
Will Amazon Become the Wal-Mart of the Web?  - peter123
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/business/20amazon.html?_r=1
======
scottjackson
My one annoyance with Amazon: I live in Australia, yet Amazon item pages still
say, even when I'm _logged in_ , that I've qualified for "FREE Super Saving
Shiping!" A quick check of Amazon's help pages will tell you that
international customers aren't eligible for free shipping of any kind. All of
my shipping addresses are in Australia, but Amazon doesn't do any checking of
that before saying that I've qualified.

Also, there's no Amazon Prime for international customers, which is a total
shame. I understand that it's not cost-effective to give free international
shipping for $75 a year, but I'd happily pay double, maybe even triple for it.
The shipping costs are what kill me on Amazon -- it's the only thing that
stops me from buying everything (literally, _everything_ ) from Amazon.

~~~
euccastro
_Literally_ everything? Is Amazon selling any type of food? In any event, I
don't think they're working with fresh (or even frozen) food anytime soon.

An idea that I've been thinking about for a while is an Amazon for perishable
commodities. At least here in Western Europe, fresh produce has ridiculous
markups. It seems obvious that producers and consumers get abused by
distributors. I have the feeling that there's an opportunity in delivering to
the customer's home, offering competitive prices in exchange for
predictability (repeat orders, preorders, orders with flexible delivery dates,
machine learned purchase patterns) that would let one move high volumes
without keeping much stock.

To begin with one could focus on organic produce, which (again, in my area)
has trouble finding shelf space.

I haven't discarded this idea yet, but I wouldn't mind if someone out there
gave it a go first :).

~~~
mbrubeck
[http://www.amazon.com/grocery-breakfast-foods-snacks-
organic...](http://www.amazon.com/grocery-breakfast-foods-snacks-
organic/b/ref=sd_allcat_gro?ie=UTF8&node=16310101)
[http://www.amazon.com/Natural-Organic-
Grocery/b/ref=sd_allca...](http://www.amazon.com/Natural-Organic-
Grocery/b/ref=sd_allcat_nto?ie=UTF8&node=51537011)
[http://www.amazon.com/gourmet-food-gifts-chocolate-
seafood/b...](http://www.amazon.com/gourmet-food-gifts-chocolate-
seafood/b/ref=sd_allcat_gf?ie=UTF8&node=3370831)

The above links go to the Grocery, Natural + Organic, and Gourmet Foods
departments at Amazon. These mostly sell non-perishable items, but do include
some frozen foods.

<http://fresh.amazon.com/>

Amazon Fresh is a pilot program, currently in the Seattle area only. It
features just about everything you can get at a grocery store, plus a partial
selection of items from regular Amazon departments (books, music, electronics,
etc.). A lot of companies went bankrupt trying to do this; Amazon seems to be
taking baby steps to make sure it can be profitable.

------
rabidgnat
I think that the rise of Amazon as the primary retailer leaves the delivery
market ripe for upheaval. The current delivery model is kind of awkward: they
do a first delivery when you're at work, and then trying to coordinate with
them becomes a huge hassle. I usually end up having packages delivered to my
parents' house, since they won't leave packages at my door at my current
apartment (and rightfully so!)

To me, it seems like it's in Amazon's best interest to use a delivery service
that is more convenient for the end user than the current model, like picking
from available delivery dates and times.

~~~
scythe
It seems like drop-boxes, like the ones used to return library books, could be
built into the rooms in new apartment buildings. That would probably solve the
delivery problem except when shipping really big packages (e.g. televisions).

~~~
philwelch
Apartment buildings already have simpler options: an in-complex office that
receives all deliveries on your behalf and checks them out to you. The problem
is, you've changed the problem to "redoing how the country builds apartments,
and rebuilding all the apartment buildings" when the original problem, "find a
way to deliver packages at more convenient times", was an easier problem to
begin with.

------
pyre
They will be the Wal-Mart of the web when they start throwing their weight
around and 'holding wholesalers hostage' to drive down prices, forcing
manufacturers to make 'cheaper' versions of the same product _just_ for Amazon
(and in some cases listing that 'Amazon-version' with the cheaper parts/build
quality as the exact same model as the ones that were sent to other
retailers).

~~~
eru
Did you know that Wal-Mart left the German market, because it was too
competitive for them?

~~~
potatolicious
<http://www.amazon.de/>

is still there. In fact my team just launched a new feature on it a week ago.
Amazon is far from dead in Germany.

~~~
eru
Yes. No contradictcion. I just bought from Amazon (in Germany) a week ago.

My comment was purely about retail and Wal-Mart.

------
natmaster
Given that Walmart.com runs on the Amazon software, Amazon literally is the
Wal-Mart of the web.

~~~
ajaypopat
Can you cite a source that says walmart.com is using Amazon software? I'm not
aware that walmart.com is running on any Amazon software.

PS: I work for Amazon and have a friend that works for walmart.com

~~~
natmaster
Ok, you caught me. I was thinking of Target. Silly me.

------
pragmatic
Wal-Mart++?

I've ordered lawn mower parts, (kid's) toys, a laptop, a Kindle, hard drives,
etc, etc from Amazon this year.

My local hardware store didn't have the lawnmower parts I needed but Amazon
did.

~~~
rhartsock
I ordered a Wii from Amazon, got a better deal and extra crap with it...Amazon
is the only place I shop online.

