
Ask HN: What Weaknesses Does Amazon Have? - WhatNewSoftware
Say you were starting a company in an area where Amazon operates (shopping&#x2F;ecommerce, cloud, etc).<p>You are pitching to an investor and Amazon comes up as a potential or existing competitor. What are their weaknesses? How would you exploit them?
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rubinelli
One issue that has been mentioned multiple times on Hacker News is that, in
some categories, it is almost impossible to find good products:
[https://www.vox.com/2019/2/28/18168354/amazon-marketplace-
pr...](https://www.vox.com/2019/2/28/18168354/amazon-marketplace-prime-
counterfeit-goods-fake-reviews)

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QueensGambit
I think their biggest weakness is their relationship with sellers. Sellers
hate Amazon because their livelihood is dependent of Amazon's ever changing
policies and bans. This is why most of them have a Shopify store and hope to
create a brand on their own. But, they haven't succeeded yet. If you can
provide a credible alternative for these sellers, there will be a stampede of
sellers out of Amazon.

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mstaoru
BigCo problems: slower decision speed, dehumanized support, limited social
presence, volume requirements w/ supplier side, draconian terms, data
collection and privacy issues...

Marketplace problems: limited control over 3rd party suppliers, fake products,
lack of accountability for indirect damages...

Volume problems: fake reviews, hard to find specific niche products, lack of
product details, standardized photos...

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byoung2
The same weaknesses that come up when you make any David/Goliath comparison.
They are big, and slow to react, so you can hit them with speed and agility.
Think early 90's when MicroSoft was slow to move to the web while tiny
startups ate their lunch. Amazon will be hesitant to make major changes
because they don't want to kill the goose that lays the golden egg.

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WhatNewSoftware
How about something specific to Amazon?

Obviously those are all good, re David/Goliath. But in my experience investors
dont think along those lines as much.

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byoung2
You can hit Amazon with niche categories. For example they have shoes and
clothing, but there is no "Amazon for nurses scrubs or school uniforms" or
other niche categories. They also do not serve many countries (e.g.
Philippines). A startup that served these needs would not have Amazon as a
competitor at all.

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greenyoda
Out of curiosity, I just searched Amazon for "school uniforms" and there's a
lot of stuff there. (Makes sense, since there are millions of kids in private
and parochial schools - it's a big market.)

Even if you manage to find a retail category that Amazon is not currently
involved in, you might wake up tomorrow to find that they've suddenly become
your competitor.

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byoung2
You have found a category that Anazon serves, but does not serve well. I buy
nearly everything on Amazon but I still have to buy her uniforms in person
(each school has a specific color scheme, plaid pattern, collar style, etc.).
My wife still buys her nurse scrubs from a guy who comes around the hospital
and only takes cash. These are things you just can't get easily on Amazon,
even though it looks like they have that category covered.

Also, you could compete with Amazon on any category just by having a bigger
selection of same day delivery in some niche.

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rajacombinator
AWS is pretty expensive. Might be possible for a tech driven company to cut
out all the MBA types and undercut them on price.

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dmlittle
I would be very hesitant to use a new hosting service for anything business
critical or sensitive. I don’t know how well they will operate nor the
security of my data. AWS/GCP/Azure/etc. do a lot to physically secure your
data.

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Nextgrid
Lack of curation. I would personally be happy to pay extra for a marketplace
with a _limited_ set of products that have been tested & vouched for, instead
of Amazon's Wild West full of Chinese no-name fly-by-night brands.

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bdcravens
The biggest issues I see Amazon's e-commerce operation having are
discoverability of products, and quality of products (namely counterfeits and
used products being sold as new via FBA)

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segmondy
Amazon's weakness is that they're big. Big like an Elephant, do you know why
Elephants are scared of mouse? Because they are small and fast.

Read "Innovator's Dilemma"

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gregjor
No dark mode on their ecommerce website, or in the AWS console. Seems like a
critical weakness.

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WhatNewSoftware
Sorry what is "dark mode" and why is this important?

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non-entity
They're referring to a (default?) dark color scheme on the web products, to
make it better on the eye with better contrast.

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WhatNewSoftware
Not really what I'm asking but OK... I doubt a lacking of a color scheme is
going to add much to your competitive analysis.

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gregjor
Your humor detector got turned off, I think.

In lieu of any actual progress dark mode got hyped in many products recently
as an important new feature.

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gregjor
[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=%22dark%20mode%22&sort=byPopularity&type=story)

