still shows up quickly but then the postal carrier brings it with other mail. For very small packages in particular this seems somewhat common where I am.
Again, this is is efficient. Amazon skips the part where USPS struggles (ie, Amazon can get something moving on their network at 2AM on a Sunday), but on Tuesday the local carrier still puts it in my box.
Amazon is akin to a planned economy. It works for now. But it will damage us in the long term and by then there won't be a "real" market to fall back on. The infrastructure of ordinary people running small businesses and pouring their sweat simply won't be there. There is no incentive for Amazon to remain efficient. Eventually, people will understand that there is no life outside of Amazon. This can have lasting consequences
It’s not just realizability (did the package get form a to b). But the consistency. 2 day shipping seems to always be exactly 2 days. Same goes for their one day shipping.
i think this is too pessimistic. via FBA they've also enabled thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of small businesses and a cottage industry of others that have formed around them.
Why are small businesses so good? Yes they offer a living for people but objectively there is scant choice, you’re paying for overhead and support is inconvenient or awkward.
Because they typically actually know their products and care about customer service. Give me a face to face interaction with a person that understand what I’m after over Amazon any day of the week.
The amount of talent and efficiency in the economy that Amazon has crushed..