------
jhancock
The article shows an Amazon which is exactly the opposite of what I
experienced 3 weeks ago. I needed several items for my wife's birthday. We are
on extended stay in the U.S., away from our home in Shanghai. I wanted some
Chinese comforts for my wife: tea, chopsticks, chinese cooking spices, rice
noodles. After some searching on the web, it looked like I could buy all these
through Amazon. I picked 4 different items from 4 different suppliers. All
items showed "in stock, ships immediately". So I added them to my shopping
cart and went to checkout. I see a whopping and opaque 50% charge over the
costs of goods for shipping, no shipping breakdown. I decided to go ahead and
do it, its my wife's birthday after all. In the days following the purchase, I
receive 4 different emails from each supplier, not Amazon, telling me various
things about the item's true availability and when it should ship. It took 3
weeks to get all the times in individually. It is clear Amazon was just
operating as a sales affiliate for these other providers which is far cry from
what they portray on their site.

Amazon lost a lot of credibility in my eyes. Next time, I'll go to each
supplier and make separate purchases and skip the middleman that is adding so
little value.

~~~
billswift
They tell you on the item's page, right under the item itself, when the item
is being shipped from another seller and is just listed on Amazon. If you
don't carefully examine the information they provide, that's your choice.

~~~
jhancock
All I can tell you is I was being pretty careful, as I always am in my online
transactions, and I feel I was both misled and that Amazon did not provide
value to the transaction.

I am absolutely certain each item I put in my shopping cart said it was "in
stock", yet days after the purchase, I received emails from the various
providers telling me the real story. I am also certain that even though I
tried hard to find out prior to the purchase, it was not possible to see the
breakdown in shipping costs. Only seeing one shipping cost line item is one
reason some might believe its all being bundled together from a big amazon
warehouse somewhere. Especially with widespread business articles like the OP
educating the world that's what Amazon has become. Otherwise, why not show me
4 different shipping charges, maybe I want to send one priority and the others
not.

I also filled out feedback on these purchases after I received the shipments
to state what my complaints were about the shopping experience, but never
heard back from anyone. This part of course, doesn't surprise me. Simply
pointing out that if I were to do something like this again, I may as well buy
direct from the real supplier so that if I did have a problem, I wouldn't be
complaining through a middleman.

------
haupt
I can't arrange for an in-store pickup when I order something from Amazon, and
I can't order a copy of any Marilyn Manson CD from Wal-Mart. I was shopping
for a Magnavox DVD Recorder (model: H2160MW9) and found it for $290.99 at
Amazon vs. $229.00 from Wal-Mart's site.

IMHO, both sites will continue to serve their respective niches. I don't think
either juggernaut is going anywhere anytime soon. :)

------
chris123
Isn't Amazon already the Wal-Mart of the web? If it isn't, who is? Exactly.

------
sahaj
it already is. it's the biggest and cheapest place on the web.

shipping is getting faster and better as well. i was going to order an OEM
hard-drive and in the reviews someone complained about the poor packaging.
someone else replied and said to take a picture and submit to amazon. one day
later another reviewer said that their packaging was fine. trusting amazon, i
placed my order (free shipping). i just got my hard-drive today (2 days
later), and packaging was on par with the retail version.

[edit] link:
[http://www.amazon.com/review/R2Q6A3WHMIDISG/ref=cm_cr_pr_cmt...](http://www.amazon.com/review/R2Q6A3WHMIDISG/ref=cm_cr_pr_cmt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B001VKYA5E)

~~~
potatolicious
I work on the team that handles packaging feedback at Amazon, we _do_ care
about these issues and need your feedback on how both Amazon and the product
manufacturers do on packaging.

<http://www.amazon.com/packaging>

You can always submit feedback on past orders here, it's easy and quick, and
helps us fine-tune things a lot. Like parent said, you can take pictures of
how we packed your stuff and submit it, we _do_ go through the feedback
religiously :)

------
sfphotoarts
I don't care what anyone wants to think of Amazon as. They are just Amazon,
the best retailer for practically _anything_

------
joez
At some point the state agencies has to clamp down on people not paying taxes
(known as a use tax) on their Amazon purchases. I know a lot of my friends
purchase from Amazon because they save 8.5% in tax. It's significant when you
make a purchase like a Macbook. That's a huge competitive advantage that
Amazon currently has over other online retailers (at least for California).

Edit: Correction IRS => State agencies (thanks shrughes)

~~~
shrughes
The IRS is a federal agency, so it would be state tax agencies that try to
clamp down on use taxes.

------
sjs
Not in Canada, not soon anyway. You can't buy anything off of Amazon when
shipping to Canada. I still only think of them as a book store.

------
x3m
Wal-Mart is the Wal-Mart of the web. Their online holidays' sale numbers are
higher than Amazon. edit:
<http://siteanalytics.compete.com/walmart.com+amazon.com> well this shows
Amazon gets 20M more traffic than Wal-Mart during peak of holiday season, but
I am pretty sure Wal-Mart's sales were higher on 06

~~~
Grinnmarr
Dude...Amazon has been the leading e-tailer for around a decade or so. Wal-
Mart is not even in the top 10. Where did you get the idea Wal-Mart did
anywhere near Amazon volume online?
<http://www.internetretailer.com/Top500/list.asp>

------
stevenj
I think it already has

